Re: <td scope> and <td> using headers+id> as Table Headers

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008, Ben 'Cerbera' Millard wrote:
> 
> Basically, I'm suggesting we allow:
> 
> * <td scope> to work like <th scope>.
> * <td id> to work like <th id> when the headers attribute points to it.

The current algorithm makes a clear distinction between what's a header 
and what's a data cell, and I really would like to keep that distinction 
if at all possible. While I agree entirely that we could make this more 
generic (and more like HTML4) and just blur the lines between the two to 
the point where any data cell can be a header and have headers and so 
forth, and while I agree that there are cases where this would make sense 
in some literal way, I think this would make things more confusing for 
authors without much gain. In practice few tables need this. If we want to 
help accessibility and get authors to really use this features right more 
often than they get them wrong, I think we should hold back from giving 
them too much rope. (For the same reason, I think we should not bother 
with providing axis="" either.)

Originally I was against adding headers="" at all for similar reasons, but 
after studying the data collected by you and others, as well as doing my 
own research, I concluded that headers="" could indeed be more gain than 
pain on the long run. I looked at making data cells into headers at the 
same time, and at the time the conclusion I came to was that it really 
wasn't worth it.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Thursday, 24 April 2008 06:22:49 UTC