Re: HTML 5 conformance: table border obsolete?

Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@målform.no>, 2014-02-06 03:10 +0100:

> Michael[tm] Smith, Thu, 6 Feb 2014 08:37:38 +0900:
> > Guus Schreiber <guus.schreiber@vu.nl>, 2014-02-05 23:00 +0100:
> > 
> >> Some time early this year the validator has started to give an error
> >> message when encountering:
> >> 
> >>   <table border="1">.
> > 
> > You should specify the table border display properties using CSS instead.
> > 
> > The table@border attribute is legacy presentational markup:
> 
> Mike, you are not answering the question. 

You're right, sorry.

As I understand it, you're probably suggesting I should try to answer the
question of why, in the particular document that the OP cited, using legacy
table@border=1 markup for presentational purposes is a better choice than
following the normal longstanding recommended best practice of just using a
couple lines of CSS to achieve the same presentational effect -

  table { border-style: outset; border-width: 1px; border-spacing: 2px; }
  table td { border-style: inset; border-width: 1px; }

Problem is, in looking at the particular document the OP cited, I don't see
any reason why he couldn't or shouldn't be using CSS instead. Can you?

I admit I may be missing something. So can you elaborate on why, for the
particular document the OP cited -- in which to me at least it seems the OP
clearly has no special restrictions preventing him from using CSS instead
of table@border=1 -- he shouldn't choose to add a couple lines of CSS?

The reason the Nu Markup Checker emits a message for table@border=1 is to
make authors aware that their markup may run counter to best practice, and
so help authors make an informed choice for what to do about it. If we don't
emit any message, then we're not making the author aware of the potential
problem in the doc, and not helping them to make an informed choice.

Or do you disagree? Should we not be trying to help the author make an
informed choice here? Are you saying that for authors who want table
borders and can easily add them using CSS (to go along with the normal
best-practice guidelines that all the experts have recommended for many
years now), they should always just be using table@border=1 instead?

> The answer is that @border is conforming in HTML5 and that the validator
> has a bug if it does not allow it. There was a change proposal process to
> have @border added back into the spec, and the CP prevailed.

OK, understood. As far as that goes, could you please take a minute to file
a bug report?

  https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/enter_bug.cgi?product=Nu%20Markup%20Checker

And it would be nice if that bug report also included rationale that helped
answer some of the questions I asked above (say, just copy/pasted in from
your response to this message).

  --Mike

-- 
Michael[tm] Smith http://people.w3.org/mike

Received on Thursday, 6 February 2014 10:09:47 UTC