Re: XHTML 2 0WD: Embedding Attribute Collection Comments

I recognise the introduction of this attribute collection helps to reduce 
the amount of code needed to assemble a page a little, but I strongly feel 
an element should have a defined purpose. There are no rules to say any tag 
can't reference any resource type, and so people will use anything. Imagine 
the following examples all mixed up, a <script> becomes an image, <style> a 
script and <p> an mpeg video (it's halfway there already).

<script src="pop" type="application/x-javascript, text/x-newspeak"/>

<style src="midnight" type="text/css, text/x-mystyle"/>

<p src="w3c-logo" type="image/png, image/jpeg;q=0.2">W3C logo</p>

<span src="logo.png">Our logo</span>

<span src="theme.mp3" type="audio/x-mpeg">Our theme jingle</span>

It's interesting to note that <html>, <head>, <title> and <body> elements 
have the embedding collection defined, I can't imagine how their embedded 
resources are to be rendered. Done for the sake of assigning the 'Common 
collection' to everything I assume.

Tom McDonnell


From: "Ernest Cline" <ernestcline@mindspring.com>
To: www-html@w3.org
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 14:45:41 -0400
Message-ID: <3ED61D15.10354.45DB72F@localhost>
Subject: Re: XHTML 2 WD: Embedding Attribute Collection Comments

Whether it is a misuse of the <p> element depends upon whether the
image in question is logigically equivalent to a paragraph, which it
probably is not. However consider the following:

<li src="poolside.png" type="image/png">
  <span src="poolside.gif" type="image/gif">
     Lounging at poolside
  </span>
</li>

as a list item in a list of things the document author did on her
holiday. Compared to:

<li>
  <object data="poolside.png" type="image/png">
    <object data="poolside.gif" type="image/gif">
      Lounging at poolside
    </object>
  </object>
</li>

there is one less element being used to achieve the same effect and
there is no doubt in my example that it legiiamately is a list item.
An even more compact example would be:

<li src="poolside" type="image/png,image/gif;q=0.1">
   Lounging at poolside
</li>

As it takes advantage of the extenstion of the  type parameter from a
single Content type (as per HTML4/XHTML1) to a list of content types to
render the example more compact. The equivalent using object would be:

<li>
  <object data="poolside" type="image/png,image/gif;q=0.1">
    Lounging at poolside
  </object>
</li>

Personally I am in favor of making it clear that the object element is
intended only for the more complictaed sorts of emebeddings that
benefit from archive, content-length, declare, param, and/or standby.

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Received on Saturday, 31 May 2003 10:18:08 UTC