RE: About XHTML 2.0

Mikko,

I don't understand why this is getting so complicated. There are plenty of
use-cases for something that comes between two items (a separator) in a
*semantic* way. That's not presentational, and the two objects being
separated are not something that might need a name. It's like a 'pause' when
you are reading.

But the pause you just mentally inserted for my new paragraph is too 'short'
for what we want here as a separator (even though it was too long for the
actual text); paragraphs tend to indicate that the main narrative is still
running, but we're going to take another little step along its route.


A DIFFERENT ISSUE
And the pause you have just mentally inserted here is much too big, since
I've implied by the section heading that I am about to go into something
different. On seeing that heading you'd have felt justified in going off to
make coffee before you started reading the next 'section', and whilst making
coffee you would have expected to be able to ponder my previous paragraphs
and then come back ready to start something slightly different. You'd be a
bit surprised if you returned to find that I was still in the same
paragraph, but had decided I needed a separator, and so used a section.


A SOLUTION
So we need something that is a bigger break than the end of a sentence or
paragraph, but something that doesn't need a name, and is not a new section.
Seems to me <separator> fits the bill perfectly.

Regards,

Mark


Mark Birbeck
CEO
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-html-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:www-html-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Mikko Rantalainen
> Sent: 23 May 2005 12:55
> To: www-html@w3.org
> Subject: Re: About XHTML 2.0
> 
> 
> Orion Adrian wrote:
> > them all. They really do fall under the same classification 
> as <sup> 
> > and <sub>. Still <seperator /> is necessary.
> 
> There's one crucial difference between <sup>/<sub> and
> <separator>/<hr>/<br>: the former have content but latter are 
> always empty.
> 
> I thought that this was one of the major reasons to get rid 
> of <br> in favor to <l> element. This time, we're looking for 
> separator between elements instead of lines of text, but the 
> same reasoning still applies.
> 
> As I wrote in another post, every time a <hr> or <separator> 
> is used, a <h> element could be instead to give the following 
> part a name. It's part of the presentation that the name of 
> the part is not displayed (and some authors think that 
> because the name wouldn't get displayed by default 
> presentation, no name needs to be encoded in the DOM either).
> 
> The another possible use case for the <separator> is inside 
> navigation lists:
> 
>    <nl>
>      <label />
>      <li />
>      <li />
>      <separator />
>      <li />
>    </nl>
> 
> But in this case, too, I feel that it would be better for 
> non-sighted person that <separator> would be replaced with a 
> <label> to give name to the items that follow in the next 
> part. If the <nl> content model doesn't allow multiple 
> <label> element that's the problem we need to fix. Hiding 
> some header or label from the user or replacing it with a 
> line or with a couple of stars is just part of the presentation, IMHO.
> 
> --
> Mikko
> 
> 
>

Received on Monday, 23 May 2005 12:28:37 UTC