Re: what is dt?

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Shelley Powers
<shelleyp@burningbird.net> wrote:
> I have stated that dt/dd will not work for web page authors, and have my
> arguments for such an opinion. This is no different than anyone else saying
> such and such won't work because legacy browsers will crap out. Both are
> describing a point of potential failure, and deserve to be respected for
> such.

As an author, using <dt>/<dd> for <details> seems fine.  The letters
match up, which is important from a mnemonic pov, and the basic idea
works as well.  <dt> in <dl> is "description title" to me, while <dd>
is "description data".  In <details>, they're instead "details title"
and "details data".

In practice they match up nicely as well in several aspects.  I tend
to implement accordions with <dl>, using <dt> as the toggle and hiding
<dd> until its <dt> is clicked.  It just makes sense, and it's really
easy.  Transferring that usage over to a <details> element would work
just fine for me.  I think that using <dl> for accordions is
relatively common elsewhere too.  It just feels natural - you have
automatic scoping for the effect (only things in the <dl>), and the
idea of key/value pairs that <dt>/<dd> expose is natural to hook this
sort of behavior on.

~TJ

Received on Thursday, 17 September 2009 18:00:35 UTC