- From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 10:04:09 +1000 (EST)
- To: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Interestingly, there has been significant resistance, within this working group, to any attempt to provide common semantics to specific values of the HTML CLASS attribute, either within the guidelines or techniques documents. The basic rationale was that the semantics of CLASS values were left completely unconstrained by the HTML specification and it was desirable not to create an inconsistency, or apparent inconsistency, between HTML 4.0 and the guidelines. It was also urged that content developers should have total freedom in creating style sheets to use the CLASS attribute as they wished. I am not necessarily endorsing these arguments, but merely indicating that any attempt to suggest CLASS attribute values in the guidelines or techniques would be contrary to a position accepted by this working group during the Proposed Recommendation stage of the version 1.0 guidelines. Now that XHTML has arrived, there exists a properly defined extension mechanism which is vastly superior to the HTML CLASS attribute and which will supplant it. If the techniques document is to offer examples of XHTML extensions, then the working group will indeed be involved in creating new semantic markup, even if only for illustrative purposes. One could mount a parallel argument in the case of CLASS, namely that it would be reasonable to suggest (but not to mandate) particular attribute values and associated semantics, in providing examples of author-specified style sheets, while making it clear that these are not intended as prescriptions. The opposition to defining CLASS values was directed primarily against the CLASS="nav" proposal, which was suggested as a suitable convention with which to identify groups of links (more recently of course, the semantics of the MAP element have been extended to accommodate this particular requirement); but the general arguments surrounding the ways in which the guidelines and/or techniques can legitimately influence the semantics of pre-existing language features, still remain. Again, I am not arguing in favour of a particular position here, but just pointing out the history of this issue and the questions to which it has given rise in the past.
Received on Sunday, 11 June 2000 20:05:16 UTC