Bindings instead of video, audio, canvas and img

Dear All,

I'm one of the people who believe that it's inappropriate to standardize elements not sufficiently related to the matter of the language (which in case of HTML is, as the acronym holds it, hypertext). I'd like to try to convice you that the elements video, audio, canvas and img don't belong here and should be dropped. Otherwise we're poised to pollute the language even more (potentially indefinitely) as new media become popular (<smell>, <taste>, <caress> or <virtual-reality-helmet>, anyone?). The semantics is always that of object. Having thought about it long enough, I've arrived at the conclusion that the functionality they exhibit in addition would be best defined as bindings. Bindings provide additional styling (which, by a deep architectural decision enjoying consensus, encompasses presentation and behaviour, including even additional APIs, as Ian Hickson argued [1]) and needn't be expressed in XBL (that's also why the name of the CSS property was changed from xbl-binding to binding). So I suggest 4 bindings be specified, one for each of video, audio, canvas and img, in abstract terms (basically, what the specs say about those elements, but without calling them elements), in the HTML namespace (or elsewhere, if convenient and reasonable). Then something like "object[data*=video/] {binding: url(:video)}" (Selectors Level 3 and default prefix value in CURIE assumed) could be inserted in the HTML default style sheet. What do you think?

Best regards,

Krzysztof

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Oct/0270.html

Received on Friday, 18 September 2009 00:26:33 UTC