Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
At 11:24 +0100 on 02/17/2014, Peter H. wrote about Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be so: It's also true that the browser by default draws an italic font for 'emphasis' and a bold font for 'strong' so the result is equally presentational. Dunno why they couldn't have left it well alone, stuck with 'i' and 'b' and not created another can of worms. The use of em and strong in lieu of i and b is aimed NOT at the visual presentation (ignoring screwing with the em-i and strong-b mappings via CSS) but at AUDIO (ie: Screen Reader) presentation. This way you can markup the text so the audio indicates the markup to these who listen as opposed to view the text. Of course, the text-to-speech mapping could in theory treat i the same way as it treats em, but that is a separate issue. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Robert A. Rosenberg wrote: The use of em and strong in lieu of i and b is aimed NOT at the visual presentation (ignoring screwing with the em-i and strong-b mappings via CSS) but at AUDIO (ie: Screen Reader) presentation. I would respectfully disagree. Whereas b and i were targetted specifically at visual rendering (since they denote bold and italic, which are not inherently meaningful for other media), em and strong are targetted at /all/ forms of rendering, since emphasised and strongly emphasised are media-neutral. They do, of course, work well with audio renderers but equally well with visual renderers. This is, I believe, an important point, because if it is not stressed, those writing for purely visual media may still perceive no need to use em and strong; it would have the unfortunate effect of relegating them to second-class citizens in the markup world, whereas in fact it is i and b (and their ilk) that need to be relegated, then deprecated, and finally forgotten. Of course, the text-to-speech mapping could in theory treat i the same way as it treats em, Yes, it /could/; but it would be guessing in the dark. There is no way to know whether an author who wrote iFelix domesticusi or iτέλος/i intended them to be emphasised or not from the markup alone. Philip Taylor __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Something worth reading: http://html5doctor.com/i-b-em-strong-element/ i — was italic, now for text in an “alternate voice”, such as transliterated foreign words, technical terms, and typographically italicized text (W3C:Markup, WHATWG) b — was bold, now for “stylistically offset” text, such as keywords and typographically emboldened text (W3C:Markup, WHATWG) em — was emphasis, now for stress emphasis, i.e., something you’d pronounce differently (W3C:Markup, WHATWG) strong — was for stronger emphasis, now for strong importance, basically the same thing (stronger emphasis or importance is now indicated by nesting) (W3C:Markup, WHATWG) Greg -Original Message- From: css-d-boun...@lists.css-discuss.org [mailto:css-d-boun...@lists.css-discuss.org] On Behalf Of Philip Taylor Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:02 PM To: Robert A. Rosenberg Cc: CSS-Discuss Discuss Subject: Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out? Robert A. Rosenberg wrote: The use of em and strong in lieu of i and b is aimed NOT at the visual presentation (ignoring screwing with the em-i and strong-b mappings via CSS) but at AUDIO (ie: Screen Reader) presentation. I would respectfully disagree. Whereas b and i were targetted specifically at visual rendering (since they denote bold and italic, which are not inherently meaningful for other media), em and strong are targetted at /all/ forms of rendering, since emphasised and strongly emphasised are media-neutral. They do, of course, work well with audio renderers but equally well with visual renderers. This is, I believe, an important point, because if it is not stressed, those writing for purely visual media may still perceive no need to use em and strong; it would have the unfortunate effect of relegating them to second-class citizens in the markup world, whereas in fact it is i and b (and their ilk) that need to be relegated, then deprecated, and finally forgotten. Of course, the text-to-speech mapping could in theory treat i the same way as it treats em, Yes, it /could/; but it would be guessing in the dark. There is no way to know whether an author who wrote iFelix domesticusi or iτέλος/i intended them to be emphasised or not from the markup alone. Philip Taylor __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
feb 16 2014 23:49 Andrew Cunningham lang.supp...@gmail.com: The problem with b and i is that HTML5 gives them semantic meaning but they also have inherent styling. How is that different from any semantical element? Of I use these elements in a multilingual envirnonment, then for some languages I would need to change weight or style to normal, then use styling appropriate to the language. I’m afraid I don’t follow why is this a problem? This would be easier without using those elements in your markup? __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
is span any more semantic that b, i, em, or strong ? On scanning it seems there were responses but none with respect to the spec, which is usually very helpful: span (as well as div) have literally no meaning—“[t]he span element doesn't mean anything on its own” [1], “[t]he div element has no special meaning at all” [2]. [1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html#the-span-element [2] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/grouping-content.html#the-div-element -- Jens O. Meiert http://meiert.com/en/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
On Feb 16, 2014, at 4:49 PM, Andrew Cunningham lang.supp...@gmail.com wrote: The problem with b and i is that HTML5 gives them semantic meaning but they also have inherent styling. Of I use these elements in a multilingual envirnonment, then for some languages I would need to change weight or style to normal, then use styling appropriate to the language. Andrew So would it be safe to say you could normalize your b and i's and then class them? b class=bold/b and i class=italic/i Then when you hit an old browser the b and i will be presentational in their originally intended way as a fall back? Bootstrap does something similar to this I believe with their ui icons. Karl DeSaulniers Design Drumm http://designdrumm.com __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
I've always had a problem understanding why em and strong are supposedly more semantic than i and b. Italics don't necessarily indicate emphasis and bold doesn't necessarily indicate importance. Often they're nods to traditional comprehension of things or to the organisation of a text so as to aid understanding. In fact, if you ask me, the instinctive, natural distinction between 'emphasis' and 'strong' is fuzzy, despite html5's attempt to define it. On the other hand, if i plainly means 'italic', and results in an italic font being displayed, then that to me is straightforward and unambiguous and no messing about. When I read it I can understand it however I prefer and according to the context. Same goes for 'bold'. Of course if you style i in the css to produce a different, non-italic style then, yes, that's very unsemantic. But seeing as i and b will be legit for the foreseeable future I'll prefer them over em and strong. They're quicker to key, too. Peter H. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Peter H. wrote: I've always had a problem understanding why em and strong are supposedly more semantic than i and b. Because em means emphasised and strong means strongly emphasised (semantic, saying nothing about how they will be rendered) whilst i means set in italics and b means set in bold (presentational, focussing solely on presentation and saying nothing whatsoever about semantics). There is nothing supposedly about it; the older tags addressed presentation, the more modern ones address semantics. Philip Taylor __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
El 17/02/2014, a las 11:01, Philip Taylor escribió: Peter H. wrote: I've always had a problem understanding why em and strong are supposedly more semantic than i and b. Because em means emphasised and strong means strongly emphasised (semantic, saying nothing about how they will be rendered) whilst i means set in italics and b means set in bold (presentational, focussing solely on presentation and saying nothing whatsoever about semantics). There is nothing supposedly about it; the older tags addressed presentation, the more modern ones address semantics. Philip Taylor What you say is evidently true, but my point is that there are many cases where you want to distinguish words within a text without necessarily implying emphasis. It's also true that the browser by default draws an italic font for 'emphasis' and a bold font for 'strong' so the result is equally presentational. Dunno why they couldn't have left it well alone, stuck with 'i' and 'b' and not created another can of worms. Peter __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
While bikeshedding around 'how semantic' people feel any given element to be is a great laugh (although definitely off-topic for this list), I would highly recommend the HTML specification for insight into the purpose of any HTML element, especially when confusion arises over the possibility of using other elements in its stead. The 'Text-level semantics' page would seem to be incredibly pertinent to this conversation. From the section describing the em element: The em element isn't a generic italics element. Sometimes, text is intended to stand out from the rest of the paragraph, as if it was in a different mood or voice. For this, the i element is more appropriate. The em element also isn't intended to convey importance; for that purpose, the strong element is more appropriate. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
El 17/02/2014, a las 11:29, Barney Carroll escribió: While bikeshedding around 'how semantic' people feel any given element to be is a great laugh (although definitely off-topic for this list), I would highly recommend the HTML specification for insight into the purpose of any HTML element, especially when confusion arises over the possibility of using other elements in its stead. The 'Text-level semantics' page would seem to be incredibly pertinent to this conversation. From the section describing the em element: The em element isn't a generic italics element. Sometimes, text is intended to stand out from the rest of the paragraph, as if it was in a different mood or voice. For this, the i element is more appropriate. The em element also isn't intended to convey importance; for that purpose, the strong element is more appropriate. Thanks Barney, that's a useful extract. Because browsers draw em as italic I'd always assumed it was just a new fangled complication. But it seems as though it wouldn't be bad practice at all to restyle em in the css as one thinks appropriate to the concept of emphasis. I had to go to wikipedia for 'bikeshedding'. Must be my age. Peter __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Barney Carroll wrote (probably citing one of the finite-but-unbounded number of HTML 5 draft specifications) : The em element isn't a generic italics element. Correct. It has no connection with italics at all other than a historical one. Sometimes, text isintended to stand out from the rest of the paragraph, as if it was in a different mood or voice. For this, the i element is more appropriate. Yes, if you want it to appear in italics; if you don't, don't use i The em element also isn't intended to convey importance; for that purpose, the strong element is more appropriate. Oh, so I want to emphasise something does not mean that I consider that something important ? What a completely load of tosh. Sometimes I wonder which planet the authors of this nonsense came from. Philip Taylor __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
It must be remembered that the presentation layer is optional, and CSS isn't always available. It might be due to a server error or timeout (i experience that on maybe 1% of page loads), or, as HTML rendering capability extends to ever-smaller devices, a physical limitation. span has no default presentation. So I tend to use it only in situations where it doesn't matter if presentation is lost. But if the differentiation of such text matters, it makes sense to use markup that will differentiate it regardless of the availability of CSS. In most cases this is em or strong, often with a class to classify it semantically. But if I want to use a binomial name, where emphasis is not intended but italic rendering is desirable, then there is a case for i class=binomialbeta vulgaris/i. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Ya'll, I hate to be rude, but isn't markup debates a little OT for CSS-d? http://css-discuss.incutio.com/wiki/Off_Topic __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
17 feb 2014 kl. 18:35 skrev Richard Grevers richard.grev...@gmail.com: But if the differentiation of such text matters, it makes sense to use markup that will differentiate it regardless of the availability of CSS. A valid point. In most cases this is em or strong, often with a class to classify it semantically. Widely used classification schemes may have semantical value, but hardly if it’s the developers' classifications only. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
feb 17 2014 18:51 Micky Hulse mickyhulse.li...@gmail.com: Ya'll, I hate to be rude, but isn't markup debates a little OT for CSS-d? Actually it is indeed OT, except for where it ties in directly with CSS. References to external discussions on the topic are not OT, IMHO. So good point. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
2014-02-17 19:35, Richard Grevers wrote:
It must be remembered that the presentation layer is optional, and CSS
isn't always available. It might be due to a server error or timeout (i
experience that on maybe 1% of page loads), or, as HTML rendering
capability extends to ever-smaller devices, a physical limitation.
Or some of the other CSS Caveats may apply, see
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/css-caveats.html
span has no default presentation. So I tend to use it only in situations
where it doesn't matter if presentation is lost.
That's my approach too, but many people disagree.
I hope this mostly quite off-topic discussion ends, but I'd like to
summarize what I see as directly CSS related in the topic discussed:
Most HTML elements that can be used inside the body element have some
default rendering, which is largely (though not completely) describable
in CSS, and is being described in HTML5. We cannot always be sure of the
effect, though; there are browser differences.
When designing the use of CSS, the default rendering needs to be taken
into account. There are many approaches. One of them is extensive use of
span (which has no default impact on rendering) and div (which has
no other default impact than display: block), usually with class or id
attributes. Another approach is to use some of the CSS Resets (which
cannot remove all default rendering). In these approaches, the author
then writes explicit rules for all the rendering he wants. In a sense,
this resembles CSS styling of XML documents: you build up all the rendering.
A third approach uses elements with default rendering and considers the
implications, by overriding what needs to be overridden. You might also
explicitly set what you expect to be default rendering (such as b {
font-weight: bold }) if that's what you want, on the grounds that in
some browsing situations it might not be the browser default.
In all approaches, b is really not different from strong at all, for
example. Theoretically, they could have different default renderings,
but I haven't seen any evidence of such things actually happening. So
whatever you might think of b vs. strong or i vs. em vs. cite
etc., it's really not relevant to CSS.
Yucca
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Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
This talk of deprecation is ludicrous! It's one thing to urge use of CSS for new web pages, but quite another to want to forbid the use of older, so-called 'deprecated' facilities. It's also silly to expect authors to comb through all of their older pages to eliminate everything that is not currently advocated by the numerous gurus. Is this deprecation nonsense known outside of the PC-world? Bruce [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Outside of client-side web tech, technologies will often remove support for old features that are deemed redundant because keeping them in just means a legacy of technical debt, more to learn and room for confusion and error. XHTML was an attempt to apply this philosophy to the web. According to the XHTML specification, browsers that wanted to use XHTML 1.1 functionality needed an XHTML doctype, and features outside the XHTML specification should cause fatal errors. Of course, no-one implemented this because it would penalise users for authors' mistakes. This is known as 'breaking the web'. Much better for the browser's uptake if they try their best to render the content as it was likely intended. It's from this perspective that keeping support for these old features must be seen: ultimately implementation is down to the browser, and if another browser is going to keep these features but you aren't, that browser will have better compatibility than yours. On Sunday, 16 February 2014, bruce.som...@web.de wrote: This talk of deprecation is ludicrous! It's one thing to urge use of CSS for new web pages, but quite another to want to forbid the use of older, so-called 'deprecated' facilities. It's also silly to expect authors to comb through all of their older pages to eliminate everything that is not currently advocated by the numerous gurus. Is this deprecation nonsense known outside of the PC-world? Bruce [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org javascript:;] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ -- Regards, Barney Carroll barney.carr...@gmail.com +44 7429 177278 barneycarroll.com __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent All these elements are still around [1-4] in the canonical HTML spec [5]. Their meanings have changed slightly, making them less presentational than in the past. That they still bear presentational names, however, tends to cause confusion. I advise to use these elements only when absolutely certain that they’re used in the spirit of the spec, but to otherwise, as always, keep far, far away from any presentational markup. [1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html#the-i-element [2] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html#the-b-element [3] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html#the-u-element [4] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html#the-s-element [5] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/ -- Jens O. Meiert http://meiert.com/en/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
is span any more semantic that b, i, em, or strong ? I am not a CSS wizard (yet) but I love that span is available, and I use it instead of the others, which are basically inline styles, the greater sin, are they not? I do not visualize how items within, say, divs, can be differentiated, when need be, without span __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Jens O. Meiert wrote: All these elements are still around [1-4] in the canonical HTML spec [5]. Their meanings have changed slightly, making them less presentational than in the past. I would respectfully disagree. Their meanings have not changed one iota; the fact that the draft specification defines them to mean something other than what they have traditionally meant is just political correctness gone mad; they mean what they have always meant, and no amount of tampering with the prose in a draft specification can have any perceivable effect on that meaning whatsoever. In an HTML 5 document, the meaning has to be inferred from whatever version of the draft specification happens to be flavour of the month; for all extant HTML 4.01 and earlier documents, the meaning of i, b, s and u is exactly what it has always been and exactly what it will always be in the future. Philip Taylor __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
All these elements are still around [1-4] in the canonical HTML spec [5]. Their meanings have changed slightly, making them less presentational than in the past. I would respectfully disagree. Their meanings have not changed one iota; I think this is letter vs. spirit of the spec. The letter has changed, but the spirit… may indeed have not. When it comes to the letter, just compare the wording for e.g. i: HTML 4.01 said “[r]enders as italic text style” [1], HTML 5 “represents a span of text in an alternate voice or mood.” I shouldn’t have said “making them less presentational than in the past” I guess, as that suggest things were clear now in terms of these elements serving a well-defined purpose. [1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html#the-i-element -- Jens O. Meiert http://meiert.com/en/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
This is such a joy! Thank you all for such a lively exchange. First off, my memory betrayed me: it turns out the S and U elements *were* deprecated in HTML 4.01 [1], but they managed to make a comeback in HTML 5. This puzzles me even further, if that is even possible. I get lost with the demarcation put forth between emphasis and importance when it applies to EM vs. STRONG (subjective vs. objective?), stacked on top of this notion of changing mood while not conveying emphasis for I, while utilitarianly drawing attention without granting importance for B... I guess semantics is a rather intractable goal after all. But it gives mild comfort to find out that even the regulating bodies flip flop (e.g., STRONG used to be a 2nd-level EM, but now EMs ought to be nested, etc.). I realize amid all this flux most browsers are understandably likely to support all these one-letter elements for many years. Thanks again for all the replies. Cheers, Ezequiel [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/index/elements.html __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
2014-02-16 20:52, John Johnson skrev: is span any more semantic that b, i, em, or strong ? I am not a CSS wizard (yet) but I love that span is available, and I use it instead of the others, which are basically inline styles, the greater sin, are they not? I do not visualize how items within, say, divs, can be differentiated, when need be, without span Surely em and strong are not presentational but semantic? They don't say render this so-and-so but this is important and this is even more important/very important. It's not their semantics' fault that all browsers/people render them as italics and bold respectively; they could in principle be rendered in any two ways which make them stand out from ordinary text. To me it smacks of self decception that people use strongemfoo/em/strong when they really think bold italics. There should rather be a stronger element! I make a point of using em or strong with different classes showing the reason for the emphasis. If OTOH I just need something to hang a lang attribute on I use span -- in fact I use span as a peg for purely presentational stuff like font changes more than anything else, but even those tend to be varieties of emphasis anyway. I see now that the spec says stress emphasis which sounds tautological and if taken literally would be presentational markup for a phonetic feature -- voice renderers beware -- but then they should by rights introduce a stress element and promptly deprecate it as presentational! :-) Why single out just one kind of emphasis? But hey I'm probably deceiving myself just wanting a resonable fallback rendering as italics anyway; it's questionable whether it's natural for people to think of semantics decoupled from how it's signalled, but now I'm just a former linguist splitting semantic hairs, I'm afraid. I daresay I know more about semantics than those spec writers! /bpj __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Is the best (or better) practice to A) reduce markup and B) leverage the power of CSS which is to write once/apply many? it seems we all agree that bold and italic do have important meaning, as they have had in print for approximately 600 years. It also seems that the semantic markup of HTML5 is limited to entire divs, for example, and doesn’t speak to the individual word or words which are a subset of the divs..unless those words are in their own divs, rather than contained within others so tagged with proper semantic markup. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
It also seems that the semantic markup of HTML5 is limited to entire divs, for example, and doesn't speak to the individual word or words which are a subset of the divs..unless those words are in their own divs, rather than contained within others so tagged with proper semantic markup. I'm afraid I misunderstand you here, John: semantic markup of HTML5 is limited to entire divs,; this might not be farther from the truth. A div is a very abstract way to markup content and there is most likely a better way to do it in every case - p, ul, blockquote, etc, etc. I honestly think I'm missing the point here, as I don't see how a span of text could be marked up with span class=keywordkeyword/span and it even be considered to be more semantic than bkeyword/b. Tags should indicate what the content is, schema can be used to expand upon that, and classes should be used to style - not to indicate meaning except in the case of helping other developers understand the markup. -- Chris Rockwell __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
The problem with b and i is that HTML5 gives them semantic meaning but they also have inherent styling. Of I use these elements in a multilingual envirnonment, then for some languages I would need to change weight or style to normal, then use styling appropriate to the language. Andrew On 17/02/2014 9:32 AM, Chris Rockwell ch...@chrisrockwell.com wrote: It also seems that the semantic markup of HTML5 is limited to entire divs, for example, and doesn't speak to the individual word or words which are a subset of the divs..unless those words are in their own divs, rather than contained within others so tagged with proper semantic markup. I'm afraid I misunderstand you here, John: semantic markup of HTML5 is limited to entire divs,; this might not be farther from the truth. A div is a very abstract way to markup content and there is most likely a better way to do it in every case - p, ul, blockquote, etc, etc. I honestly think I'm missing the point here, as I don't see how a span of text could be marked up with span class=keywordkeyword/span and it even be considered to be more semantic than bkeyword/b. Tags should indicate what the content is, schema can be used to expand upon that, and classes should be used to style - not to indicate meaning except in the case of helping other developers understand the markup. -- Chris Rockwell __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
On Feb 16, 2014, at 2:32 PM, Chris Rockwell ch...@chrisrockwell.com wrote: I'm afraid I misunderstand you here, John: semantic markup of HTML5 is limited to entire divs,; this might not be farther from the truth. A div is a very abstract way to markup content and there is most likely a better way to do it in every case - p, ul, blockquote, etc, etc. What I mean is that the semantic markup in HTML5 deals with the large chunk as opposed to the specific word or couple of words.. Section, Article, H tags..whereas span allows the author to drill down to the specific within those chunks..even as small as 1 letter or 1 bit of punctuation. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
[css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Greetings to all, I know this is highly subjective question, but am curious as to what people think about this issue. Allow me to put forth a few questions, and you can pick all of any of them. When the WHATWG describes the I element as a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, and the B element as a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes, I'm puzzled... wouldn't this be the role of a special class for the SPAN element? I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent to keep these two one-letter elements around. And, going back to my main question, do you believe these two elements will be deprecated soon? Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the matter. Best regards, Ezequiel __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Interesting question. Much as I personally dislike them, web-app editors like tinyMCE and FCK rely on tags like b and i and font color=whatever I don't see why those programs couldn't be re-written to use span style=label:value;. But it would cause some developers to jump around quickly. On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Ezequiel Garzón garzon.luc...@gmail.comwrote: Greetings to all, I know this is highly subjective question, but am curious as to what people think about this issue. Allow me to put forth a few questions, and you can pick all of any of them. When the WHATWG describes the I element as a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, and the B element as a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes, I'm puzzled... wouldn't this be the role of a special class for the SPAN element? I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent to keep these two one-letter elements around. And, going back to my main question, do you believe these two elements will be deprecated soon? Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the matter. Best regards, Ezequiel __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ -- /* Colin (Sandy) Pittendrigh --oO0 */ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
I agree with Colin...I don't like them either. But, they do remain in HTML5 http://html5doctor.com/i-b-em-strong-element/ Eric On February 15, 2014 at 5:47 PM Ezequiel Garzón garzon.luc...@gmail.com wrote: Greetings to all, I know this is highly subjective question, but am curious as to what people think about this issue. Allow me to put forth a few questions, and you can pick all of any of them. When the WHATWG describes the I element as a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, and the B element as a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes, I'm puzzled... wouldn't this be the role of a special class for the SPAN element? I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent to keep these two one-letter elements around. And, going back to my main question, do you believe these two elements will be deprecated soon? Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the matter. Best regards, Ezequiel __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Don't forget that while W3C may (or may not) decide that B and I are no longer appropriate to keep in the standards, user-agents that maintain compatibility with older standards will continue to work. The elimination of a tag will be a slow process, if it can ever be completed at all; all that promulgation of new standards does is define current best practices, and user-agents that conform to them /without/ continuing to support older practices (I am not aware of /any/ user-agents that actually do this) can do no more than encourage (not mandate) that page editors (both human and software) use the new standards. I happen to favor reducing the use of presentational (as opposed to semantic) tags; the separation of semantics (HTML) from presentation (CSS) made sense to me from the first. The process is an evolving one, though, and sometimes it may not be easy to decide whether a tag should be considered presentational or semantic, or there may be times that it actually makes more sense to keep a presentational tag. Remember, in some parts of the world, IE6 is still a way of life... On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 16:45:34 -0700, Colin (Sandy) Pittendrigh sandy.pittendr...@gmail.com wrote: Interesting question. Much as I personally dislike them, web-app editors like tinyMCE and FCK rely on tags like b and i and font color=whatever I don't see why those programs couldn't be re-written to use span style=label:value;. But it would cause some developers to jump around quickly. On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Ezequiel Garzón garzon.luc...@gmail.comwrote: Greetings to all, I know this is highly subjective question, but am curious as to what people think about this issue. Allow me to put forth a few questions, and you can pick all of any of them. When the WHATWG describes the I element as a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, and the B element as a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes, I'm puzzled... wouldn't this be the role of a special class for the SPAN element? I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent to keep these two one-letter elements around. And, going back to my main question, do you believe these two elements will be deprecated soon? Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the matter. Best regards, Ezequiel __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ -- /* Colin (Sandy) Pittendrigh --oO0 */ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ -- Jeff Zeitlin, Editor Freelance Traveller The Electronic Fan-Supported Traveller® Fanzine and Resource edi...@freelancetraveller.com http://www.freelancetraveller.com http://come.to/freelancetraveller http://freelancetraveller.downport.com/ ®Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises, 1977-2009. Use of the trademark in this notice and in the referenced materials is not intended to infringe or devalue the trademark. Freelance Traveller extends its thanks to the following enterprises for hosting services: CyberNET Web Hosting (http://www.cyberwebhosting.net) The Traveller Downport (http://www.downport.com) __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
On 2/15/14, 4:40 PM, Eric wrote: I agree with Colin...I don't like them either. But, they do remain in HTML5 http://html5doctor.com/i-b-em-strong-element/ Eric On February 15, 2014 at 5:47 PM Ezequiel Garzón garzon.luc...@gmail.com wrote: Greetings to all, I know this is highly subjective question, but am curious as to what people think about this issue. Allow me to put forth a few questions, and you can pick all of any of them. When the WHATWG describes the I element as a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, and the B element as a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes, I'm puzzled... wouldn't this be the role of a special class for the SPAN element? I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent to keep these two one-letter elements around. And, going back to my main question, do you believe these two elements will be deprecated soon? Speaking for myself, I find the i element particularly useful for marking up words or phrases that are in a different language from surrounding text. An example might be: p ... as well as i lang=lavice versa/i./p Of course, for a language such as Japanese, where italic makes no sense, I'd likely prefer to use a span lang=ja instead. -- Cordially, David __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
Le 16 févr. 2014 à 07:47, Ezequiel Garzón garzon.luc...@gmail.com a écrit : I know this is highly subjective question, but am curious as to what people think about this issue. Allow me to put forth a few questions, and you can pick all of any of them. When the WHATWG describes the I element as a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, and the B element as a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes, I'm puzzled... wouldn't this be the role of a special class for the SPAN element? I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent to keep these two one-letter elements around. And, going back to my main question, do you believe these two elements will be deprecated soon? Where do you see that U and S are deprecated? So far, both are still part of the html5 spec, W3C or WHATWG versions. Just as with B and I, their usage is not really recommended though – in most situations. http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/CR/text-level-semantics.html#the-u-element http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/CR/text-level-semantics.html#the-s-element The spec notes one use case for U: marking up Chinese names in formal language (those are –traditionally– supposed to be underlined). To keep this slightly more on topic: sure you can mark this up with a span class=formal-chinese-names and style as needed (underlined). But suppose the text ‘travels’ and get copy-pasted into another site, including the markup, or the text is picked up by a crawler and displayed elsewhere, either a general purpose one (search-engine) or specialised one. Philippe -- Philippe Wittenbergh http://l-c-n.com __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
The way I read the documentation (which could be incorrectly), there is no reason for them to be deprecated as they (i, b, em, strong, etc.) all serve their own semantic purpose. Side note: thank you for bringing up this question, as I don't think I would have read the documentation on these elements otherwise! If we weren't worried about accessibility (how screen readers convey our pages to users, for example) then, arguably, we could wrap everything in span's and div's, because the only reason for any type of enclosures would be stylistic. I know there is a huge, and possibly correct, SEO argument against this, but more and more I'm feeling like properly structured content doesn't play as large a role in SEO as it once did (and for good reason, in my opinion). I try to put out semantic markup because I believe it helps those that don't view content the way I do, view the content. From that perspective, I see those elements as being useful. Just my two cents. On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 5:47 PM, Ezequiel Garzón garzon.luc...@gmail.comwrote: Greetings to all, I know this is highly subjective question, but am curious as to what people think about this issue. Allow me to put forth a few questions, and you can pick all of any of them. When the WHATWG describes the I element as a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, and the B element as a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes, I'm puzzled... wouldn't this be the role of a special class for the SPAN element? I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent to keep these two one-letter elements around. And, going back to my main question, do you believe these two elements will be deprecated soon? Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the matter. Best regards, Ezequiel __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ -- Chris Rockwell __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Will the unsemantic HTML elements B and I be soon phased out?
I'll also add, this may be better suited for wha...@lists.whatwg.org On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 5:47 PM, Ezequiel Garzón garzon.luc...@gmail.comwrote: Greetings to all, I know this is highly subjective question, but am curious as to what people think about this issue. Allow me to put forth a few questions, and you can pick all of any of them. When the WHATWG describes the I element as a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, and the B element as a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes, I'm puzzled... wouldn't this be the role of a special class for the SPAN element? I'm actually glad I and B are survivors, but seeing that U and S have been deprecated, it doesn't seem very consistent to keep these two one-letter elements around. And, going back to my main question, do you believe these two elements will be deprecated soon? Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the matter. Best regards, Ezequiel __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ -- Chris Rockwell __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
