- From: Shelley Powers <shelley.just@gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2009 09:58:14 -0600
- To: Jeroen van der Gun <noreplytopreventspam@blijbol.nl>
- Cc: public-html@w3.org
Sorry, typo: You all are taking _something_ from one medium and insisting it be treated exactly the same in a completely different medium. On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Shelley Powers <shelley.just@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Jeroen van der Gun > <noreplytopreventspam@blijbol.nl> wrote: >> Whether something is being labeled as a figure in literature, does not >> matter. The figure element is for things that have the structure of a >> figure. The element could also be named the figurestructure element, >> but that would be long and annoying. > > A figure in literature is a flat thing, with no meaning other than > what the context of the writing gives it. > > So an illustrative figure of a table can be included as a figure, and > it doesn't matter. Well, other than you might be breaking style > guidelines. > > But a web page is a different beastie. In a web page, a table is a > data table. Browsers and other user agents don't know that the table > is junk, or illustrative only. Browsers and web bots and other agents > don't know that the data in the table is illustrative only, and not > meaningful. > > Figures in a book are illustrative, regardless of what they contain. > HTML tables are not illustrative, they are data tables. > > We're just now getting people to stop abusing HTML tables for layout, > and now we want to encourage people to abuse HTML tables for > illustration purposes? > > You all are taking someone from one medium and insisting it be treated > exactly the same in a completely different medium. > >> >> Making the caption required seems fair enough to me. Agreed. >> >> Linking to a figure is easy, just use the id attribute. You don't need >> an a element to define an anchor. (If I remember correctly, the >> specification explicitly uses the same mechanism for linking to dfn >> elements.) Here's an example (I've also included a table (with a >> footnote) used as a figure): >> >> <figure id="firstemo"> >> <dd><pre>:)</pre></dd> >> <dt>Figure 3. The first emoticon.</dt> >> </figure> >> >> <figure id="commonemos"> >> <dd> >> <table> >> <thead> >> <tr><th>Emoticon</th><th>Frequency<a href="#personalusage">*</a></th></tr> >> </thead> >> <tbody> >> <tr><td><pre>:)</pre></td><td>138</td></tr> >> <tr><td><pre>:D</pre></td><td>112</td></tr> >> <tr><td><pre>:P</pre></td><td>87</td></tr> >> <tr><td><pre>:(</pre></td><td>29</td></tr> >> </tbody> >> </table> >> <p id="personalusage">* The usage frequencies listed here are personal.</p> >> </dd> >> <dt>Table 2. Emoticons and their usage frequencies.</dt> >> </figure> >> >> <p>A colon and a closing parenthesis formed the first smiley, >> as shown in <a href="#firstemo">Figure 3</a>.</p> >> <p>More emoticons were created later on. >> See <a href="#commonemos">Table 2</a> for details.</p> >> > > So now, contrary to most style guildelines and publications, you're > putting tables into the figure element, and just pretending that > figure is really anything. > > You're saying we should just ignore practice and good usage, because > it works technically, and that's all that matters: it works > technically. > > >> >> Jeroen van der Gun >> http://www.jeroenvandergun.nl >> >> >> > > > Shelley >
Received on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 15:58:50 UTC