- From: Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@myrealbox.com>
- Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:01:03 +1300
On Jan 11, 2007, at 2:17 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>
> On Jan 10, 2007, at 13:26, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
>>
>> The message "please use <b> and <i> unless you really know what
>> you're doing, and generate <b> and <i> unless your users really know
>> what they're doing" is *not* well-known.
>
> What's the expected payoff if the message is made well-known?
As far as I know:
* Better intonation for screenreaders.
* Better heuristics for Google Glossary. (Continuing my example from
last month, whereas "<p><b>foo:</b> bar</p>" is likely a
definition, "<p><strong>foo:</strong> bar</p>" probably isn't. I'm
not *sure* that this is how Google Glossary works, but for example,
all its misdefinitions of the words "update" and "warning" are from
<b>, not <strong>.)
* Easier styling for Chinese text.
I didn't know about the last one until yesterday, so I would not be
surprised if there were others.
>> It has not yet consumed much time, effort, money, blog posts, spec
>> examples or discussion threads. In the absence of other evidence, I
>> think it is worth trying.
>
> In that case, I suggest making the content models for <b> and <i>
> equally versatile as the content models for <strong> and <em>.
> Otherwise, authors and tool vendors will go with the elements with the
> more versatile content models just in case the versatility is ever
> needed.
> ...
Agreed. I also suggest that the first sentence of the usage notes for
<b> and <i> be toned down a bit, like this: "The b element should be
used when an author cannot find a more appropriate element, and should
be generated by authoring tools where users are unlikely to choose a
more appropriate element".
--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
Received on Wednesday, 10 January 2007 14:01:03 UTC