Re: Meaning and priority of standard XHTML properties

Actually, there is more to it than this.  I appreciate that what we are 
saying is that the meta element allows the specification of certain 
metadata properties about the document or about segments of the 
document.  However, this is completely separate from the setting of 
XHTML attribute values.  The fact that there is a title attribute on 
every element, and that there is also a potential title metadata 
property, is no doubt intentional.  But I do not think that we can 
require that XHTML conforming user agents somehow overlay that property 
onto the attribute value....

It is fine to require that the attribute value be interpreted as an RDF 
predicate, since that is specialized processing.  The RDF-ness of XHTML 
is a happy side effect that can be derived by RDF-aware agents.  It is 
not something that I think we are mandating be available in every user 
agent.

So, what am I driving at here?  It comes down to the XML DOM.  If I am 
relying upon that DOM and its structure to find information about a 
document, and I want to know the title associated with an element, I am 
going to look at the value of the title attribute.  I am NOT going to 
hunt around for random meta elements that are children of that element.  
I am surely NOT going to look for meta elements anywhere in the document 
that might have an about attribute that references my target.  That 
would be insane.

My proposal here is simple but potentially destabilizing:  Change the 
property attribute value "title" to something else.  Decouple that 
particular piece of metadata from the markup.  For now, I will call it 
"bagel".  If we like, we *could* say that when processing XHTML 
documents using RDF aware parsers, a triple is *also* formed based upon 
the title attribute of an element, if any.  That would at least garner a 
lot of fun metadata for free (every href with a title has some 
semantics).  But if we just decouple these then there will be no 
confusion and no expectation that the DOM does anything to attempt to 
propagate these "properties" into the corresponding attribute values.

In addition, I recommend we design a DOM extension (optional DOM 
feature?) that allows me to explicitly search for this type of 
metadata.  document.findMeta(idref, propertyName) or something.  At 
least then I would know if I had some portable way to try and find this 
stuff.  Otherwise, I think we are violating the principle of least 
surprise - and that is never good.

Steven Pemberton wrote:
>
> We have said in XHTML2 that things like
>
>     <a title="gezellig" href="gezellig.html">gezellig</a>
>
> is equivalent to
>
>     <a href="gezellig.html">
>         <meta property="title" content="gezellig"/>
>           gezellig
>       </a>
>
> The question has arisen, what happens with:
>
>     <a title="Peioria" href="gezellig.html">
>         <meta property="title" content="gezellig"/>
>           gezellig
>       </a>
>
> From an RDF point of view, there's no problem (the element has two 
> titles) but what should a browser do with respect to, for instance, 
> tool tips?
>
> Steven
>

-- 
Shane P. McCarron                          Phone: +1 763 786-8160 x120
Managing Director                            Fax: +1 763 786-8180
ApTest Minnesota                            Inet: shane@aptest.com

Received on Thursday, 15 June 2006 02:24:48 UTC