RE: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
implement a toolbar as an ul and each button as an li. Not sure who originally thought up this idea; but I came across it in HTML Utopia: Designing without Tables using CSS - which is a book I can recommend if you are looking for step-by-step examples of webpage design/layout with CSS. Martijn C. Vos [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2006/08/10 04:36 PM Geert Josten [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my opinion you are underestimating the usefulness of the semantics associated with these structural HTML elements, and are throwing away *too much* information in the pipeline. Surely there's no advantage to throwing away that information, is there? Just to add my 2 cents.. ;-) By using headings, paragraphs, etc, instead of div and span for everything, you give search engines the opportunity to distinguish them and give more importance to headings over paragraph text. That, and it's more readable without CSS, and with older or non-graphical browsers (like lynx). A great idea I recently came across was to implement a toolbar as an ul and each button as an li. Makes sense, becuase it's basically a list of similar items. The only difference is in presentation, and that's what CSS is for. Unfortunately the designs I get don't always work this way. mcv. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- This message is subject to the CSIR's copyright, terms and conditions and e-mail legal notice. Views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the CSIR. CSIR E-mail Legal Notice http://mail.csir.co.za/CSIR_eMail_Legal_Notice.html CSIR Copyright, Terms and Conditions http://mail.csir.co.za/CSIR_Copyright.html For electronic copies of the CSIR Copyright, Terms and Conditions and the CSIR Legal Notice send a blank message with REQUEST LEGAL in the subject line to [EMAIL PROTECTED] This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
I recommend the Listamatic page by Russ Weakley at Max Design http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/ I also recommend his book, CSS in 10 minutes. You can listen to an interview with him here: http://www.ida.liu.se/~HDISX4/podradio/openradio_en.htm Regards Hans On 8/11/06, Derek Hohls [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: implement a toolbar as an ul and each button as an li. Not sure who originally thought up this idea; but I came across it in HTML Utopia: Designing without Tables using CSS - which is a book I can recommend if you are looking for step-by-step examples of webpage design/layout with CSS. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
Geert Josten [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my opinion you are underestimating the usefulness of the semantics associated with these structural HTML elements, and are throwing away *too much* information in the pipeline. Surely there's no advantage to throwing away that information, is there? Just to add my 2 cents.. ;-) By using headings, paragraphs, etc, instead of div and span for everything, you give search engines the opportunity to distinguish them and give more importance to headings over paragraph text. That, and it's more readable without CSS, and with older or non-graphical browsers (like lynx). A great idea I recently came across was to implement a toolbar as an ul and each button as an li. Makes sense, becuase it's basically a list of similar items. The only difference is in presentation, and that's what CSS is for. Unfortunately the designs I get don't always work this way. mcv. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
On Aug 7, 2006, at 8:45 AM, Jason Johnston wrote: div class=normalParaPaloose is a simplified (much simplified) version of ... /div Argh! This is a particular pet peeve of mine. HTML provides the p element specifically for marking up paragraphs. By using a div you've removed any semantic meaning from the markup! +1 :-) —ml— - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
We must agree to differ - a pet peeve of mine is that people use HTML as a data structure language rather than as a page mark up language (cf TeX) :-) . HTML has absolutely nothing to do with data structuring - it (with CSS) only determines what goes where on a page. We are trying to use a language which is neither XML (structural) or PostScript (true page mark up) which is why it needs XML and CSS. The problem is that while HTML undoubtedly has some structural information such as paras, headings, lists etc., these are about the only ones it has. It also mixes in pure style constructs such as italic (which tell you nothing about the structure and why they are italic).To be really useful we need to have extra structural tags in the HTML such as author, date, version, footnote, inline note, citation ... - the list is obviously not insubstantial depending on the structure you are representing. Since HTML is not extendable (that was why XML was done) we have a problem. Not until XML + sensible style sheets are used instead of HTML will there be a solution that satisfies both of us.This is why Cocoon is so important - it is all a question of information flow (or some might say, entropy). I can take too much information (in XML) and deliver it in a variety of formats (HTML, PDF etc) by losing information that I do not want. But I cannot go the other way around. For example start with HTML or PDF and produce XML that is the structure that the author intended. Although by clever use of classes etc. you might end up with sufficient XML granularity to achieve this, butI believe that this is against the spirit of the whole thing.So, the question is, does it matter about divs and spans? I believe not because I would not dream of taking HTML and try and do something useful with it (screen scrapping for example) other than displaying it on a browser. If required to interpret the data it is best to deliver it in a form that is amenable to this: raw or processed XML.btw I did look at Firefox output with no style and it looked fine. I agree you could not see the headings (they looked like paras) but it certainly was not unreadable. I would totally agree with you if I had used positional information for the flow, rather than simple vertical stacking. Previous sites that I used Cocoon for always had a facility to output the data for a variety of browsers including Lynx which is styleless.Ultimately it is all a question of how you view HTML. There probably is no "correct" answer to this (cf the big-endian, little-endian holy wars of processor and bus design in the 1980s). Let us hope that XML comes sooner rather than later to the Web. My opinion is that since we are using HTML as page markup it does not really matter using divs and spans, because we get very little other benefit from using p and h1 etc. However it is not something I would stake my life on. It is all a m,atter of personal preference I guess.Thanks for the appreciation of the software though.- HughOn 7 Aug 2006, at 16:45, Jason Johnston wrote: t:pPaloose is a simplified (much simplified) version of ... /t:pThere is nothing here that indicates the final look (obviously). Therelevant template xsl:template match="t:p" mode="inline-text" xsl:element name="div" xsl:attribute name="class"normalPara/xsl:attribute xsl:apply-templates mode="inline-text"/ /xsl:element /xsl:template translates this into a simple HTML div div class="normalPara"Paloose is a simplified (much simplified)version of ... /div Argh! This is a particular pet peeve of mine. HTML provides the pelement specifically for marking up paragraphs. By using a div you'veremoved any semantic meaning from the markup! It might as well not beHTML at all. You can apply the same CSS styles to any HTML element, sowhy not use something that carries a well-known semantic meaning that canbe interpreted equally well by non-visual means, and that has a usefuldefault styling for when your CSS isn't applied? Same goes for headings:h1, h2, etc. are much more appropriate than divs with special classes.I always find it a good exercise when building a site to view it withoutany CSS applied (in Firefox: View-Page Style-No Style), and if I canstill clearly see the structure of the page's content (heading hierarchy,paragraphs, lists, etc.) then it's good. If on the other hand all theparagraphs and headings run together without any visual clues to theirmeaning (as happens with the Paloose site!) then I've probably got somework to do.Sorry to get off-topic, just hate to see div and span over-used inplace of perfectly good semantic HTML.Nice software though! I look forward to giving it a try. :-)--Jason-To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] =Dr H.S. Field-RichardsMIEE MIEEE CEng BSc PhD[EMAIL PROTECTED]www.hopvine-music.com
Re: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
I don't think we disagree on most of your points. I've never suggested that HTML can or should be able to mark up any and all types of structures; as you rightly point out that is the job of various XML vocabularies. And granted there are stylistic elements that have crept into HTML over time (mostly due to the lack of stylesheets in the early days), which I'm of course not recommending you use. HTML is, however, good at marking up the basic content structures you identified: headings, paragraphs, lists etc. And of course its greatest strength is that it is widely understood by all types of user agents. So since you *are* using HTML after all, is there any harm in using the vocabulary it provides that will allow your content to be widely understood? That way when a blind user comes across your site and their screen reader encounters a h2 element it can present it to the user in a meaningful way, or perhaps a user agent can automatically generate an outline of the document by inspecting the heading levels. All sorts of possibilities that a document made entirely of meaningless div elements does not provide. In my opinion you are underestimating the usefulness of the semantics associated with these structural HTML elements, and are throwing away *too much* information in the pipeline. Surely there's no advantage to throwing away that information, is there? Anyway, gotta get off my soapbox and back to work. ;-) I won't spend more time on this thread. --Jason We must agree to differ - a pet peeve of mine is that people use HTML as a data structure language rather than as a page mark up language (cf TeX) :-) . HTML has absolutely nothing to do with data structuring - it (with CSS) only determines what goes where on a page. We are trying to use a language which is neither XML (structural) or PostScript (true page mark up) which is why it needs XML and CSS. The problem is that while HTML undoubtedly has some structural information such as paras, headings, lists etc., these are about the only ones it has. It also mixes in pure style constructs such as italic (which tell you nothing about the structure and why they are italic). To be really useful we need to have extra structural tags in the HTML such as author, date, version, footnote, inline note, citation ... - the list is obviously not insubstantial depending on the structure you are representing. Since HTML is not extendable (that was why XML was done) we have a problem. Not until XML + sensible style sheets are used instead of HTML will there be a solution that satisfies both of us. This is why Cocoon is so important - it is all a question of information flow (or some might say, entropy). I can take too much information (in XML) and deliver it in a variety of formats (HTML, PDF etc) by losing information that I do not want. But I cannot go the other way around. For example start with HTML or PDF and produce XML that is the structure that the author intended. Although by clever use of classes etc. you might end up with sufficient XML granularity to achieve this, butI believe that this is against the spirit of the whole thing. So, the question is, does it matter about divs and spans? I believe not because I would not dream of taking HTML and try and do something useful with it (screen scrapping for example) other than displaying it on a browser. If required to interpret the data it is best to deliver it in a form that is amenable to this: raw or processed XML. btw I did look at Firefox output with no style and it looked fine. I agree you could not see the headings (they looked like paras) but it certainly was not unreadable. I would totally agree with you if I had used positional information for the flow, rather than simple vertical stacking. Previous sites that I used Cocoon for always had a facility to output the data for a variety of browsers including Lynx which is styleless. Ultimately it is all a question of how you view HTML. There probably is no correct answer to this (cf the big-endian, little-endian holy wars of processor and bus design in the 1980s). Let us hope that XML comes sooner rather than later to the Web. My opinion is that since we are using HTML as page markup it does not really matter using divs and spans, because we get very little other benefit from using p and h1 etc. However it is not something I would stake my life on. It is all a m,atter of personal preference I guess. Thanks for the appreciation of the software though. - Hugh On 7 Aug 2006, at 16:45, Jason Johnston wrote: t:pPaloose is a simplified (much simplified) version of ... /t:p There is nothing here that indicates the final look (obviously). The relevant template xsl:template match=t:p mode=inline-text xsl:element name=div xsl:attribute name=classnormalPara/xsl:attribute xsl:apply-templates mode=inline-text/ /xsl:element /xsl:template
Re: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
I think we are probably having a heated agreement on this one. Point taken - as I said I am not going to lay down my life on this one. I can easily change my generated HTML and probably will after due thought :-)Hugh On 7 Aug 2006, at 18:39, Jason Johnston wrote:I don't think we disagree on most of your points. I've never suggestedthat HTML can or should be able to mark up any and all types ofstructures; as you rightly point out that is the job of various XMLvocabularies. And granted there are stylistic elements that have creptinto HTML over time (mostly due to the lack of stylesheets in the earlydays), which I'm of course not recommending you use.HTML is, however, good at marking up the basic content structures youidentified: headings, paragraphs, lists etc. And of course its greateststrength is that it is widely understood by all types of user agents. Sosince you *are* using HTML after all, is there any harm in using thevocabulary it provides that will allow your content to be widelyunderstood? That way when a blind user comes across your site and theirscreen reader encounters a h2 element it can "present" it to the user ina meaningful way, or perhaps a user agent can automatically generate anoutline of the document by inspecting the heading levels. All sorts ofpossibilities that a document made entirely of meaningless div elementsdoes not provide.In my opinion you are underestimating the usefulness of the semanticsassociated with these structural HTML elements, and are throwing away *toomuch* information in the pipeline. Surely there's no advantage tothrowing away that information, is there?Anyway, gotta get off my soapbox and back to work. ;-) I won't spend moretime on this thread.--Jason We must agree to differ - a pet peeve of mine is that people use HTMLas a data structure language rather than as a page mark up language(cf TeX) :-) . HTML has absolutely nothing to do with datastructuring - it (with CSS) only determines what goes where on apage. We are trying to use a language which is neither XML(structural) or PostScript (true page mark up) which is why it needsXML and CSS.The problem is that while HTML undoubtedly has some structuralinformation such as paras, headings, lists etc., these are about theonly ones it has. It also mixes in pure style constructs such asitalic (which tell you nothing about the structure and why they areitalic).To be really useful we need to have extra structural tags in the HTMLsuch as author, date, version, footnote, inline note, citation ... -the list is obviously not insubstantial depending on the structureyou are representing. Since HTML is not extendable (that was why XMLwas done) we have a problem. Not until XML + sensible style sheetsare used instead of HTML will there be a solution that satisfies bothof us.This is why Cocoon is so important - it is all a question ofinformation flow (or some might say, entropy). I can take too muchinformation (in XML) and deliver it in a variety of formats (HTML,PDF etc) by losing information that I do not want. But I cannot gothe other way around. For example start with HTML or PDF and produceXML that is the structure that the author intended. Although byclever use of classes etc. you might end up with sufficient XMLgranularity to achieve this, butI believe that this is against thespirit of the whole thing.So, the question is, does it matter about divs and spans? I believenot because I would not dream of taking HTML and try and do somethinguseful with it (screen scrapping for example) other than displayingit on a browser. If required to interpret the data it is best todeliver it in a form that is amenable to this: raw or processed XML.btw I did look at Firefox output with no style and it looked fine. Iagree you could not see the headings (they looked like paras) but itcertainly was not unreadable. I would totally agree with you if I hadused positional information for the flow, rather than simple verticalstacking. Previous sites that I used Cocoon for always had a facilityto output the data for a variety of browsers including Lynx which isstyleless.Ultimately it is all a question of how you view HTML. There probablyis no "correct" answer to this (cf the big-endian, little-endian holywars of processor and bus design in the 1980s). Let us hope that XMLcomes sooner rather than later to the Web. My opinion is that sincewe are using HTML as page markup it does not really matter using divsand spans, because we get very little other benefit from using pand h1 etc. However it is not something I would stake my life on.It is all a m,atter of personal preference I guess.Thanks for the appreciation of the software though.- HughOn 7 Aug 2006, at 16:45, Jason Johnston wrote: t:pPaloose is a simplified (much simplified) version of ... /t:pThere is nothing here that indicates the final look (obviously). Therelevant template xsl:template match="t:p" mode="inline-text" xsl:element name="div" xsl:attribute
Re: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
I think we are probably having a heated agreement on this one. Point taken - as I said I am not going to lay down my life on this one. I can easily change my generated HTML and probably will after due thought :-) I apologize, I didn't think it was very heated! But glad that it's an agreement. :-) - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
No need to apologise - just a figure of speech :-)But it is a very interesting thought all of this and good to hear.On 7 Aug 2006, at 19:23, Jason Johnston wrote:I think we are probably having a heated agreement on this one. Pointtaken - as I said I am not going to lay down my life on this one. Ican easily change my generated HTML and probably will after duethought :-) I apologize, I didn't think it was very heated! But glad that it's an"agreement". :-)-To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] =Dr H.S. Field-RichardsMIEE MIEEE CEng BSc PhD[EMAIL PROTECTED]www.hopvine-music.com
RE: [OT] Abuse of div and span (was: Cocoon written in PHP)
In my opinion you are underestimating the usefulness of the semantics associated with these structural HTML elements, and are throwing away *too much* information in the pipeline. Surely there's no advantage to throwing away that information, is there? Just to add my 2 cents.. ;-) By using headings, paragraphs, etc, instead of div and span for everything, you give search engines the opportunity to distinguish them and give more importance to headings over paragraph text. :-) Kind regards, Geert Drs. G.P.H. Josten Consultant Daidalos BV Source of Innovation Hoekeindsehof 1-4 2665 JZ Bleiswijk Tel.: +31 (0) 10 850 1200 Fax: +31 (0) 10 850 1199 www.daidalos.nl KvK 27164984 De informatie - verzonden in of met dit emailbericht - is afkomstig van Daidalos BV en is uitsluitend bestemd voor de geadresseerde. Indien u dit bericht onbedoeld hebt ontvangen, verzoeken wij u het te verwijderen. Aan dit bericht kunnen geen rechten worden ontleend. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
