Re: revisiting advice in HTML on tables used for layout

Steve Faulkner, Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:52:06 +0000:
> 
> On 31 January 2014 15:47, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> role="layout"
> 
> you mean role=presentation right?

Right. Isn’t <table role="presentation"> synonym for ”layout table”?

> the advice in the spec has an normative MUST
> 
> " If a table is to be used for layout it must be marked with the 
> attribute role="presentation""

Your initial letter was a little unclear to me. It indicated, to me, 
that you had edited the spec. But a change from SHOULD NOT to NOT 
RECOMMENDED is not really a change since, as you pointed out, it has 
the same meaning.

So the following is valid both for the old and the (to be) proposed 
text: A MUST rule for role="presentation" does not prevent that it 
could be NOT RECOMMENDED/SHOULD NOT to use it,[*] and thus does not 
prevent conformance checkers from adding a warning, to the degree that 
role="presentation" is synonymous with ”layout table”. It would perhaps 
be odd to single out the table element as the sole (?) element for 
which role="presentation" should be 'NOT RECOMMENDED'. But it looks 
compatible with the NOT RECOMMENDED clause.

However, I cannot ”use” this against your particular change it seem, 
since even HTML 5.0 says 'SHOULD NOT about tables used for layout. And 
thus I cannot see that your change would affect tools anymore, 
conformance wise, than the current spec text.

[*] The border attribute on img element is one for which HTML5 has a 
MUST rule, if it is use. However conformance checkers warns against its 
use always, anyhow.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Friday, 31 January 2014 16:52:14 UTC