Re: nesting header elements (3.5.1)

At 2000-02-18 17:06-0500, Wendy wrote:
>Hello,
>
>Len Kasday raised the following issue regarding technique 3.5.1 in the 21 
>December draft [http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/ert-19991221.html
>]:
><blockquote>
>| 1. The first header element in the document must be H1
>| 2. There must be only one H1 element in the document


Since a document may be part of a higher-level document, the requirement
to have any, or even only one H1 element in a document, is too constraining.
My preference is that a document should complete a level, in other words,
if it starts with <Hn>, it should end with </Hn> and not contain any
<Hm>...</Hm> where m, n in 1, 2, ... 6; and m < n. That would allow
a reasonable way to make the set of pages with textual content nest
consistently. In the set, the "top-level" document could have just one
<H1>...</H1>.

The concept of a document manifest, containing a correctly nested set of
page references, is part of the open e-book work. In it, presumable
the document's pages are ordered, and their contents may have nested
levels of detail, referenced at appropriate places, either in the manifest
or in pages.

In most pages today, many references are to pages that are not strictly
part of the logic of the current document. For these, the expectation
that they have <H1>...</H1> is certainly acceptable.
...

>Technique 3.5.1 [priority 2] Check document for header nesting
>Discussion Status:
>awaiting discussion
>Evaluation:
>Header elements (H1-H6) should be checked to ensure they are nested 
>according to the following rules
>Header levels must not increase by more than 1 level. Example: H2 
>following H1 is good. H3 following H1 is bad.

Would have to check any internal references to other docs to see if they
contribute correctly nested material. Many referenced pages are "out of the
hierarchy", so somehow they would need to be exempted.

Regards/Harvey Bingham

Received on Tuesday, 2 May 2000 17:09:23 UTC