RE: Disambiguating @summary from a long descriptor

Quoting John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>:

> Boris Zbarsky wrote:
>>
>> John Foliot wrote:
>> > It is becoming increasingly clear that, as Josh O'Connor wrote [1],
> there
>> > needs to be a disambiguation of @summary, and clear, precise guidance
> on
>> > its usage, which evidence is showing was clearly lacking in HTML4
> (i.e.
>> > better "specify that technology").  However I seriously question
>> > jettisoning @summary for @datastructure simply to address existing
> holes
>> > in usage and intent of @summary.
>>
>> I didn't suggest "jettisoning".  See above, and in particular the quoted
>> part of my post.  I'm suggesting having @summary work exactly as it does
>> now in UAs and maybe adding a less-misuse-prone attribute that we
>> recommend web developers use.  That's all operating on the assumption
>> that we do in fact want to have an attribute for describing the data
>> relationships in a table.  I have no opinion as to whether we do.
>>
>
> Boris,
>
> If it appeared that I was suggesting that _you_ proposed jettisoning
> @summary that was not my intent and I apologize if it came off that way.
>
> As it currently stands, HTML5 is proposing to abandon @summary, which is
> under serious contention right now.


FWIW the HTML5 spec currently says:
"If a table element has a summary attribute, the user agent may report  
the contents of that attribute to the user."

So the only difference between the current HTML5 draft and Boris's  
proposal is the suggested replacement; <caption> vs @datastructure  
(and there are several other proposals on the table).

Received on Wednesday, 10 June 2009 17:43:09 UTC