Re: part of my review of 3.12 Phrase elements (importance <strong> element)

2007/7/20, Robert Burns:
>
> I think the example in the draft is a good example of a use of
> "important" that does not really correspond to "emphasis" (strong or
> otherwise).
>
> <p><strong>Warning.</strong> This dungeon is dangerous.
> <strong>Avoid the ducks.</strong> Take any gold you find.
> <strong><strong>Do not take any of the diamonds</strong>,
> they are explosive and <strong>will destroy anything within
> ten meters.</strong></strong> You have been warned.</p>
>
> Imagine changing those elements to <em> and I don't think they work
> as emphasis  (and not because it needs to be emphasized more
> strongly). It is more like an instruction manual that's trying to
> draw your attention to certain words or phrases so that you may skim
> it quickly and get the gist of it. I don't think that's how <strong>,
> as in "strong emphasis" (or <em><em></em></em>) should be used.

What do you think about this example from the HTML 4.01 Rec:

    Please refer to the following reference number in future
    correspondence: <STRONG>1-234-55</STRONG>

        — http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#edef-STRONG

Given this example, I'm not sure the definition in the current draft
is that different from the "original" one from HTML4.

> If there's an apparent need for an <important> element then I
> support adding one (so long as it doesn't have a name collision
> with existing elements in whatever namespace we go with).

Yes there is, and people have been using <strong> for that (HTML4 had
nothing better). Other uses of <strong> are abuses because someone
once said "<b> and <i> are bad, use <strong> and <em> instead" and
authors still think first WISYWIG rather than WYMIWYG (What You Mean
Is What You Get)

-- 
Thomas Broyer

Received on Friday, 20 July 2007 06:24:27 UTC