- From: Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>
- Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:34:31 +0100
- To: "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com>
- Cc: Shelley Powers <shelley.just@gmail.com>, "Ennals, Robert" <robert.ennals@intel.com>, "public-html@w3.org" <public-html@w3.org>, "Carr, Wayne" <wayne.carr@intel.com>, "Tran, Dzung D" <dzung.d.tran@intel.com>
On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:25:10 -0600, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote: > On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote: >> So, contrary to what you said about namespaces not being a good >> solution for introducing new experimental features, it would actually >> be simpler to introduce <caption> for other elements than <table> via a >> real/prefixed namespace. For example a transitional namespace for new >> HTML5 features. The following already works.: >> >> <figure><t:caption></t:caption></figure> >> >> As time goes, and old user agents fades out, one could drop the prefix. > > It's contrary to nothing, and furthermore probably incorrect. > > 1) What you are talking about is not an experimental feature, it's a > standardized feature. There should be only one way to do it that > everyone follows; the problem is finding an acceptable way. To not claim too much: For centralized extensibility, then namespaces seems to me to work well. > 2) The only reason namespaces might work for this particular case is > as a gross hack that simply temporarily obfuscates the name of the > element. That has nothing to do with namespaces - calling it > <tcaption> or <x-caption> or <legend> accomplishes the same end. Under 1) you said there should be only one way. Indeed. Namespaces, including namespace prefixes, is that "one way". <tcaption> and <x-caption> is a new and other way. Of course the "t" in <t:caption> is not in a real namespace until text/HTML user agents starts to support namespaces. I don't know, if we did this: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:t="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Then, as soon as text/HTML user agents started to support namespaces, would they then treat <t:caption> as a table caption, with all its quirks? ;-) Currently, there is no such problem. Re <legend>: A more compatible, temporary solution would be <span> with a suitable @role value. > 3) I'd have to test, but depending on how older user-agents handle > element names with colons in them, it still might not work. I tested IE6-IE8, Firefox 1,2 and 3.5, Opera 10 and Safari 4. This CSS selector works in all of them: t\:caption{} > 4) I'd highly question any notion of 'simpler' that rates "use > namespaces" higher than "use a new element name" when the sole problem > is "the name we want is unusable". The /name/ is not at all unusable. On the contrary, it is the name we want. There is not reason to have another name than <caption> - except for the technical difficulties connected with how that name is currently supported in text/HTML. -- leif halvard silli
Received on Sunday, 22 November 2009 20:35:06 UTC