- From: Orion Adrian <orion.adrian@gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 08:55:02 -0500
- To: www-html@w3.org
On 11/10/05, John Foliot - WATS.ca <foliot@wats.ca> wrote: > > David Woolley wrote: > >> That's the use that the element was designed for which can also be > >> written: > >> > >> Orion Adrian 123 Barrier St. Lizardlick, NC 21001 United States > > > > It would be written like: > > > > Orion Adrian, 123 Barrier St., Lizardlick, United States, NC 21001 > > > > and that is typically exactly how it would be presented in academic > > papers, except that it would be in italics. Things like address and > > cite are semantic markup for things that would be typically set in > > italics in a printed, English language, academic paper. > > > This has been an interesting thread so far. > > ADDRESS has been underused for quite some time, which is a shame really, > because it does have a semantic meaning, vague as it is. > > However, with XHTML2 I am super-excited with the idea of @role (I think > it is/was a flash of brilliance), and I believe, by the spec > (http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-role.html#s_rolemodule), @role could > and would solve the very problems discussed so far. > > No where in the spec does it say that there can only be *one* instance > of ADDRESS in any document, so all we really need to do is "define" what > we as authors mean when we use the ADDRESS element. Consider: > > <address role="author">John Foliot</address> > <address role="company">WATS.ca</address> > <address role="city_state">Ottawa, ON</address> > <!-- this one is weak, but I'm working off the top of my head > --> > <address role="country">Canada</address> > <address role="email">foliot@wats.ca</address> > <address role="website">http://www.wats.ca</address> > > ...etc. etc. Due to @role's extensible nature (via RDF), this now gives > the *idea* of Address[1] some definition, there could be a core list > (which I believe is already being developed: > http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-role.html#col_Role) or a *unique* > definition as required. Since, by default ADDRESS is a block level > element, without author intervention it displays on individual lines > (addressing the visualization issue), but may also be styled differently > via CSS/DOM > > Here and now considerations: OK, so XHTML2 is still a draft, however > this does not preclude using ADDRESS as described above, minus the real > semantic definitions afford by @role. However the tricky ID attribute > or the less useful TITLE attribute could both stand-in in a pinch today, > validating to HTML 4 and beyond. > > Thoughts? > > JF > -- > John Foliot foliot@wats.ca > Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca > Web Accessibility Testing and Services > http://www.wats.ca > Phone: 1-613-482-7053 > > > Address (n.) > > 1. A description of the location of a person or organization, > as written or printed on mail as directions for delivery: wrote down the > address on the envelope. > 2. The location at which a particular organization or person > may be found or reached: went to her address but no one was home. > > Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Address I think we have to be very careful here with @role. We have to precisely differentiate between classification and role. Classification seems to specify a is-a relationship while role seems to specify serves-as-the which has a subtle difference. @role seems to specify unique portions of the page while class(ification) and the element name specify the generic formatting structure for that element (paragraph, heading, list, etc.) -- Orion Adrian
Received on Thursday, 10 November 2005 13:55:11 UTC