Re: Bug 8404 -- taking it to the lists

Shelley Powers, Tue, 1 Dec 2009 10:33:20 -0600:
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Shelley Powers:
>> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>>> Shelley Powers, Tue, 1 Dec 2009 08:50:43 -0600:
>>>> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 8:45 AM, Tab Atkins Jr.:
>>>>> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 8:38 AM, Leif Halvard Silli
>>>>>> What you did not prove anywhere, is that people will *not* have a
>>>>>> difficult time understanding what <figure> is about.
    [...]
>>> I have a book about Java. Its table of contents starts like this:
>>> 
>>> * Table of contents
>>> * List of all figures  [ Above 100 figures]
>>> * List of all programs [ Above 100 code examples ]
>>> * List of all tables   [ Above 50-60 tables]
>>> 
>>> All 3 - figure, program, table - could be labeled as "figure",
>>> according to the current HTML 5 draft. And they are also all laid out
>>> very much the same way in the book, with the same styling of the
>>> caption. So it would be quite logical to use the same wrapper for all,
>>> and the same caption element for all.
>>> 
>>> If, instead of that confusing word "figure", we had a combined
>>> figure/caption element that one could add to whatever element one
>>> wants, then authors could themselves add classes to the caption
>>> element, to show what kind of unit the - ah - figure is. Then it would
>>> also be possible to - logically and simply - use it for images/photos.
   [...]
>> Now, there are more likely to be cases of people using HTML tables for
>> layout. Do we then incorporate this as an allowable function in HTML5?
>> If not, if we're working to prevent misuse of existing and new HTML
>> elements, why then we would we condone the misuse of HTML tables for
>> one purpose, but not for another?
   [...]
> Your idea works for allowing all content, Lief, but it doesn't
> _address_ the real problem of introducing bogus HTML tables into web
> pages

You were a little bit too unspecific about how you perceive my idea to 
look like. My idea looks like this:

<cap class="caption for tables">
   <p>The caption.</p>
   <object class="captioned element">
       <table>....</table>
   </object>
</cap>

I don't think this is likely to be misused for layout tables. Of 
course, if your documents contains tables, and no other captioned 
elements, then I see no reason to do this - <table> has its own caption.

Of course, instead of letting the <cap> enclose the element it 
captions, one could say that it should immediately precede or follow 
the element it is captioning. Authors could then wrap the caption + the 
content element in a DIV or a SPAN, as needed.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Tuesday, 1 December 2009 17:06:45 UTC