- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:57:02 +0000 (UTC)
Executive summary: no changes made; not much controversy.
On Sat, 21 May 2005, Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
> On 5/21/05, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> <...>
> >
> > Actually Steven Pemberton gave some interesting examples of what look
> > to me like valid use cases for <hr/> in a recent talk of his. Search
> > for <hr> in these slides:
> >
> > http://www.w3.org/2005/Talks/04-19-steven-XHTML2-XForms/
> >
> > I don't really see what else to use for those.
>
> I see no point for this even in this case. If you separate _sections_,
> then they are already separate and you can style sections themself.
>
> Example: http://rimantas.com/bits/hr/nohr.html
>
> And if <hr> had any semantic meaning, then it was trasfered to class
> attribute ;)
But this isn't necessarily separating sections (chapters). Look at any
book of fiction -- there's definitely a level of separation that is
between paragraphs that is within a section.
Indeed I wrote pretty much that before.
On Mon, 23 May 2005, Mikko Rantalainen wrote, in response to that:
> >
> > They're not really sections. The chapter is the section, these are
> > paragraphs together in the same chapter, with a divider between some
> > of the paragraphs.
> >
> > I read a lot of fiction books and when I come across a "* * *" it
> > reads to me like a paragraph, saying "Meanwhile, in a different part
> > of the universe:"; it doesn't read as "end section. new section:".
>
> I read the "* * *" part exactly the same way. And I consider your quoted
> text to be the header for that sub-section even though it's omitted from
> the output. I feel that the correct markup to use would be
>
> <section><!-- chapter starts here -->
> <h>Yet another chapter</h>
> <section><!-- 1st point of view, really a subsection -->
> <h class="undisclosed">In the Jack's basement</h>
> ...
> </section>
> <section><!-- presentation adds "* * *" here -->
> <h class="undisclosed">Meanwhile in the Bill's room</h>
> ...
> </section>
> </section><!-- chapter ends here -->
I don't think that's the structure. I think the structure is you have a
section (a chapter) and it has paragraphs that are separated.
> In my opinion, this is the correct sematics for the content. To increase
> excitement for the reader, some of the content is hidden during the
> presentation. If you feel that hiding the information is part of the
> semantics in this case (arguably that may be true), just drop all the
> <h> elements with class "undisclosed" above.
I think this is trying to fit typical conventions on a mode of thinking
that doesn't match the typical conventions. I don't think it's really a
good abstraction to use.
> I think this is an example of why an <h> element shouldn't be required
> inside a <section> element.
It's not.
> > To put it another way, sections are things that you can put a title
> > to. There's no title you can put to a group of paragraphs separated
> > from other groups of paragraphs in the same chapter of a work of
> > fiction, in my experience. It's just the same chapter, with the
> > narrative exploring different characters or scenes.
>
> I think you can always put a title to a group of paragrahps. It's just
> that sometimes (often?) you decide to leave it out for brevity / clarity
> / excitement / whatever.
If you leave it out, it doesn't have a title.
On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, R.J.Koppes wrote:
>
> I too think <hr> carries semantics, although the tagname implies it's
> fot presentaional use. things like <divider> or <seperator> sound more
> reasonable I think
Too late for that! :-)
> I my opinion <hr> is a divider of content, it makes the content before
> and after less bound than without. Speechbrowsers might pause here a
> little longer, or play a tune like the ones you hear on the radio,
> seperating news items.
>
> I tend to put it between navigation and content, and between content and
> some legal stuff at the bottom of the page. Since the seperation is in
> many cases already evident, I often hide them, but in textbrowsers such
> as lynx, I think it's function is quite clear.
>
> When viewing for example my page without styles applied, I think the use
> of <hr> makes sense.
I agree.
On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, Matthew Raymond wrote:
>
> So what you're saying is that if I want this...
>
> | <section><!-- chapter starts here -->
> | <h>Yet another chapter</h>
> | <p>[Something about Jack.]</p>
> | <hr>
> | <p>[Something about Bill.]</p>
> | </section><!-- chapter ends here -->
>
> ...then I have to do this?...
>
> CSS:
> | .chapter > section + section:before {
> | content: "* * *";
> | text-align: center;
> | }
>
> HTML:
> | <section class="chapter"><!-- chapter starts here -->
> | <h>Yet another chapter</h>
> | <section><!-- 1st point of view, really a subsection -->
> | <h class="undisclosed">In the Jack's basement</h>
> | <p>[Something about Jack.]</p>
> | </section>
> | <section><!-- presentation adds "* * *" here -->
> | <h class="undisclosed">Meanwhile in the Bill's room</h>
> | <p>[Something about Bill.]</p>
> | </section>
> | </section><!-- chapter ends here -->
>
> Actually, there are situations where the above would be suboptimal,
> based on how :before and content are defined CSS2.1. For instance, if
> you put a border around each <section>, the border would be rendered
> around the "* * *".
>
> Note that if the above CSS is incorrect, it really just proves my
> point: using CSS in place of <hr> is a pain for webmasters. Note also
> that without CSS support (or if the separate CSS file isn't loaded for
> some reason), you probably won't see a separator rendered unless that's
> the default behavior for rendering sibling sections.
>
> This isn't just inconvenient from a styling and markup standpoint,
> though, although clearly it increases the amount of HTML and CSS you
> need. The big problem is that it places a semantic burden on authors
> that currently doesn't exist in HTML. With current HTML, I just need to
> put the paragraphs from the source text in <p> elements and use <hr>
> where the source text has a visual separator. Doing away with <hr> means
> at the very least that you're forced to put everything in <section>
> elements when you previously didn't. Add to that the fact that authors
> now have to know how to style the sections in order to get the separator
> and you have a serious learning curve.
I agree.
> > I think you can always put a title to a group of paragrahps. It's just
> > that sometimes (often?) you decide to leave it out for brevity /
> > clarity / excitement / whatever.
>
> Decide to leave it out? You're assuming people even think of it in
> terms of sections. We've gotten so used to narratives that cut from one
> location to the next, or go back and forth between places or events or
> characters, that we don't necessarily think of it in terms of different
> sections. You're presuming that every time an author creates what could
> be described as a section, it's done on purpose. In reality, it's may be
> largely subconscious, and the author may not even think about it until
> they need a separator.
I agree.
On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, Christoph P?per wrote:
> Ian Hickson:
> > On Mon, 23 May 2005, Christoph P?per wrote:
> > >
> > > <section>
> > > <div class="pov Foo">...</div>
> > > ...
> >
> > ...has no semantics apart from delineating one section. Remember that
> > class="" and <div> are meaningless. A document has the same semantics
> > after you strip out any class attributes and <div> elements.
>
> You say that and some others share that point of view, but I (and
> probably others) disagree. It is true that 'div' or 'class' don't
> provide semantics directly, but they do indirectly: Everything inside a
> 'div' belongs together somehow and everything that shares a class
> (inside a document instance) is related to each other somehow. You
> cannot know /how/, but /that/.
My point was just that the above is equivalent to:
<section>
<div class="nohethinotehi">...</div>
...
...which is meaningless and for all practical purposes equivalent to:
<section>
...
...
...except that there's a structural separation between the two sets of
inline text here.
> If one doesn't like
>
> <section><div class="foo"><p/>+</div>+</section>
>
> for the added level in the document tree, then he might use the semantically
> similar
>
> <section><p class="bar"/>+<p class="baz"/>+</section>.
...or:
<section><p/>+<hr/><p/>+</section>
> All paragraphs that share a perspective or language or something are
> logically linked, they belong to one group (or class) and maybe to
> others, too. It can make sense to express this in mark-up. Then it's
> easy (depending on your styling language of choice) to add visual (or
> aural) clues to make the changes in perspective (or language) visible.
> That doesn't have to be a more or less fancy rule or pause, but may be a
> change in font, color, sound etc.
I agree it can be helpful to mark them, and you can use <div> for that.
The point is that you don't _have_ to, you can use <hr>.
> > An <hr> is equivalent to a <p> with the content "Meanwhile, somewhere
> > else..." or similar ("From someone else's point of view...", "At
> > another time...").
>
> No, it's not. You are connecting it with the succeeding element
> instance, but it's not.
>
> Anyhow, if it was, why wouldn't you use a 'p' with that content or an
> empty one?
Convenience, clarity.
> > <p><q>No!</q> said Fred.</p>
> > <hr>
> > <p>The tree stood alone.</p>
> >
> > +----------+ +--------------+-------+
> > | _____ | | Meanwhile... | |
> > | < No! > | +--------------+ |
> > | \/^^^ | | /|\ |
> > | o | | /|\ |
> > | -+- | | | |
> > | / \ | | | |
> > +----------+ +----------------------+
> >
> > my point is that the <hr> here is a unit on par with a paragraph,
>
> So why is it rendered embedded into the box of one of the paragraphs?
> Shouldn't it be a child of it then?
That's what comics look like. It could easily be its own panel, it's just
not the convention. (It's the comic equivalent of 'display: run-in'.)
> > If we didn't have <hr>,
> > <p>* * *</p>
>
> Or "<p/>" or "<p><img src="fancy-divider" alt="* * *"></p>".
>
> Does this provide the semantics? (IMHO it does not, because 'hr' or
> 'plot' are one level higher than the 'p', but) if so, why should we
> retain that limited 'hr' element type, which could ambiguously be in par
> with other elements than 'p' (as in "</section><hr><section>")?
Why not include it? It's simple, it has a clear semantic, it's supported
by browsers.
> > I really don't think:
> >
> > <p><q>No!</q> said Fred.</p>
> > </plot>
> > <plot>
> > <p>The tree stood alone.</p>
> >
> > ...would be better than <hr>,
>
> I do. (Although I'm fine with using 'div' for this.)
I think that's excessive and unnecessary markup.
> > in fact I think it would be unnatural from an authoring perspective.
>
> I, on the opposite, think that it's unnatural to mark the end of one
> thing and the start of a second, but neither the start of the first nor
> the end of the second. The reason you can do this in a printed work is,
> that these are *implied* by chapter starts and ends. In SGML that
> translates to something like (simplified)
>
> <!ELEMENT section - - (h?, (hr*|p*)) -- a chapter -->
> <!ELEMENT hr O O (p*)>
>
> such that
>
> <section>
> <h>Foo</h>
> <p>Bar</p>
> <hr>
> <p>Baz</p>
> </section>
>
> generates this tree:
>
> section
> h
> "Foo"
> hr
> p
> "Bar"
> hr
> p
> "Baz"
>
> (My DTD skills are rusting, but I think this magic is actually
> possible.) XML DTDs are not that powerful, so we would have to rewrite
> this to:
>
> <!ELEMENT section (h?, (hr*|p*))>
> <!ELEMENT hr (p*)>
>
> <section>
> <h>Foo</h>
> <hr>
> <p>Bar</p>
> </hr><hr>
> <p>Baz</p>
> </hr>
> </section>
>
> That's the same as above, just well-formed.
I think it is unrealistic to expect most authors to think this way.
> > We mustn't fall into the trap of considering everything to be a
> > hierarchy, just because that is what XML most easily marks up.
>
> I'm trying not to, but in all the alledged use cases that have presented
> in favor of 'hr' or 'separator', I see a structure (or hierarchy), that
> demands not a divider but a grouper.
I disagree that hierarchy need be the way we mark things up here.
> > Book authors have managed quite well for centuries without considering
> > their documents to be formed of trees!
>
> I don't think so. They're just not that much aware of it, they do it
> subconsciously (at least the good ones).
If they're doing it subconsciously, they're not considering their
documents to be formed of trees.
On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, Matthew Raymond wrote:
>
> The <div> (as well as <span>) does indeed have semantic meaning in
> that it can group things. However, in the case of replacing <hr>, I
> don't see how this semantic information can actually be used to benefit
> the user. It's certainly useless on modern browsers from a presentation
> standpoint if I turn CSS off.
Indeed.
> By dropping <hr>, we're forcing a situation by which the web author
> has to add structural markup that's of little or no use to him/her or
> the user. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if web authors deprived of an
> <hr> element simply did this:
>
> | <p>Paragraph 1</p>
> | <p class="hr">* * *</p>
> | <p>Paragraph 2</p>
True.
> But creating sections in markup is NOT subconscious. I don't want to
> spend hours pondering the structure of my novel. I just want a bloody
> separator. If the structure of my writing wasn't important enough for me
> to consider it on a conscious level, then why is it so important for it
> to be in my HTML?
Indeed.
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Christoph P?per wrote:
>
> Okay, with the goals of WHAT-WG and HTML5 it's maybe acceptable to
> retain 'hr', but for XHTML2, which wants to make a clean re-start, this
> unsemantic element type (under whatever name) must go.
That's not a concern for the WHATWG. :-)
> Yes. It's just like
>
> Foo
> <br>
> Bar
>
> versus
>
> Foo
> </p><p>
> Bar.
The former would be the correct way to mark up an address or poem, though.
Each line of an address or poem is not a separate paragraph, it's just a
line.
--
Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Wednesday, 20 February 2008 17:57:02 UTC