Re: Q about the standard (Now: B, U, I, TT, SMALL, BIG)

> Incidently both B and U have been deprecated, although they
> are of course still legal.

Not quite.
B is still valid, and not deprecated, even though IMHO it should be.
U is now deprecated (as of HTML4) and is invalid in an HTML4 strict
document.

The only other presentational elements that are still valid are I, TT, BIG
and SMALL.

I believe we should deprecate the I, B, TT, BIG and SMALL elements and to
then turn I into a phrase element meaning "Instance Of Use" - to complement
DFN. Backwards compatible and structural at the same time.

As in,
<P>The <dfn>conjunctiva</dfn> is the outer membrane of the eye. This
<i>conjunctiva</i> is transparent...</P>

TT and B have no place in the spec whatsoever. CODE, KBD, SAMP, EM and
STRONG already provide much more information about the content and are
usually rendered in similar ways. CSS is much more suited to the purpose of
making things bold.

BIG and SMALL could be useful, if they are used to mean WARNING or NOTE.
However, this can currently be done using the CLASS attribute on a paragraph
or span, with suitable formatting applied by CSS.
Two new elements, WARNING and NOTE, could be introduced as a replacement
(block or inline level). This would discourage people from using
<BIG><BIG><BIG> to mean <H1>. However I do not support introducing these new
elements, as classes provide much more control in this particular case, and
introducing new elements will merely mean that only Lynx will support them
properly.

--
Ian Hickson - visit web page for geek code
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxieh/
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Received on Sunday, 21 June 1998 21:25:14 UTC