Re: suggestion for abolition of <hgroup>

On Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:09:39 +1000, James Graham <jgraham@opera.com> wrote:

> On 11/30/2010 03:24 PM, Bruce Lawson wrote:
>> On Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:10:45 +1000, Leif Halvard Silli
>> <xn--mlform-iua@målform.no> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>> I can't see a use-case for multiple adjacent headings in a header
>>>> that wouldn't be heading+subtitle(s).
>>>
>>> Well, to me it happens quite frequently, especially early in a work,
>>> that I create a section heading and a subsection heading without adding
>>> any text between the two, and without intending that the two are
>>> concatenated in an outline algorithm.
>>
[...]
>>
>> if you have a <header> - which people have no difficulty understanding
>> is introductory content - and, within that <header> you have adjacent
>> headings, then the subordinate ones become subtitles, and are removed
>> from the outline.
>>
>> So
>>
>> <header>
>> <h1>brucelawson.co.uk</h1>
>> <h2>Gorgeousness in a gimp mask</h2>
>> </header>
>
> This sounds like scary dark magic. The semantics of heading elements —  
> aka the outline algorithm — already has enough weird cases to make it  
> hard to understand (e.g. the implicit creation of sections by <hX>  
> elements). I would prefer that we didn't add more. A nice property of  
> the current solution is that it is rather explicit so people who do use  
> it are likely to do so mostly correctly.

So, let's make it explicit - so people like Leif who do want adjacent  
headings in a header but not suppress one in the outline. But instead of a  
weird grouping element, let's have a subtitle attribute that people can  
use to suppress a h1 .. h6 from the outline.

This

<h1>BruceLawson.co.uk</h1>
<h2 subtitle>Gorgeousness in a gimp mask</h2>

is non-magical and easier to comprehend than


<hgroup>
<h1>BruceLawson.co.uk</h1>
<h2>Gorgeousness in a gimp mask</h2>
</hgroup>

because you're putting the attribute on the thing that you want affected,  
rather than around it and some other stuff. And the word "subtitle" does  
what it says on the tin.

-- 
Hang loose and stay groovy,

Bruce Lawson
Web Evangelist
www.opera.com (work)
www.brucelawson.co.uk (personal)
www.twitter.com/brucel
Buy my HTML5 book www.introducinghtml5.com

Received on Thursday, 2 December 2010 10:16:45 UTC