- From: Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>
- Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:53:57 +0200
- To: Shelley Powers <shelleyp@burningbird.net>
- CC: public-html@w3.org
Shelley Powers On 09-09-17 19.32: > Leif Halvard Silli wrote: >> Smylers On 09-09-17 18.18: >>> Shelley Powers writes: >>>> Smylers wrote: >>>> Except now, when seemingly dt and dd have become HTML5 silly putty: >>>> good for a hundred and one uses. >> >>> So it's actually <dl>, <details>, and <figure> which have different >>> uses. <dt> and <dd> are 'building blocks' which each of those happen to >>> contain. >> >> Agree in principle about 'building blocks'. <li> is also the building >> block of both <ul> and <ol>. > > But the li element is used exactly the same in ul and ol. The same does > _not_ apply to dt/dd in Figure, Details, and dl. [...] > Look at the syntax for dt now: > > Before dd or dt elements inside dl elements. > In a figure element containing no other dt element children. > As the first child of a details element. In <table>, the <caption> has to be the first element. I see no problem with saying that, in a <figure> - or as I prefer <dl figure > - the <dt> _must_ come before the <dd>. That is what is said about <detail>. And <details> and <dl> are fairly similar in that respect, except that <details> only allow one dt/dd group. If we said it like this, then the placement of the <dt> would have to be styled via the CSS caption side property. In HTML 4, the <tfoot> has to come before <tbody>. Not so in HTML 5. So there is a tendency to dislike requirements to have elements at a certain place. > One could look at how dt is used within dl, and extrapolate from that > usage, how the dt element could be used in Figure. Except for one thing: > it would be wrong. In fact, extremely wrong. There are significant > differences to how dt/dd are syntactically used in all three of the > elements. I'm not talking about minor differences in semantics and > syntax, I'm talking about completely and absolutely different. This is - or was - the same for <dialog> as well. That is why I proposed that there should be the exact same rules for dt/dd in dialog as in dl. > What happened is people searched for a set of constraints based on > legacy browser physical behavior and just grabbed whatever made it > through the filter. The confusion caused to existing web developers and > designers, as well as new web page authors in the future was, from what > I can tell, never once factored into the decision. I agree that it sometimes seems a bit to accidental what solutions one ends up with. For my own taste, a real <dl> - <dl figure> etc - therefore seems better. -- leif halvard silli
Received on Thursday, 17 September 2009 17:54:38 UTC