Re: Control Text-file Embedding in HTML-docs

On 31 Mar, Shane McCarron wrote:

> I suspect I have exacerbated the problem here by using a poor example.  

  It was, actually, an excellent example.


> The intent of a universal @src is not really so you end up duplicating 
> fallback content for paragraphs.  Obviously you *could* do this, but 
> just because you *can* do a thing does not mean you *should* do a
> thing.

  Indeed. However, that doesn't change the fact that by running very
  much amok with the generalisation - and I /would/ argue it - the
  option is given, and will be misused.




> nor sufficiently semantically rich.  By exposing these attributes and
> their behavior everywhere, the content author can have very fine
> grained control over what gets delivered.

  It's a good, if misdirected, intent. The problem is the "everywhere"
  and the "fine grained" control.

  I predict the SRC option in XHTML 2 will be used for two things:
  templates - ie. <div src="footer.html"> where 'footer.html' contain a
  section of markup - and frame replacements.

  The intent to simply make it possible to replace, say, graphical
  elements with rich alternative content won't prevent this.





> And, just to be clear, this is NOT frames.  It is more like IMG with 
> fallback behavior.  If you want to see the future of frames, check out 

  Again, I must disagree. Regardless of the xframes spec, when an author
  can toss two DIVs with associated SRC and STYLE attributes, adding in
  fixed positioning and overflow, onto a page and get what looks like
  frames ... then authors WILL do it.

  I'll wager you a pint of ale. Already, today, we are being asked "how
  can I use CSS to create frames?" and the answer "you can mimic the
  layout, but not the functionality" is not appreciated. In the future
  you can do both - and I'll be positively shocked if that wasn't
  exactly what happens.

  Yes, my view /is/ that we shouldn't provide mechanisms that we can
  reasonably expect will be misused. SRC is such a mechanism. In all
  cases, except for actual object replacement, what SRC do can be better
  done server-side.

  It's a solution looking for a problem. Much kudos to the WG for
  listening to the i18n/accessiblity crowd, but this isn't going to
  improve anything.
  

-- 
 -       Tina Holmboe                           Greytower Technologies
       tina@greytower.net                      http://www.greytower.net
        +46 708 557 905

Received on Saturday, 31 March 2007 16:41:28 UTC