Re: [XHTML 2] removal of navigation list element

> [Original Message]
> From: Laurens Holst <lholst@students.cs.uu.nl>
>
> Maybe dl could be dropped.

I certainly hope not.  While the semantics of what exactly a <dl>
is and should be used for is a matter of some contention, they
serve a semantic propose that cannot be adequately handled
by any other simple structure, namely that of indicating sets of
relationships.  The closest one could come to expressing it
would be to do something like the following, with the classes
indicating what equivalent roles are being performed:

  <table class="dl">
    <tr class="di">
      <th>
        <div class="dt" />
        <div class="dt" />
      </th>
      <td>
        <div class="dd" />
        <div class="dd" />
      </td>
    </tr>
  </table>

Of course, you'd also have to use a goodly quantity of CSS to
get anything approaching the default presentation of a <dl>,
but that is of secondary importance to the semantic of 
relationship pairs.  Whether those pairs are of terms and
definitions, questions and answers,  roles and dialogs, or
any other pairs of relationships is of far lesser importance
semantically.

Received on Monday, 30 May 2005 22:56:53 UTC