- From: Robert Burns <rob@robburns.com>
- Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 13:35:22 -0500
- To: Smylers <Smylers@stripey.com>
- Cc: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
Hi Ben and Smylers, On Aug 7, 2007, at 10:28 AM, Smylers wrote: > > Ben Boyle writes: > >> On 8/8/07, Simon Pieters <simonp@opera.com> wrote: >> >>> <address> is not a sectioning element. >> >> That's good news for HTML; bad news for the spec. The spec reads >> as if >> address elements are sections and definitely requires clarification. > > Which bit reads like that to you? Contrast, for example, <aside> > which > is described as: > > Sectioning block-level element > > with <address> as: > > Block-level element I had the same problem reading this as Ben, so I definitely see the ambiguity. I think part of the problem is that the chapter "Sections" includes several elements that are not "sectioning elements": in particular ADDRESS and H! – H6. That makes it easy to think all of the elements in the chapter are sectioning element. It might be better to rename the chapter to something like: "Sections and their metadata". Then it has the HEADER element and the FOOTER element that are ambiguous because they both signify metadata containers and suggest a section (as in a site HEADER and FOOTER). Finally BLOCKQUOTE is thrown in here (and then excluded from the outlining algorithm) for no particular reason. > > That seems unambiguous that the spec doesn't think <address> is > sectioning, something re-inforced by the introduction to the Sections > section, where the paragraph immediately after the definition of > 'sectioning elements' shows that <address> elements are something that > appear inside section elements: > > Some elements are scoped to their nearest ancestor sectioning > element. > For example, address elements apply just to their section. > > Is there somewhere else I missed which gives a contradictory > impression? Again, it's the exposition of all of this as a whole. There is not enough care taken to avoid confusion for readers. >> "Sectioning elements" should explicitly state the element names. >> http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#sectioning > > That's a good idea. This is needed for each element kind. Providing lists of the elements take the burden off the prose defining the element kind. Take care, Rob
Received on Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:35:39 UTC