Re: [XHTML 2] removal of navigation list element

Laurens Holst wrote:
> 
> Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> 
>> An obvious example would be xhtml:var. Relatively compared I guess
>> its usage on the web is 0%.
> 
> Actually, Ian told me he used it quite often :).

Seriously, do you consider that to be a good argument?


>> I'm not sure if I'd agree with that. Perhaps I should have used
>> xhtml2:div instead of xhtml2:p though, as it's not really a paragraph
>> of text.
>
> Or html5:p, of course. But I don’t think there’s really something to 
> ‘agree’ with. Whether a list of items belongs in a paragraph is really 
> pretty vague, yet people are doing that and both specifications (XHTML 
> 2.0 and ‘HTML 5’) are allowing it.

I guess that it makes perfect sense for some kind of "inline list".

(HTML 5.0 does not in the HTML serialization.)


> With regard to using div - I think that’s really a last resort container 
> :), and definately not for something as common as a short description in 
> front of a list (I’d personally call it a label). I guess the list-in-p 
> is appropriate, although not in HTML 4.

It's not a paragraph. So why abuse that element?


>>> <dl>
>>>   <dt href="tiger.php">Tiger Hash implementation for Z80</dt>
>>>   <dd>Just a quick and nice side-project to see how well MSX could 
>>> handle the supposedly well-scalable 64-bit Tiger hash algorithm. DOS 
>>> 2 executable and sources included.</dd>
>>> </dt>
>>
>> I think this is incorrect usage of the DL element that has existed for 
>> some time now on the web. Apparently XHTML 2 didn't redefine DL to be 
>> a more generic element so I'd consider this particular example to be 
>> non conforming.
>
> I’m defining the contents of one of my specific projects, where the 
> definition term links to the project page.

No, you are describing what the project is. The above phrase is not a 
definition.


> Aside from me thinking this is pretty nice usage of the <dl> element, 
> why could navigation links not have descriptions with them, and if they 
> do (e.g. by ‘extending’ -ahem- the DL element to fit this case or by 
> introducing a new element similar to DL), if you go the route of <nl> 
> elements, why shouldn’t there be a <ndl> as well?

Because there is not really a good use case. Have you ever seen a good 
use case for 'ndl' on the web?


>> The LABEL element is merely a title for
>> the list. Your example would therefore be non-conformant I guess as
>> this is not really a title.
>
> Make it <label>Various sections of this site</label> then. Pfft, it’s 
> not as if a single word can make it non-conformant. This isn’t exact 
> science.

Note that this was in response to:

# Note that this label contains the exact same content as the paragraph
# in your example did. Why is that text ‘functionally’ different when
# inside a inside the navigation list?


-- 
  Anne van Kesteren
  <http://annevankesteren.nl/>

Received on Tuesday, 31 May 2005 08:07:29 UTC