Re: 'HTML 5' and some poem markup?

Gregory, 

I saw that you set up a wiki page based on the correspondence about poem mark-up.

Wiki URL: 
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/PoeticSemantics

May I ask you to also include the response that I had in that thread (even though Karl Dubost jumped over it when he summed up the debate) on the Wiki page?

Message URL: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Oct/0073

The central idea, which I took up with Olaf befor posting, is to introduce into HTML a <TEXT> element - as a parallel to VIDEO and AUDIO - to be used when we want to «embed» a independent piece of text - such as a poem, a play, whateever. (Btw, I just now registered myself in the ESW Wiki - so I can do it myself, if you like, but perhaps it is good if you integrate it into the structure as you see fit.)

Explanation:

The very problems that Olaf raised can, as I have see it, be split in two interrelated issues: 
 1) A 'container issue', for which I propose <TEXT> with various possible attributes for classification of the kind of text (perhaps, actually, CLASS would be good enough.)
 2) a 'low-level text element issue' - e.g. the need e.g. a <L> element for (semantic) lines.

I see those issues interlated because: If we want to reuse existing elements (such as <LI> for lines), then that becomes much more simple if we have a semantic container. E.g. if an author have either <POEM> or <TEXT class=poem>, then I believe that he or she would find it more easy to simply accept using e.g. <LI> for lines in a stanza/paragraph, than he/she would do if one simply had to use a typical <DIV> as container. If we don't have a semantic container, then it becomes the more necessary to have spesific low-level elements.

That said, there might be good reason for adding some more low-level elements:

The legacy "semantics"/restrictions of legacy the elements is one thing. But also, There are several text genres that needs low-level list-like formats, less bound up with the semantics of DL, OL and UL. (The semantics of DL, OL and UL are that each <LI> or each <DT> is kind of independent from the other list items.) The DIALOG element is an example of resuse of an existing element which is more "literature like": Suddenly a list tells a story - i.e. the items are suddenly more directly interrelated - in a story-like way. 

I am not so sure that we need to add a stanza format/paragraph list format (<P><LI><LI></P>) that can only be used in poems - I think there is good chance we can come up with something that is useful in other genres.

I send a CC of this message Dr Olaf Hoffmann and Karl Dubost and to www-archive@w3.org.
-- 
Leif Halvard Silli

Received on Tuesday, 9 October 2007 17:28:20 UTC