Re: Adding label to other list elements?

Ben Meadowcroft wrote:

> Ernest Cline wrote:
>
> > Well first off, while I can see the desirability of having an element
> > to indicate a semantically important marker that is associated with a
> > list item, it shouldn't be placed outside of the list item or you are
> > just getting a <dl> with different element names.
> 
> We agree on the desirability then, a good start!
> 
> I understand your point about placing it inside the list item, however I
> disagree that this is the best method.
> 
> To ensure I am understanding you correctly you are envisioning something
> along the lines of:
> 
> <ul>
> <li><newlabelel>Label for item</newlabelel> Miscellaneous item text</li>
> </ul>
> 
> The reason I question this concept is that it seem too similar to what can
> be achieved with a <h> to me. For example
> 
> <ul>
> <li><section><h>Label for item</h> Miscellaneous item text</section></li>
> </ul>
> 
> Here a heading or label is clearly related to a single item.
> 
> What are the merrits of my inital proposal. Well as you stated "you are just
> getting a <dl> with different element names", this is true in a sense, we
> would be getting the functionality provided by a <dl> but without polluting
> the semantics of the <dl> element.
> 
> This functionality, the ability to associate a label to multiple items of
> data, and vice versa, is a powerful one that should be extended to the more
> generic list elements <ol> and <ul>. An example of this is a list of slides,
> with attached labels.

I strongly disagree with this.  One of the weaknesses that the current 
<dl><dt><dd> model has is that it is impossible for CSS to make that 
association where an arbitrary number of dt's or dd's is possible. As 
such you can't simply group related elements in a definition list in 
existing (X)HTML and is why I've proposed a <di> element to correct 
what OI see as a flaw.  Any proposed markup that relies upon sibling 
relationships to esatblish that they are related is flawed as far as I 
am concerned.

> <ol>
>   <label>Introduction</label>
>   <li>What is RDF</li>
> 
>   <label>Practical Applications</label>
>   <li>RDF in RSS 1.0</li>
>   <li>RDF in FOAF 0.1</li>
> 
>   <label>Implementation Issues</label>
>   <li>Syntactic issues</li>
>   <li>Validation</li>
> 
>   <label>Conclusion</label>
>   <label>Future Directions</label>
>   <li>n-triples</li>
>   <li>rpv</li>
> </ol>
> 
> Determining which labels are associated with which items would follow the
> same algorithm used to determine which <dt>s are associated with which
> <dd>s. Nesting issues should not be an issue as this would be inherently
> supplied by the use of nested lists.

All I am willing to say is that I find your example highly flawed,
Perhaps:

<ol>
  <li><ol>
    <lable>Introduction</label>
    <li>What is RDF</li>
  </ol></li><li><ol>
    <label>Practical Applications</label>
    <li>RDF in RSS 1.0</li>
    <li>RDF in FOAF 0.1</li>
  </ol></li><li><ol>
    <label>Implementation Issues</label>
    <li>Syntactic issues</li>
    <li>Validation</li>
  </ol></li><li><ol> 
    <label>
       <l>Conclusion</l>
       <l>Future Directions</l>
    </label>
    <li>n-triples</li>
    <li>rpv</li>
  </ol></li>
</ol>

(Note: I wouldn't mind allowing List elements such as: <dl>, <nl>, 
<ol>, <ul> to be also allowed wherever an <li> could be used as it 
would make the generation of nested lists easier.)

Received on Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:07:03 UTC