Re: "Outline" algorithm (document length and complexity)

On Tue, 26 May 2009, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> On May 26, 2009, at 11:24 AM, Larry Masinter wrote:
> >
> > Yes, that would be a bad editorial decision. The question is why 
> > "outline" is part of the vocabulary. What features of HTML use the 
> > "outline" function?
> 
> [...] I think a typical UA would not make use of these semantics 
> directly.

A typical browser wouldn't, but many tools would. For example, th HTML5 
spc itself has a table of contents which is generated using an 
implementation of this very algorithm.


> To turn the outline algorithm into something that can produce testable 
> assertions, it would have to be exposed in some way, either as a DOM 
> interface or by affecting the rendering. If that were done, we could 
> better evaluate it. But I would question the value of a DOM API to 
> expose the outline.

I don't think Web browsers should implement this; this would be something 
that would be implemented (indeed, has already been implemented) in tools 
to aid authors. One could imagine editors exposing the outline explicitly, 
like word processors do.


> From all this I conclude that the current outline section is not a 
> useful piece of spec. It does not currently imply any testable 
> assertions for implementations, and if it did, it would be exceedingly 
> difficult to write and validate a practical implementation.

This seems a very browser-specific outlook. :-)


Incidentally, I do think that section would benefit from being phrased in 
a clearer way. I've already tried to improve it once, with only limited 
success. If anyone can think of a way to better describe this part of the 
spec I would be very happy to update it accordingly.

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

Received on Tuesday, 26 May 2009 20:24:48 UTC