Re: several messages about New Vocabularies in text/html

On Apr 2, 2008, at 17:38, Simon Pieters wrote:
> If there are a non-trivial amount of pages that have HTML elements  
> in <math> or <svg> (not nested in <foreignObject>/<annotation-xml>),  
> then wouldn't it be possible to special-case HTML elements in <math>/ 
> <svg> and let the rest be handled as "unknown" elements in the  
> MathML/SVG namespaces (so that, e.g., <math><foo><b> is interpreted  
> as <mml:math><mml:foo><html:b>)?

I think this suggestion should address the compat concerns for <math>  
that Hixie mentioned on IRC. Moreover, if even this doesn't work, I  
find it very hard to come up with anything with better backwards  
compat properties.

The existing content landscape for <svg> may be very different from  
random junk in <math> out there, since cargo-cult semanticists may  
come up with <math> own but <svg> is more unlikely to occur without  
trying to do SVG. So while scope plus HTML blacklist may be the best  
option for MathML subtrees, scope plus camelCase-fixing whitelist may  
be the most robust solution for SVG subtrees.

Finally, breaking a handful of legacy pages isn't yet a "fatal" flaw.

> Also, on a slightly different note, I think that for copy- 
> pastability of SVG in text/html, the parser needs to make /> self- 
> close elements, since e.g. <circle> can have contents (e.g.  
> animation stuff, I think) and Sam Ruby said that some tools emit  
> <defs/> and <g/>. [2]

Indeed. I think supporting "/>" in SVG subtrees is a must. MathML  
subtrees probably, too. I don't expect drastic compat problems, since  
tree differences shouldn't propagate too far with subsequent end tags  
taking care of things.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Wednesday, 2 April 2008 15:20:11 UTC