Re: Multilanguage alt/title

On Aug 29, 2007, at 7:37 PM, Robert Burns wrote:

> Hi Maciej,
>
>> <embed> is there primarily for content handled by plugins. The best  
>> plugin markup for degrading gracefully in a wide variety of  
>> browsers nests <embed> in <object>, and it would be unfortunate to  
>> make such markup non-conforming, even if you can use <object> alone  
>> to target newer browsers only.
>
> I understand how <embed> is used, but I don't see any reason to make  
> it a part of document conformance. Everyone who uses it now uses it  
> even though its not a part of document conformance. Adding it to  
> document conformance simply makes the language more complicated  
> without any benefit whatsoever.

The benefit is that people can use <embed> for the same very good  
reasons they use it today, and still get the benefits of conformance  
checking for your document. If you make it impossible to do something  
useful without violating conformance requirements, people begin to  
disrespect the conformance requirements.

Another risk is that people may add some markup via scripting solely  
to pass conformance checking. This happens today and is harmful to  
users who have script disabled and to non-interactive UAs like search  
engines.

> If it was a part of the language in HTML 4.01 it would make sense to  
> remove it now. Why would we add it? The object element is also for  
> plug-ins. I see no reason to have two separate elements that serve  
> the same purpose: one with fallback capabilities and the other  
> without fallback capabilities.

Combining <object> and <embed> allows you to both work in a wider  
range of browsers than through <object> alone, and at the same time  
use the rich fallback capabilities of <object>. At least if we say the  
<object>'s fallback should apply if both the <embed> and the <object>  
can't be presented.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Thursday, 30 August 2007 05:56:43 UTC