- From: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
- Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 20:35:33 +0000
- To: HTMLWG <public-html@w3.org>
Ben 'Cerbera' Millard wrote: > An alternative is <span class>. The smallest possible example of that: > > [[[ > <span class="u">foo</span> > ]]] > > This uses 23 bytes of markup. <font class> would be identical. The <u> > version would use 70% less markup each time. Is the goal semantic clarity or brevity here? > Legal text citations are an example of this. Authors are already > recommended to use <u> for this, for example: The advice is for printed matter, and/or based on old HTML practices concerned with presentation, rather than semantics. The question really is: if there was a more semantically accurate element, should that be used, and then css be used on top of that to make it match the old print conventions? If css is not available, and the visual presentation doesn't match a particular "house style", does it remove meaning from the content? > Example of a WYSIWYG user applying underline to a hyperlink (search for > "The UCL Practitioner"): > <http://3lepiphany.typepad.com/3l_epiphany/2006/04/cases_citing_le.html> > Not quite sure what you're getting at here...it's links, with normally applied underlines, unless I'm missing something? Also, speaking of WYSIWYG: maybe it's because the editor doesn't offer semantically appropriate options, and a user has to resort to visual options to denote things instead? > Elsewhere, italic is applied to each side of the " v. " part using <em>: > > <http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/casefinder/casefinder_1984-present.html> Possibly an erroneous use of <em>. Possibly the result of a user wanting to cite those names, not having a cite option / having a house style that prescribes italics for citation, and using a WYSIWYG editor which maps italics to <em> regardless of actual author intent. > An example of hightlighting parts of speech using underline: > > <http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm#predicates> The underline here is used for emphasis, so an appropriately styled <em> would be best? > This is a common practice amongst school teachers on blackboards and in > students' work books. Possibly because, when writing on blackboards, teachers can't easily use bold or italics, or mark up the underlying words unequivocally in any other way than the visual one - and in that situation, underline is the easiest to do on a blackboard? As for student workbooks, again it's an emphasis, but following a different presentational style. The meaning wouldn't change if it were presented differently (bold or italic), as long as it was clear that an emphasis / distinction to surrounding text is taking place. > * Google already does <b> on its result page. But arguably it should be using <strong>. P -- Patrick H. Lauke ______________________________________________________________ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com ______________________________________________________________ Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ ______________________________________________________________ Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team http://streetteam.webstandards.org/ ______________________________________________________________
Received on Friday, 28 December 2007 20:35:56 UTC