Re: ReComments on Cougar DTD:

You've given an excellent demonstration of why inline style markup will 
probably be misused even by highly intelligent people.

> For example
> 
> <UL SRC="green.gif">
> <LH>Note: Items marked with a red bullet are not finished</LH>
> <LI>First item
> <LI>Second item
> <LI SRC="red.gif">Third item, not finished
> <LI SRC="red.gif">Fourth item, not finished
> <LI SRC="blue.gif">Fifth item, still in beta
> </UL>

This is a misuse of inline markup because you are using _colour_ to 
represent information that is semantically meaningful. Those who are 
colour blind (or working on machines that do not support color) will 
miss out.

Instead, if you use classes, the end user can override the style sheet so
that the "red bullet" choices appear as asterisks and the "blue bullet"
choices appear as round bullets.

> It would require a lot of careful coding to do this with style sheets.
> What if you use the same bullet for two different lists, and decide
> to switch bullets in one of the lists? You would also be changing the
> appearance of the other list.

If the lists are semantically connected, then when one changes the other
should too. If the lists are not semantically connected (I.e. lists of the same 
"type"), then they should have different classes. It's a simple rule.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Sunday, 21 July 1996 11:17:46 UTC