DIV as an inline container

On Aug 3, 2007, at 5:32 PM, Ian Hickson wrote:
>
> On Fri, 3 Aug 2007, Jirka Kosek wrote:
>
>> On Aug 3, 2007, at 5:32 PM, Ian Hickson wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not sure what it is. One possibility I've considered is to just
>>> have two conformance levels, "conforming html5 document" and
>>> "conforming low-quality html5 document", with <font>, style="", and
>>> <div>s-containing-inlines kicking documents into the second  
>>> category.
>>
>> Why then not just reuse already existing and familiar names
>> Strict/Transitional for these two comformance levels?
>
> Mostly because there's nothing "transitional" about <font>,  
> style="", and
> <div>s-containing-inlines, and also because "transitional" doesn't  
> have
> the same connotations as "low quality".

I don't see any problem with DIV with a strictly inline-level or  
inline-level content. Right now the draft says:

"followed by either zero or more block-level elements, or inline- 
level content (but not both)."

So what's wrong with inline level content? Historically,, DIV has  
either been used as either 1) a sectioning element (block-level /  
structural only); or 2) as a more flexible P element (structural  
inline-level or strictly inline-level). With our current draft, I  
think the sectioning elements practically remove any need for DIV in  
the first role. SECTION seems generic enough for any way DIV might  
have been used as a generic in that way. That only leaves DIV as an  
inline container (structural or strict). In some ways DIV could just  
serve the content model need of P for the text/html serialization.  
The semantic space left for DIV is really not any broader than that  
for P (in the XML serialization). We could even add a minimized  
boolean to DIV to declare this paragraph usage, for example:

  <div p>My structural inline-level paragraph content</div>.

On the other hand I think we should drop-kick FONT. That simply has  
no reason to exist. It doesn't even have the advantage of B and I  
where styling (and styling heuristically conveying meaning) is  
retained if the CSS is somehow lost (though I think that's a very  
dubious advantage, even for B and I).

Take care,
Rob

Received on Saturday, 4 August 2007 01:26:59 UTC