Re: HTML5 feedback from prominent designers

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 3:22 AM, James Graham<jgraham@opera.com> wrote:
> Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 6:09 PM, Jonas Sicking<jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Tab Atkins Jr.<jackalmage@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> So, I'm now fine with <aside> being used in that way.  However, the
>>>> current spec text is entirely inadequate, as it requires one to make
>>>> that generalization step, which is often a *bad* move (it's precisely
>>>> the sort of thing you'll do when you start, and get trained out of
>>>> when you learn a bit more).  I propose adding a third example
>>>> explicitly illustrating that this is okay, like the following:
>>>
>>> Unfortunately very few people read the spec. So if something is hard
>>> to understand adding text to the spec is unlikely to help.
>>
>> In this case we're okay, since it's only by reading the spec that I
>> came to the wrong conclusion.  ^_^  I, and many other people,
>> immediately assume that <aside> *is* appropriate for sidebars when we
>> see its name.  I just want to make sure that reading the spec doesn't
>> disabuse anyone of that correct notion, like it obviously has.
>
> Hmm, possibly I'm weird because there is no way that I get from the term
> "aside" to "sidebar". I would really be interested to know how you make that
> connection because (apart from the obvious fact that "side" is a substring
> of both words) I honestly don't see it. Indeed I assumed for a long time
> that <aisde> mean "pullout" rather than "sidebar" even though I must have
> been involved with discussions where it was mentioned that it could be used
> for a sidebar.

I feel the same way. Not sure if this is because of the fact that
English isn't my first language or not. (Though I suspect most web
authors doesn't have english as first language). I always thought of
<aside> as being used for footnotes and floating "infoboxes".

> I am still unconvinced the semantic or UA-behaviour overlap between the two
> cases (sidebar vs pullout) is great enough that a single element for both
> makes sense.

Agreed. One thing that I'm wondering is if sidebars aren't really
<header>s, from a semantic point of view. Looking at wikipedia for
example, it seems like the sidebar is basically just a <header> laid
out to the side.

/ Jonas

Received on Friday, 4 September 2009 11:23:27 UTC