Re: <note> may be a good idea... was (Proposal for XHTML 2.0: The <footnote> element)

Alexander Savenkov wrote:
> Richard,
> 
> 2003-01-16T21:12:40Z you wrote:
> 
>>I do think that note is worthy.  It is basically saying that this
>>particular thought is outside the main context of the document...
>>I
>>like that idea and user agents can go right past the note without
>>disrupting the flow of the text (thinking of non-visual user agents).
> 
> Uh-huh. So you claim the blind users are not supposed to read those
> notes. Is this the goal of the proposed element?

I can't speak for Richard, but it's certainly not what I had in mind 
when I proposed the <footnote> element.

> "Thoughts that are outside the main context" are found in every second
> (if not in every) text, your message is not an exception. Marking
> "think of non-visual user agent" with a <note> element is quite
> irrelevant, isn't it?

Absolutely -- it's a part of the paragraph. I'm talking about notes like 
these: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_foot.html -- with 
<footnote>, those could be placed with the paragraph that references 
them, instead of in a separate document or at the end of the document.

> As it's been mentioned, there are other "thought
> types" and comparing them all to the new elements is definitely not
> the thing you would like to see.

A footnote should be taken out of the normal text flow -- that applies 
to visual as well as aural output media. Most other "thought types" 
shouldn't.

> In this connection a simple rule for taking new elements in could be
> made: elements are for marking types (or blocks) of texts, not types
> of thoughts.

Tell that to the <em> element :-)

Actually a footnote /does/ contain a block of text, and doesn't imply 
any specific type of though.

> P. P. S. I'm glad the 'style' attribute discussion is approaching
> completion, thanks to Ian's summary.

Hear, hear.

/Jonas

Received on Friday, 17 January 2003 05:49:35 UTC