[whatwg] small element should allow nested elements

Hi,

I know Bruce Lawson has mentioned that this has been brought up  
before, but I couldn't find it in the archives (searching "small"), so  
I'd like to bring it up again.

The HTML 5 spec says:

"Small print typically features disclaimers, caveats, legal  
restrictions, or copyrights. Small print is also sometimes used for  
attribution, or for satisfying licensing requirements."

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html#the-small-element

So I'm making a list of disclaimers for my site:

<ol>
   <li>You must agree to this term</li>
   <li>And this term too</li>
   <li>And don't break this term</li>
   <li>And don't forget the milk</li>
</ol>
<p>By reading this, you're agreeing to xyz</p>

To make this valid, and small print text, I need to individually wrap  
the inner HTML of each inline element (li and p elements).  This is  
wasteful and very much like the situation that we had with the a  
element when we wanted the whole block to be clickable.

When I wrap *everything* in the small element (as seen here: http://jsbin.com/okevo 
  ) all the browsers I've tested it in renders the text as I would  
expect, but it doesn't validate against the HTML 5 parsing rules (as  
you'd expect).

If this element is truly for disclaimers, caveats and restrictions,  
and not stylistically making something small, then it will be  
typically used on blocks of content, be it a single line or multiple  
paragraphs.  As such, it seems sensible to say that the small element  
can have nested block elements within it.

Here's the list of the compatible browsers (I could have done more  
browsers, but I think this test with 10 proves the support is solid):

http://leftlogic.litmusapp.com/pub/a5fa8ed

<small>At time of writing, the last test is still being generated, but  
I've tested Firefox 3.5 manually and it passes</small> ;-)


Cheers,

Remy Sharp
Left Logic

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Received on Friday, 7 August 2009 06:19:23 UTC