Re: Draft text for summary attribute definition

David Poehlman 2009-03-01 13.08:
> This sounds like a strategy for producing lay out tables to me.  data 
> tables are created with lots of presupposed and prepurposed ideas and 
> content in mind.

And probably without the concept "data table" in one's head. 
Wheras, it is likely that the author knows in his heart if this 
table is gonna have caption.

>  the summary is already apparent as a narative if the 
> table is being created orrectly in the first place.  In other words, I 
> will write in prose what I want a table to contain. "this is a report on 
> how many people consumed bread and beef in the 1990s broken down by 
> state.  Then, I'll gather the dat and construct the table.

Eventually the author needs a "structure narrative". We hear that 
we should try to make simple tables. This means that the authors 
tend to work with their tables, trying out different structures. I 
do at least.

>  The summary 
> is the narative, the caption is a short title.  the two are unrelated 

Title and narrative is of course *extremely* related. In <img>, we 
would say @title and @alt. But since <table> is a compound 
element, with a designated title element, it is not meaningless to 
  place the narrative inside the title element.

> but the summary is importent enough that it should ot be hidden and 
> should also be part of the table. 

<caption summary="summary."> makes it part of the table.

> I see a slippery slope when 
> attempting to create a single element from an attribute and an element 

I don't do that. caption@summary is element and attribute. Just as 
table@summary is.

> especially when semantically, they are so unrelated but perhaps I should 

If they are so unrelated that I keep hearing, then perhaps we 
should move the <caption> outside of <table>?

> have my second Sunday coffee before tackling such a brain twister.  If 
> we are going this way, we need a new element so that we have a third 
> rather than one, one element would be caption, the attribute summary 
> would be almost unchanged and the combo of caption and summary could 
> possibly be used for special casing but not called caption@///@summary.

May be.

> On Mar 1, 2009, at 12:39 AM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:

>>>    <caption summary="Summary text."></caption>

>> I feel that it addresses directly in the code the juxtaposing of summary 
>> and <caption> that I think is needed. The <caption> element is one that 
>> the author will often be working with all the time - it is the place 
>> where he attributes meaning to the entire table. The title might often 
>> be the final touch. This is also natural moment for when to add info 
>> about the table struture.
>> 
>> Wheras when the author starts with the <table> element, he might not 
>> have much clue about what the content will be.

-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Sunday, 1 March 2009 15:47:35 UTC