OK OK OK. I get the point and somewhat see the light... I may see it fully in a few days/weeks. I mainly design themes for a CMS. So I should probably adapt and use h tags if not for me then for those who use my themes. I thank you all for the help and tips. One reason I love web design is even when you think you know a fair amount, there is still always so much more to learn...of course so it is with life as well.
One quick question that is somewhat off topic so I apologize in advance. With a theme that I am working on, I am generating images out of my headings using php. I could put the h tag in there and then define the display as none. But will a search engine or non visual device catch this as a heading? I have written crawlers myself and mine would have, but it was a simple crawler. Not sure how the more advanced ones act. Or is there a better way of doing it. Thanks in advance. Sean On 7/15/05, Arlen Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jul 15, 2005, at 3:42 PM, Sean Montgomery wrote: > > > So what is wrong with using divs and spans? To me they are a far > > better container than the others for the reasons stated above. Just > > my 2 cents. > > a) There's nothing "wrong" with it per se. To me they're just a > confusing; they supply no information. It's rather like always using > "x" for a variable name in a program. It's a question of personal > style, at least until more than one person gets involved in the project. > > b) Questions for you to answer for yourself (I don't care myself what > your answers are, they're intended as a self-check so you can > evaluate what you're gaining and losing with your process). > > 1) How do you want search engines to treat your pages? Some of them > assign heavier "weighting" to text inside headers than "ordinary" text. > > 2) How do you want your page design to degrade? By using semantic > tags, page renderers which do not understand CSS properly can still > attempt to interpret the page and format it. > > 3) Will your page ever be "re-purposed" into something else? Proper > semantic markup can help this because it gives a framework for > another application to parse the page. > > 4) Will your work ever be maintained or analysed by someone other > than you? If so, good semantic markup can help them understand what > you're trying to accomplish on the page. It'll make life easier on > those who come after you or beside you. > > Aside from questions like this, there's no real advantage to using > any HTML at all; You could have divs and spans as the sole HTML tags > in the body, and do everything with CSS. For myself, though, I've had > to recode completely too many times. Even if I don't see a future "re- > purposing" of the site content, I'll go with proper semantic markup, > Just In Case. But you're free not to. Just don't expect me to wade > through all the divs and spans trying to figure out what's happening > and why. > > As for the "clean slate" bit, that's easily controlled in the > original design process. If the first step is to properly apply > semantic markup to the content, then you'll immediately see what it > looks like unstyled, and you can move forward from there. At any time > in the process, you can always comment out the CSS (my favorite > technique is to rename the CSS file with a "no" in front of it; it > reminds me that I'm not using it) and review. No muss, no fuss. > > My apologies, this post has strayed away from practical CSS into > design theory. I'll sit down and shut up now. > > Have Fun, > Arlen > > ------------------------------ > In God we trust, all others must supply data > > ______________________________________________________________________ > css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d > List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ > Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ > -- All constants are variables. ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
