Re: <font color="blue"> (was ISSUE-32)

On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 11:35 AM, John Foliot<jfoliot@stanford.edu> wrote:
> Sam Ruby wrote:
>>
>> So, as a first step, can I get people to express opinions on which of
>> the following should apply to <font color="blue">:
>>
>> 1) It's a conformance error, such as it is today in HTML 5.
>> 2) It's a downplayed error at it represents vestigial markup.
>> 3) It's conformant.
>> 4) The HTML 5 spec should be silent on this matter.

[snip]

> Given these options and current statuses, I suggest option 3.  After all,
> HTML5 seeks to afford authors the ability to create conformant code ("HTML
> 5 document conformance requirements should be designed so that Web content
> can degrade gracefully in older or less capable user agents, even when
> making use of new elements, attributes, APIs and content models."
> http://www.w3.org/TR/html-design-principles/#degrade-gracefully)

Not commenting on your suggested answer, only on the use of the design
principle here.

I think you are misunderstanding the design principle. The idea is to
design HTML 5 in such a way that you can author a HTML 5 page, say
mypage.html, such that mypage.html is still usable in older browsers.

So for example the <video> element is designed such that it is
possible to write a page that uses video, but yet works in an old
browser. For example the following markup:
  <video src="presentation.ogg">
    <object data="presentation.swf" type="...">
      <img src="slides.png alt="...">
    </object>
  </video>

Such a page will work even in older UAs that don't support the <video> element.

Similarly, while the semantics of the <b> element has been changed a
little in (from simply meaning 'bold text' to meaning 'stylistically
offset from the normal prose without conveying any extra importance'),
HTML 5 suggests to use a default stylesheet which renders <b> as bold.
Thus, the following markup

<p>Hi, my name is <b>Jonas</b> and I am a mozilla developer.</p>

will work even in old user agents.


So, with that in mind, making bgcolor non-conforming doesn't seem to
make it harder to author HTML 5 pages, or use HTML 5 features. All
you'd need to do is not use the bgcolor attribute. You could even
still use CSS to style the table.

I hope that makes things clearer? Suggestions for making the design
principle clearer are welcome.

/ Jonas

Received on Monday, 8 June 2009 23:55:00 UTC