Re: Questions on the Origin of BLOCKQUOTE

Sean B. Palmer schreef:
> What I'm trying to understand is how BLOCKQUOTE came to be included,
> partially in order to better understand why and how it should be used
> now.
A blockquote adds semantic value to the document.
> For example, one could easily have eschewed BLOCKQUOTE in favour
> of usual typographical conventions:
>
> <p>“First quoted paragraph.</p>
> <p>“Second quoted paragraph.”</p>
>   
Actually, it is a typographical convention to distinguish a block quote 
from the surrounding text by variation in typeface (italic versus roman, 
serif versus sans-serif), type size, or by indentation. This is easily 
realized with the use of an extra container element.
> An argument against this now is that BLOCKQUOTE gives you independence
> of styling. Independence of styling was, however, not an option in
> late 1992 when CSS was yet to be invented.
But then the default rendering already included special margins (that 
you mention later on). This is also a convention in typesetting, and 
impossible to pull off without the use of images, tables or css.

Greetings,


ACJ

Received on Saturday, 2 May 2009 16:26:38 UTC