[XHTML2] 4th WD comments

Just a few comments based on the diff marked version:

6.4. Edit Collection
| <p>I will do it next <span class="deleted">week</span>
| <span class="inserted">month</span>.</p>

Err... you just introduced the 'edit' attribute to replace it by 'class' in
the example?
The defintion is fixed to visual media and CSS.

6.6. Embedding Attribute Collection

The 'table'/PNG example is a good one, the 'p' a very bad one.

6.7. Image Map Attribute Collection

I don't see the need for the 'map'/'usemap'/'id' combination any more, given
that the element that references the map graphic can also contain the links:

  <nl src="navbar1.png" type="image/png" usemap="#">
    <label>Navigate the site:</label>
    <li href="guide.html" shape="rect" coords="0,0,118,28">Access Guide</li>
  ...

7. XHTML Structure Module

Is the minimal content model for 'head' really just "title"?

8.9. The heading elements
| Numbered sections and references
| XHTML does not itself cause section numbers to be generated from
| headings. Style sheet languages such as CSS however allow authors
| to control the generation of section numbers.

Please provide at least in a sample stylesheet, if not in an inline example,
the code for this.

8.10. The hr element

If 'hr' stays, it--as an empty element--definitely doesn't belong into the
*text* module.

8.11. The kbd element
| The kbd element indicates text to be entered by the user.

Extend meaning to cover other input devices (<kbd>double-click</kbd>)?

8.15. The quote element

The 'quote' element is bad, at least without requiring the UA to indicate it
/somehow/ as a quote. You can't rely on CSS (or a hypothetical other style
language) alone and it's hard to use both, manual quotes *and* CSS generated
ones. I also think, 5 letters is too long, you could just have redefined 'q'
if you wanted.

10. XHTML List Module
| <dl>
| <dt><strong>Lower cost</strong></dt>

Drop the <strong/>s from the example. Suggest stylesheets instead.

| <dd>young excitable person who may mature
|    into a <em>Nerd</em> or <em>Geek</em></dd>

<em/>s should be <dfn/>s, no?

I still don't see a way to continue lists with something like <ol
continue="#firstpart">. Neither seem the well known transitional attributes
'start' and/or 'value' be preparing to return.

14.2.1. Referencing object data
| <object
|    data="mymovie.mpg"
|    type="video/mpeg">
|    A film showing how to open the printer to replace the cartridge.
| </object>
...
|   This user agent cannot process this movie.

That's giving a *really* bad example to readers. The text should be an
alternative, not a description. There are even more examples showing this
discouraged behaviour.

In my comments on the previous WD, I said that *if* 'meta' isn't necessarily
an empty element any more, this should also apply to 'link'. I'd like to
extend this statement ot 'param'. This element has almost the same function
for 'object' as 'meta' has for 'html' / 'head' / 'body' and is also just
'name' -> 'value'.

16.1. The style element
| Example:
| <head>
|  <style type="text/css">[...]</style>
| </head>

This is invalid XHTML2.

17.2. The col and colgroup elements
| <style type="text/css">
| #colgrp1 {width: 300}
| #col1 {width: 100}
| #col2 {width: 50}
| </style>

This is invalid CSS.

It seems as if *all examples* will have to be carefully checked at some
time, as they often show errors and bad design, and therefor encourage it.
The main reason for this is probably copy&paste from previous versions of
HTML specifications.
I propose using the periodic table of elements instead of a calendar as an
example for correctly using tables.

I doubt that it's a good choice to order elements alphabetically.
'Blockquote' and 'quote' for instance are several screen pages apart.

If you ever seriously come to the question whether to drop 'a', I suppose
you better drop the even more meaningless 'span', which would save 6 bytes
each time.

Christoph Päper

Received on Monday, 3 February 2003 01:48:52 UTC