Re[3]: Design question about formats based on XHTML 2

On 30 August 2006, Peter Krantz wrote:
PK> Am I interpreting it correctly if I use it like this:
PK> <section role="legal:paragraph">...
PK> ...provided that the "legal" namespace has already been established in
PK> the document.
PK> This sounds interesting and feels coherent with the naming of the role
PK> attribute. But, if this is the case, then the wording in section
PK> 26.1[1] in current version of the specification should change.

It seems like the most sensible way to do what you intend is not to
use XHTML on its own, but use your own XML schema to supplement it.
You could for instance declare a legal namespace with a set of
attributes which you can then apply to your sections. For example: 

<?xml version="1.0">
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<xhtml 
  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
  xmlns:legal="http://www.legal.domain.here/standard/2006" >
<body>
  <h>Legal document</h>
  <section legal:role="introduction">
    ..
    blah blah blah <span legal:name="plaintiff">John Doe</span> blah blah
    ..
  </section>
  ..
  <section legal:role="conclusion">
  ..
  </div>
</body>
</xhtml>

I apologize for this being a bit of a how-to answer, but I think it's
important that the useful semantics of the word "role" itself for
Peter's application not be confused with XHTML's own @role. It really
seems like if XHTML's @role is to have any value as a tool for
accessibility its set of possible values must be finite, or more
realistically, constrained to a working set of common standards.

I agree with earlier comments that XHTML cannot and should not try to
be all things to all people, and nor should @role. The value of both
of these comes from their finite, standardized nature. This
standardization should not be left to "the community" to come up with
ad-hoc standards: the W3C *is* the community that cares about this
type of thing.

We already have an excellent mechanism for extending the semantics of
any XML document in namespaces; there is no need to reinvent this
function in @role.

Or so it seems to me :-)

Laurie.
-- 
Laurie Voss
Developer, Yahoo! Mobile
lvoss@yahoo-inc.com
[sentiments expressed are my own and not of my employer]

Received on Wednesday, 30 August 2006 15:56:07 UTC