Re: separator abuse

I have finally completed my analysis of the issues surrounding the 
separator element, and published my results.
http://lachy.id.au/log/2005/05/separator-elements

I've attempted to define its semantics, and propose some more suitable 
markup constructs to achieve the same semantics.

Sjoerd Visscher wrote:
> With the recent separator discussion I was more or less convinced by 
> others that a separator is needed to markup some books.

I don't believe the separator element is actually required as is; rather 
the semantics conveyed by the presentation of the separator element need 
to be retained in a more structurally and semantically appropriate manner.

> <nl>
> <lable>Navigation</label>
> <li href="/">Home</li>
> <li><separator/></li>
> <li href="prev">Previous</li>
> <li href="..">Up</li>
> <li href="next">Next</li>
> </nl>
> 
> This an absolute abuse of the element,

I don't believe it is abuse of the element, it is in fact being used as 
an attempt to convey the semantics of grouping related items.  However, 
this does illustrate one reason why the separator element is 
structurally innappropriate, and I discussed this structure in my article.

> and the reason why I was against it in the first place. I now think
> that the chance for abuse is too big, and the number of cases where
> separator has real use is too small. So separator should be dropped.

I agree that the separator element should be dropped, but it does need 
to be replaced.

> What this example also shows is that the nl stucture is unsuited for 
> popup-menus, because menus contain grouped items.

No, the structure of the nl element is fine; it just requires a little 
thought about how such grouping can be achieved with other, more 
appropriate markup.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/     Rediscover the Web
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Received on Monday, 30 May 2005 16:20:21 UTC