Re: [Bug 7508] <dialog> needs a way to add non-speech related information

Stephen added:
> Some examples of chat on the web can be found at:
>
> http://projectcerbera.com/!dev/irc-logs/day
> http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090909
>
> And also http://campfirenow.com/, which I don't think I can link to  
> but here's a sample of the chat HTML:
>
> <tr class="enter_message message user_451844" id="message_157661845"  
> style=""> <td class="person">Stephen S.</td> <td class="body"><div>has  
> entered the room</div></td> </tr> <tr class="timestamp_message  
> message" id="message_157661956" style=""> <td class="date"><span  
> style="display:none">Sep 9</span></td> <td class="time"><div> 1:30 PM</
> div></td> </tr> <tr class="text_message message user_451844 you"  
> id="message_157661957" style=""> <td class="person"><span>Stephen S.</
> span></td> <td class="body"><div>Testing, 1,2,3. Hello W3C.</div></td>  
> </tr>  <tr class="kick_message message user_451844"  
> id="message_157661989" style=""> <td class="person">Stephen S.</td>  
> <td class="body"><div>has left the room </div></td> </tr>
> Mibbit.com similarly uses a <table> but I think one example with  
> <table> is enough.


Bug 7808 [1] is about making <dialog> work *properly* - for chats and 
other kinds of dialog.  (The report tries to show how the rules for 
where <dt> and <dd> are allowed inside <dl> as well as the rules for 
what they mean and how they are used inside <dl>, should apply also 
inside the <dialog> element. Secondly it seeks to show how the same kind 
of logic w.r.t.. text-level semantics [i.e. use of <dfn>, <cite> etc] 
should apply in both <dialog> and <dl>.)

If you think that dialogs are better, more accessible and more simply  
marked up via other means, then that would be another bug report. I'll 
only say that I think it is fruitless to say that we should not have a 
<dialog> element if you at the same time also want to advice against 
using <dl> for dialog. Personally I think we could continue HTML 4's 
advice to use <dl> for dialogs, especially if we add an attribute which 
informs that it is a dialog - see bug 7509[2].

[1]http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7508
[2]http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7509
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Wednesday, 9 September 2009 13:38:17 UTC