RE: Grouping in Definition Lists

Thank you Tab for responding, my apologies for the delay in replying.
I am responding to your last points first then specifically the issue of Grouping in Definition Lists.

On 05 May 2010 17:00 Tab Atkins Jr. Wrote:
>> XHTML2 is a dead spec.
>> The W3C has explicitly closed down the working group tasked with it,
>> and it will not be developed any further. You shouldn't look to it for any guidance.  

For guidance I agree, but I would argue it is a valid as a point of reference for debate.
However, I understand your perspective and in future will try to avoid reference to XHTML2.

>> All of the legacy browsers that were around in 2007 are still around.
>> They have somewhat less market share, but are still significant in
>> terms of dictating what we can do with parsing.

Firstly, is there a "cut off point" for supporting older browser versions, even those that were quite deliberatly non-compliant?
Secondly, does grouping DTs and DDs in something like DIs really cause parsing issues, in older browsers, surely they would ignore the tag?

>> HTML5 does not define a <di> element, since the grouping is completely
>> expressed in the current markup.

Many posts have argued that single DTs could/should exist without a DD.
This combined with valid multiple DTs means that the counting DTs following DDs is unreliable as an indicator for grouping.
Therefore I would argue that the grouping is not "completely expressed in the current markup"

>> If there is a lack in the CSS side (which I agree there is),
>> it needs to be taken up with the CSS group (www-style@w3.org).

Even if this were not the case surely CSS still requires a tag to reference.

In summary:
DL. DT. DD. Seem to be a natural way to present common content/presentation combinations such as index pages consisting of:

1. A clickable thumbnail image (DT)
2. A clickable tect link (DT)
3. A description/summary in plain text (DD)

We can group in UL and OL by nesting but they only have one type of child element, LI.
We group related but different form elements in the Fieldset element.
The DL element is unique by not allowing grouping where it natually occurs in both data and language.

In the abscence of new HTML tags (which I would assume we are trying to keep to a minimum) we could make very good use of an existing one for the sake of a small adjustment.
I propose again the DI or DG (definition group).


Regards,
Dean Leigh

Received on Tuesday, 18 May 2010 22:37:42 UTC