- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 04:28:50 +0000 (UTC)
On Sun, 17 Apr 2005, Anne van Kesteren wrote: > > fantasai wrote: > > I like the definition you give here, except for one thing: > > Despite the example given in HTML4, I think that speakers and words > > is stretching the name-value idea a bit too far. For scripted dialog, > > I think Tantek's suggestion is much better: > > http://tantek.com/presentations/2005/03/elementsofxhtml/#slide20 > > It also requires a lot of additional markup. Can't we just say that when you > want to give additional semantics, like you need to use DFN for real > definitions, you need to use <dt><cite>{Person}</cite> and either > <dd><q>{Quote}</q> or <dd><blockquote>...{Quote}...</blockquote>. > > > > So my suggestion is to remove that particular example from the spec. > > I think it should be kept. But that there should be a similar note like the > one about DFN. This is all moot now with <dialog>, as far as I can tell. On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, J. Graham wrote: > > I hate to disrupt all the fun but if the concern is the ability to markup > Uylsses in a semantic way, we have much bigger problems than <hr />. The total > lack of an element for expressing direct speech, say [1]. Worse, Uylsses > considers speech to be block level but speech blocks (identified by a leading > em-dash) can be contaminated with identifcation of the speaker: > "Has the wrong sow by the lug. He is my father. I am his son. > -That mole is the last to go, Stephen said, laughing." I don't think the above needs any special HTML markup. > There's also no way to represent a script-like structure in HTML. An aural > rendering of a script would probably leave out the names of the characters but > use distinct vocal styles so the reader could follow who was speaking. There > would also need to be some sort of markup to distinguish a stage direction so > fragments like: > > "BLOOM: (With sinews semiflexed) Magnificence > BELLO: Down! (He taps her on the shoulder with his fan) Incline feet forward! > Slide left foot one pace back. You will fall. You are falling. On the hands > down!" > > Can be rendered correctly. So to do it properly, we need markup to specify the > age, sex and ethnicity of the speaker. And their emotional state? Obviously we > need an attribute for each speech block to link it to the > speaker-declaration... <dialog> with classes for more fine grained styling should be adequate. > No, I'm not being serious. But the point is that HTML does such an > astonishingly poor job of marking up fiction (and a wide variety of other > document types too, no doubt) that arguing over whether seperators should be > empty elements or not is just semantic navel-gazing. Indeed. > [1] Note "Content inside a q element must be quoted from another source", > which direct speech is not. Whilst I'm here, I'll point out that "The q > element represents a part of a paragraph quoted from another source." isn't > very clear - I assume that "part of a paragraph" means a paragraph in the html > document, not in the source - but it could be interpreted the other way around > so that quoting poetry, for example, is forbidden Fixed. On Tue, 31 Oct 2006, Michel Fortin wrote: > > I think if HTML5 deprecate the use of <dl> for dialog, that it ought to > provide a an alternative syntax for them. I know it has already been > discussed, but I'd suggest this: > > <dialog> > <p><cite>Me:</cite> <q>Can I say something?</q> > <p><cite>Him:</cite> <q>No!</q> > </dialog> > > In this design, <dialog> is optional, only needed when the dialog needs to be > separated from the main text, <q> is optional when inside <dialog>, and <cite> > can be omitted if the interlocutor name is not specified. This leaves much > flexibility when writing dialogs, and thus allows the markup to be used for > dialogs at places <dl> could not. The spec now has <dialog> with <dt> and <dd>. > For instance, this is a dialog, but since its mixed with the main text you > can't surround it by <dialog>. Also, using <cite> in here isn't very > practical, as the text refers to the speakers as "he" or "she" most of the > time. > > <p>He was downstair when he heard a strange noise from outside. When he > went to see, he saw Julietta in the park screaming at him: <q>Where were > you?</q></p> > > <p><q>I was busy fixing the pipes. What happened here?</q> he asked.</p> > > <p><q>There was a cat on the tree</q>, she said. <q>It jumped and landed > in here.</q> She was pointing at a crate full of pieces of metal. <q>I > jumped!</q></p> Why you need <q> markup here I don't know. Just use quote marks... > It's interesting to note however that the same text could be surrounded by > dialog tags when formatting the same dialog in French. In the following > example, <q> must be styled with no marks and add em dashes must be added at > the start of each paragraph in the dialog (this could be done by CSS, although > here I've done it in the source for clarity): > > <p>Il ?tait au sous-sol quand il entendit un bruit ?trange venant de > dehors. > Quand il est alla voir ce qui se passait, il vit Julietta dans le park qui > lui cria:</p> > > <dialog> > <p>? <q>O? ?tais-tu ?</q></p> > <p>? <q>J'?tait occup? ? r?parer les tuyaux. Qu'est-ce qui c'est pass? > ici ?</q> a-t-il demand?.</p> > <p>? <q>Il y avait un chat dans l'arbre</q>, dit-elle. <q>Il a saut? > pour atterrir juste l?.</q> > </dialog> > > <p>Elle pointant une caisse pleine de morceaux de m?tal.</p> > > <dialog> > <p>? <q>Et j'ai fait le saut !</q></p> > </dialog> > > Note that without <q> in the previous example, there is no easy way to > distinguish inserted text like "dit-elle" ("she said"), these are typically > disambiguated from context in French. But I'd consider the <q> element > optional anyway, even if omitting it leaves this ambiguity. The reason being > that there is no way to disambiguate inserted text inside inline quotations > either. What I did in the previous dialog requires the removal of the quote > characters in the styling of <q>, but to be consistent you'd need to do that > with inline quotations too, which goes against both the recommended usage and > the default stylesheet for <q>: > > ? <q>Pourquoi se d?placer ?</q> dit-elle. <q>On a pas besoin de vous</q> ? > > Personally, I think this is how <q> should have worked from the start, but it > may be too late to change that. Anyway, let's return to the subject of > dialogs. I don't see the need for any markup for these examples. > The second type of dialog I considered is more like in a theatrical piece, > where dialogs are completely free of any other prose. It was previously > suggested in HTML4 to use <dl> for this: > > <p>Mary and Mark begin walking in the park.</p> > > <dl> > <dt>Mary</dt> > <dd>So where do you want to go tomorrow? I can tell you already > have something in mind.</dd> > <dt>Mark</dt> > <dd>What makes you think that?</dd> > </dl> > > I think it'd be better expressed this way: > > <p>Mary and Mark begin walking in the park.</p> > > <dialog> > <p><cite>Mary:</cite> So where do you want to go tomorrow? I can tell > you already have something in mind.</p> > <p><cite>Mark:</cite> What makes you think that?</p> > </dialog> > > Here, <q> tags would be optional because the dialog element already implies > that everything in the paragraphs is part of the dialog. And since <q> adds > quotes, which are not desired in this case, it'd probably be a bad idea to add > it anyway. The <dialog> element in the spec now takes the best of both of the above proposals. On Tue, 31 Oct 2006, Henri Sivonen wrote: > > What benefits do consumers of HTML get from knowing that something is a > dialog? > > What tangible benefits can authors see from marking up dialogs as > dialogs? That is, what is the incentive to bother? > > If most authors are not incentivized to mark up their dialogs as such, > is there still enough value for consumers of markup if only relatively > few dialogs are marked up as dialogs? The main reason for <dialog> is to resolve the evergreen debate about what markup to use for dialogs, so actually the questions above are mostly moot. :-) On Wed, 1 Nov 2006, Michel Fortin wrote: > > People have asked how to markup dialogs for a long time, but many are > reluctant to use <dl> because it is named "definition list" and a dialog > has absolutely nothing to do with a definition list (basically a dialog > does not define anything, and it isn't a list more than a couple of > adjacent paragraphs form a list). > > Well, if it comes that <dl> can be used for dialogs, fine. But I believe > that introducing a <dialog> element will makes things clearer, as HTML4 > has explicitly proposed the use of <dl> for dialogs and many people > still find that dumb. > > Is there a value in knowing something is a dialog? Not always, that's > certain. But in certain contexts it is important for styling as there's > no punctuation to tell what is a dialog and what is not. That's when > <dl> was used. Indeed. On Wed, 1 Nov 2006, ?istein E. Andersen wrote: > > In some contexts, direct speech is italicised (unlike other words that > happen to be enclosed within the same pair of quotes). Let me quote a > passage from Le Monde: > > > Le policier ??voque son ??tudiant avec ??motion. "<i>J'ai vite vu sa > > volont?? peu commune d'apprendre et de r??ussir,</i> dit-il. <i>Il > > avait la souplesse du roseau, la volont?? de r??pondre aux attentes du > > jury, d'adopter les codes culturels, cl??s de son int??gration.</i>" > > Here, <q> arguably would make sense (instead of <i>, which is what Le > Monde currently uses on its website). I cannot remember to have seen > this style in a novel, though. <i> would be fine for this. It matches the definition in the spec: "a span of text in an alternate voice". On Wed, 20 Dec 2006, Simon Pieters wrote: > > Many transcripts on the Web include timestamps, in particular chat logs. > If chat Web applications are to use <dialog>, then those apply aswell. > I'm sure there are other examples too. > > I think <dialog>s should support a way to mark up timestamps. I'd > suggest <time> in the <dt>: > > <dialog> > <dt><time>00:01</time> zcorpan > <dd>speaking of <dialog>... can <dt> include other stuff, like time > stamps? > <dt><time>00:01</time> Hixie > <dd>zcorpan: not currently > </dialog> Added. On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Michel Fortin wrote: > > I read this text recently: > > <http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/apple_universal_conjectural_transcript> > > and wondered how it could be marked up using <dialog>. Basically, it's a > fictional dialogue between two persons where once in a while the > dialogue is interrupted by actions in separate paragraphs. It looks much > like a scene in a screenplay. > > The current spec only allows <dt> and <dd> inside <dialog>, so the > markup for something like this would require closing <dialog> each time > an action paragraph is added and reopening it afterward. Wouldn't it > make more sense to allow regular paragraphs in <dialog> for situational > information and action descriptions? What's wrong with closing the <dialog>? On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote: > > Maybe. Or perhaps the narrator/stage descriptions should be part treated > as another interlocutor. Or perhaps we need an element (<action />, > <stage-direction />, <narration /> ?) for such descriptions; which > should be capable of being both block and inline. You can have short > stage descriptions actually intermixed with dialogue. Sadly new elements wouldn't work well with the parser. On Fri, 30 Mar 2007, Michel Fortin wrote: > > Here are some various potential use cases for <dialog> I've collected > and which I think are problematic with the way the <dialog> element is > currently defined. > > Regular dialogue: > > http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2007/03/26/070326sh_shouts_rich We can do everything in that except the annnotations like "(laughing)". I'm not sure how to handle those. > IRC Logs: > > http://www.linode.com/irc/logs/linode-xenbeta.log-2006-03-26 We can't do /me, but other than that we're ok, no? I'm not sure how to do /me actions. > Screenplay (not a dialogue in itself, but contains a couple of them): > > http://www.lynchnet.com/mdrive/mdscript.html Here again the only bits we can't do are the annotatons -- (con't), (disgusted with himself), etc. > Adding specific elements for all these use cases is probably not going > to be a good idea since there are too many of them. But I think allowing > regular paragraphs in the content of <dialog> would be useful in a > couple of cases. This is an excerpt from the first linked page formatted > this way: > > <dialog> > > <dt>FRIEND FROM WORK:</dt> > <dd>I am the loudest! I am the loudest!</dd> > > <p>(Everybody laughs.)</p> > > <dt>MOM:</dt> > <dd>I had a lot of wine, and now I?m crazy!</dd> > > </dialog> > > Formatted excerpt from second link (an IRC log): > > <dialog> > > <p><time>21:57</time></p> > <dt>caker</dt> > <dd>sweet</dd> > > <p><time>21:57</time></p> > <dt>caker</dt> > <dd>it worked</dd> > > <p><time>21:57</time></p> > <p class="action">caker closes out last bug</p> > > <p><time>22:04</time></p> > <dt>encode</dt> > <dd>yay!</dd> > > </dialog> > > These to examples are non-conformant according to the current spec. I > won't say this is the ideal markup, but I think it's still better than > opening and closing a dialog element each time you need a <p> element. > Any better way to markup these? Paragraphs can just be included outside the <dialog> (close out the dialog and reopen it). And we've handled <time> now. But I'm not sure how to handle the annotations and actions. On Fri, 30 Mar 2007, Anne van Kesteren wrote: > > If I remember correctly <li> was suggested for this purpose on IRC. The > advantage of <li> over <p> would be that people wouldn't easily think > you could put anything inside <dialog> (as you put <p> almost anywhere). Anything but <dt> and <dd> is going to cause us headaches in the parser. On Wed, 4 Apr 2007, David Walbert wrote: > > In this case it seems to me that the <p><time> combination is itself a > header for the dt/dd pair that follows, but the <p> markup doesn't > convey that. Some sort of specialized markup might be preferable here. I > don't know how much demand for it there would be, though. (Less, I > think, than for the ability to mark up an action in the middle of > dialogue.) If the time doesn't have to be a separate block-level > element, it could be marked up simply as > > <dialog> > <dt>caker (<time>21:57</time>)</dt> > <dd>sweet</dd> > ... With the parentheses inside the <time>, but yes, that's what the spec has now. On Wed, 4 Apr 2007, Michel Fortin wrote: > > Indeed it could... in this case. Sometime however the time is indicated > every 5, or 10 minutes to not overload the dialogue with time > references, in which case associating the time reference with the > speaker may not be the best thing to do. > > For instance, take the much more complicated case of the hansard of > debates in the Canadian Parliament: here is a link to the oral questions > of the latest session: > > <http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=1&DocId=2823652&Language=E#OOB-1998516> > > Of semantic importance here, you'll find time markers every 5 minutes -- > (1115) for 11:15 -- and also language change markers -- [Translation] or > [English] -- indicating if the text following it has been translated or > not. Note that both of these markers can actually appear between two > paragraphs with no change of interlocutor, or they can appear just above > the name of a new interlocutor. I'm not quite sure how the markup should > accomodate this, but I think the rules ought to be flexible enough. That page doesn't look like it would use <dialog> to me. More just use of <p> and <q> and/or <blockquote>. On Tue, 10 Apr 2007, Kevin Marks wrote: > > I think the <dialog> example is a retrograde step. The > <ol><li><cite><q|blockquote> pattern seems much better than redefining > <dt> and <dd>, which will confuse XOXO parsers that try to be > Postelian. Did I miss some reasoning here? A conversation isn't an ordered list, and a fictional text isn't a quote. On Wed, 11 Apr 2007, Kevin Marks wrote: > > My point is that this is breaking the expected containment of <dt><dd> > in a <dl>- if you want a new structure purely for dialog, define > <speaker> and keep <q>. I really fail to see why redefining a > definition list as speech is less 'proper' than expanding the context of > <q> slightly. Were using a new element, not <dl>. On Tue, 17 Apr 2007, Michel Fortin wrote: > > What I find silly with the current <dialog> proposal is that it just > can't handle a lot of trivial cases which would otherwise be perfect use > cases. It can't because you can't include non-spoken events to be > inserted in the sequence. I don't understand why closing the dialog and reopening it is so bad. > As an example: > > <p><speaker>Me</speaker>: <speech>... and that was all I had to > say.</speech></p> > > <p>Someone else enter the room.</p> > > <p><speaker>Someone else</speaker>: (thinking aloud) <speech>Wow! > </speech></p> > > Otherwise, the spec tries to draw the line between what is and what is > not a valid dialog... that should be the author's call in my opinion. I don't see why we would need those elements. You can already do the above without them. Using <dt>/<dd> has the advantage of working today. On Wed, 10 Oct 2007, Henri Sivonen wrote: > > The draft says: "Zero or more pairs of dt and dd elements." > > I suggest making it clearer by saying: "Zero or more pairs of one dt > element followed by on dd element." Done. On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Dave Hodder wrote: > html at nczonline.net wrote (with snippage): > > * I understand the concept of the <dialog/> element but it's named > > completely wrong. The point is to markup a conversation between two or more > > parties. The problem is that the word "dialog", when in used in user > > interfaces, refers to small windows that can be interacted with. When I > > first read about this element, I assumed it was a way to indicate that part > > of the page is a dialog window outside of the normal flow of the document > > (which I thought was cool). After reading the rest, I was disappointed to > > find out that wasn't the intent. I'd rename this element as <conversation/> > > or <discussion/> to avoid such misunderstandings. > > I was confused by the name of the "dialog" element in exactly the same way you > were, originally thinking it was to do with pop-up dialogue boxes. The HTML 4 > spec states: > > Another application of DL, for example, is for marking up > dialogues, with each DT naming a speaker, and each DD containing > his or her words. > > ... which I presume influenced the addition of this element. If there is a > lot of dialogue marked up on the Web it deserves its own element, if not I > guess DL could be considered to stand for "dialogue list" in addition to > "definition list". <dl> really doesn't work well for dialogue -- it's not name-value pairs if the same speaker speaks several times. I don't think <conversation> or <transcript> or <discussion> are better than <dialog>. I agree that "dialog" is a suboptimal name, though. On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 html at nczonline.net wrote: > > Perhaps the "role" attribute would be appropriate to use on <dl/>, such > as <dl role="conversation"/>? I don't think that's any better. On Fri, 29 Feb 2008, Nicholas C. Zakas wrote: > > As discussed earlier this week, the <dialog/> element is confusing in > that the term "dialog" in software engineering typically means "dialog > window". I first thought the element was a way to indicate that a part > of the page was used as a dialog rather than part of the normal content > flow. I understand the need to disambiguate the use of the <dl/> > element, keeping it as a definition list, so how about <cl/> for a > conversation list? I think <cl> is even less clear than <dialog>. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
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