[WSG] Semantics and small
Hey list, We have two elements, EM and STRONG, to emphasise text as being more important than the text around it, but we don't seem to have any elements to show that text is less important than the surrounding text. What is the best way to show something is less important than the surrounding information (e.g. the date of a post or article, supplementary information at the bottom of a post or article)? It seems to me the only tag that represents anything remotely close to that is the small tag, however that is a purely presentational tag according to the W3C specifications as it only specifies font information. While style sheets and, for example the SPAN element, are definitely a better way of specifying the font information that the SMALL element would provide, they don't provide any semantic information to indicate that the text is less important. What do you guys think about showing that something is less important relative to the surrounding content? Regards, Blake *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
What about small/small sub/sub Subscript lower than the text sup/sup Superscript higher than the text, maybe just a number linked to a date in the page footer Or in a stylesheet make a class of smaller text. Tim On 16/05/2007, at 9:04 PM, Blake Haswell wrote: Hey list, We have two elements, EM and STRONG, to emphasise text as being more important than the text around it, but we don't seem to have any elements to show that text is less important than the surrounding text. What is the best way to show something is less important than the surrounding information (e.g. the date of a post or article, supplementary information at the bottom of a post or article)? It seems to me the only tag that represents anything remotely close to that is the small tag, however that is a purely presentational tag according to the W3C specifications as it only specifies font information. While style sheets and, for example the SPAN element, are definitely a better way of specifying the font information that the SMALL element would provide, they don't provide any semantic information to indicate that the text is less important. What do you guys think about showing that something is less important relative to the surrounding content? Regards, Blake *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** The Editor Heretic Press http://www.hereticpress.com Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
Hi Blake, Garret Dimmon used small for the purpose you are suggesting in his site redesign. He explains his reasoning behind it in this article on digital web (http://www.digital-web.com/articles/coding_for_content/). It's down to personal preference but I think the reasoning is pretty good. Regards, Andrew Ingram Hey list, We have two elements, EM and STRONG, to emphasise text as being more important than the text around it, but we don't seem to have any elements to show that text is less important than the surrounding text. What is the best way to show something is less important than the surrounding information (e.g. the date of a post or article, supplementary information at the bottom of a post or article)? It seems to me the only tag that represents anything remotely close to that is the small tag, however that is a purely presentational tag according to the W3C specifications as it only specifies font information. While style sheets and, for example the SPAN element, are definitely a better way of specifying the font information that the SMALL element would provide, they don't provide any semantic information to indicate that the text is less important. What do you guys think about showing that something is less important relative to the surrounding content? Regards, Blake *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] Semantics and small
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim sub/sub Subscript lower than the text sup/sup Superscript higher than the text, maybe just a number linked to a date in the page footer Or in a stylesheet make a class of smaller text. Those three examples are all presentational. P Patrick H. Lauke Web Editor External Relations Division University of Salford Room 113, Faraday House Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT UK T +44 (0) 161 295 4779 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.salford.ac.uk A GREATER MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] Semantics and small
From: Jixor - Stephen I: To me small would imply of less importance, like a side note. if you just want text to be smaller for design purposes it shouldn't be in a small ... well since the specification says exactly the opposite of that ... 'Renders text in a small font.' -- http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/present/graphics.html#h-15.2.1 -- David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/ http://blog.dorward.me.uk/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
In light of current events, the only proper use of small in my mind is this one: smallNicolas Sarkozy/small ;) On May 16, 2007, at 4:11 PM, David Dorward wrote: From: Jixor - Stephen I: To me small would imply of less importance, like a side note. if you just want text to be smaller for design purposes it shouldn't be in a small ... well since the specification says exactly the opposite of that ... 'Renders text in a small font.' -- http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/present/graphics.html#h-15.2.1 -- David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/ http://blog.dorward.me.uk/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** Joost de Valk @: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.joostdevalk.nl/ B: http://www.joostdevalk.nl/blog/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
Jixor - Stephen I wrote: To me small would imply of less importance, like a side note. if you just want text to be smaller for design purposes it shouldn't be in a small would that imply big is more important? -- Andrew Cunningham Research and Development Coordinator Vicnet, Public Libraries and Communications State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston Street Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia andrewc+AEA-vicnet.net.au Ph. 3-8664-7430 Fax: 3-9639-2175 http://www.openroad.net.au/ http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***begin:vcard fn:Andrew Cunningham n:Cunningham;Andrew org:State Library of Victoria;Vicnet adr:;;328 Swanston Street;Melbourne;VIC;3000;Australia email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Research and Development Coordinator tel;work:+61-3-8664-7430 tel;fax:+61-3-9639-2175 tel;cell:0421-450-816 note;quoted-printable:Current projects:=0D=0A= =0D=0A= Open Road=E2=80=94http://www.openroad.net.au/=0D=0A= =0D=0A= MyLanguage=E2=80=94http://www.mylanguage.gov.au/=0D=0A= =0D=0A= WoVG Multilingual portal research project=E2=80=94http://www.mylanguage.v= ic.gov.au/wovgdemo/ x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://home.vicnet.net.au/~andrewc/ version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
Andrew Cunningham wrote: Jixor - Stephen I wrote: To me small would imply of less importance, like a side note. if you just want text to be smaller for design purposes it shouldn't be in a small would that imply big is more important? big and small are both presentational in the HTML 4.1 spec. For important stuff, there are the semantic alternatives (em and strong), so those should be used. For less important, there currently isn't an alternative, so small (albeit presentational) may be the only option ... or just going for a span, which is semantically just as meaningless. HTML5, rather than defining a new semantic equivalent, endows small with semantics post-facto (as they've done with a few other such instances). Not saying that I agree with that, and not saying that this should influence the choice to make *today* using HTML 4.1 (or XHTML 1.x). P -- Patrick H. Lauke __ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __ Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __ Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team http://streetteam.webstandards.org/ __ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
What is the best way to show something is less important than the surrounding information (e.g. the date of a post or article, supplementary information at the bottom of a post or article)? Really there's no element other than small which comes close to helping out here; otherwise it really is just a case of using CSS and that's not adding semantics, just style. In typical western communication, people do refer to fine print for supplementary information. The implication of small text is often that it has to be there but nobody expects you to read it. In actual fact the small text is often extremely important but full of legal mumbling that the average reader won't understand anyway. I wouldn't expect that same implication for the date of a post though. So in my culture at least, small sort of does what you want. But I have no idea at all if the smaller text paradigm translates in the slightest for other cultures. So it's just a tad weak, semantically speaking :) HTML5 does add semantics for small but again the semantics described do not work for the date. -Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
Patrick H. Lauke wrote: For less important, there currently isn't an alternative, so small (albeit presentational) may be the only option ... or just going for a span, which is semantically just as meaningless. FWIW, I use the small element on my blog, on my latest WordPress theme, and for Accessites [1] -- all use the same theme. On the home page the small element contains the tag line, and it contains the article/page title on inside pages. Like so: h1span/spanAccessites.org smallbr /The Art of Accessibility/small/h1How correct or semantically pure this method is I do not know. I am comfortable with it is all. The span is meaningless, but does happen to contain the [replacement] image over the still accessible text, the small break is a pause and conveniently breaks the line into two lines, then displays the secondary text that is in a way visually better -- without styles, that is, as it's not seen if styles are enabled. Moreover, I don't think it's in any way damaging doing it this way, and it's not bad for feeding search engines. This is the only time I will use h1 on any page. Next up is h2. I also use small to contain author credit line and other bits of less important content. Again, this is a practice I feel comfortable with. I'm not saying it is the right way. There are many methods as have been explored here. This one just happens to be mine. Cheers. Mike Cherim [1] http://accessites.org/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
We have strong, we should have weak :) On 5/17/07, Ben Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What is the best way to show something is less important than the surrounding information (e.g. the date of a post or article, supplementary information at the bottom of a post or article)? Really there's no element other than small which comes close to helping out here; otherwise it really is just a case of using CSS and that's not adding semantics, just style. In typical western communication, people do refer to fine print for supplementary information. The implication of small text is often that it has to be there but nobody expects you to read it. In actual fact the small text is often extremely important but full of legal mumbling that the average reader won't understand anyway. I wouldn't expect that same implication for the date of a post though. So in my culture at least, small sort of does what you want. But I have no idea at all if the smaller text paradigm translates in the slightest for other cultures. So it's just a tad weak, semantically speaking :) HTML5 does add semantics for small but again the semantics described do not work for the date. -Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] Semantics and small
inside pages. Like so: h1span/spanAccessites.org smallbr /The Art of Accessibility/small/h1How correct or semantically pure this method is I do not know. I am comfortable with it is all. The span is meaningless, but does happen to contain the [replacement] image over the still accessible text, the small break is a pause and conveniently breaks the line into two lines, then displays the secondary text that is in a way visually better -- without styles, that is, as it's not seen if styles are enabled. Moreover, I don't think it's in any way Hi Mike, I like your use of small in there. I usually go with a span, but as you say this is visually much better in case there is no styles support. --- Regards, Thierry | www.TJKDesign.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
At 5/16/2007 04:04 AM, Blake Haswell wrote: We have two elements, EM and STRONG, to emphasise text as being more important than the text around it, but we don't seem to have any elements to show that text is less important than the surrounding text. What is the best way to show something is less important than the surrounding information (e.g. the date of a post or article, supplementary information at the bottom of a post or article)? Side-stepping your markup problem for a moment, I'd like to question your premise. In the HTML 4 spec[1], EM and STRONG are characterized as emphasis and stronger emphasis respectively. There's no mention of importance per se. At the risk of splitting hairs -- well, hey, let's split hairs; that's the nature of this work -- I don't read the spec as assigning relative importance values to content at all. In the expression pNo, it traveled emsideways/em in time!/p the adverb is not any more emimportant/em than the other words in the sentence, it's merely ememphasized/em as a way of differentiating one among several possibilities. Specific to your situation, I question whether an article's date or its supplementary text is really best characterized as being less important than the article itself. That doesn't strike me as a useful semantic distinction. In the absence of markup elements date and supplement, you may be left without a semantically direct way of specifying your auxiliary content in today's HTML. Personally I don't think small fits the bill. [1] HTML 4.01 Specification 9 Text 9.2.1 Phrase elements: EM, STRONG, DFN, CODE, SAMP, KBD, VAR, CITE, ABBR, and ACRONYM http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#h-9.2.1 Regards, Paul __ Paul Novitski Juniper Webcraft Ltd. http://juniperwebcraft.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
We have strong, we should have weak Many a true word said in jest :) Trying to add semantics to small is driven by history rather than good semantics. Small text is a presentational result of de-emphasising text. We have: normal text emphasised text strongly emphasised text Maybe we should have de-em and de-strong to complete the set :) I also wonder why small gets a guernsey in HTML5 but not big (the only reference to big seems to be with regards to error handling - http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#formatting). Big text is often a way to indicate a lead/intro paragraph. It's not a heading, it's not em/strong; it's a whole section which is just slightly more important than the rest. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
Ben Buchanan wrote: So in my culture at least, small sort of does what you want. But I have no idea at all if the smaller text paradigm translates in the slightest for other cultures. So it's just a tad weak, semantically speaking :) it doesn't. And for some writing scripts, unless the end user has changed their browser preferences, small may end up being difficult to read at best or at worst illegible. Although the issue with using the small element would be whether the size of text is a way of de-emphasising something or whether its purely a presentational style. I suspect the tradition of typesetting of fine print owes more to trying to fit long legal text into a fixed or limited space (and maybe making it less readable, if you want to be suspicious) that to a systematic method of differentiating it from other text. From my perspective the small element is not semantic. It is purely presentational. To make small semantic would mean that you'd have to divorce the semantic function from the presentational function (size of text) for web internationalization purposes. Forcing certain typographic traditions on all languages is a bad approach. I have enough trouble with people assuming emphasised text is always visually rendered in an italic typeface, and that strongly emphasised text is always visually rendered in a bold weight, without throwing in small into the mix. Andrew -- Andrew Cunningham Research and Development Coordinator Vicnet, Public Libraries and Communications State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston Street Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia andrewc+AEA-vicnet.net.au Ph. 3-8664-7430 Fax: 3-9639-2175 http://www.openroad.net.au/ http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***begin:vcard fn:Andrew Cunningham n:Cunningham;Andrew org:State Library of Victoria;Vicnet adr:;;328 Swanston Street;Melbourne;VIC;3000;Australia email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Research and Development Coordinator tel;work:+61-3-8664-7430 tel;fax:+61-3-9639-2175 tel;cell:0421-450-816 note;quoted-printable:Current projects:=0D=0A= =0D=0A= Open Road=E2=80=94http://www.openroad.net.au/=0D=0A= =0D=0A= MyLanguage=E2=80=94http://www.mylanguage.gov.au/=0D=0A= =0D=0A= WoVG Multilingual portal research project=E2=80=94http://www.mylanguage.v= ic.gov.au/wovgdemo/ x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://home.vicnet.net.au/~andrewc/ version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
Patrick H. Lauke wrote: Andrew Cunningham wrote: Jixor - Stephen I wrote: To me small would imply of less importance, like a side note. if you just want text to be smaller for design purposes it shouldn't be in a small would that imply big is more important? big and small are both presentational in the HTML 4.1 spec. For important stuff, there are the semantic alternatives (em and strong), so those should be used. For less important, there currently isn't an alternative, so small (albeit presentational) may be the only option ... or just going for a span, which is semantically just as meaningless. I was being rhetorical, although on the other hand you raise an interesting issue. HTML5, rather than defining a new semantic equivalent, endows small with semantics post-facto (as they've done with a few other such instances). Not saying that I agree with that, and not saying that this should influence the choice to make *today* using HTML 4.1 (or XHTML 1.x). I suspect that small would only be semantic markup in some languages in some instances, and more generally speaking its purely presentational (at least from an i18n perspective). Andrew -- Andrew Cunningham Research and Development Coordinator Vicnet, Public Libraries and Communications State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston Street Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia andrewc+AEA-vicnet.net.au Ph. 3-8664-7430 Fax: 3-9639-2175 http://www.openroad.net.au/ http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***begin:vcard fn:Andrew Cunningham n:Cunningham;Andrew org:State Library of Victoria;Vicnet adr:;;328 Swanston Street;Melbourne;VIC;3000;Australia email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Research and Development Coordinator tel;work:+61-3-8664-7430 tel;fax:+61-3-9639-2175 tel;cell:0421-450-816 note;quoted-printable:Current projects:=0D=0A= =0D=0A= Open Road=E2=80=94http://www.openroad.net.au/=0D=0A= =0D=0A= MyLanguage=E2=80=94http://www.mylanguage.gov.au/=0D=0A= =0D=0A= WoVG Multilingual portal research project=E2=80=94http://www.mylanguage.v= ic.gov.au/wovgdemo/ x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://home.vicnet.net.au/~andrewc/ version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
Specific to your situation, I question whether an article's date or its supplementary text is really best characterized as being less important than the article itself. That doesn't strike me as a useful semantic distinction. In the absence of markup elements date and supplement, you may be left without a semantically direct way of specifying your auxiliary content in today's HTML. Personally I don't think small fits the bill. My example of article date or supplementary information at the end of an article was just one which I had to think of on the spot. Perhaps citations, footnotes, references, etc. make better examples of the type of thing I'm thinking of. The use of small has been something I've had in the back of my mind for a while and there are a number of situations where I feel some information should possibly be marked up as supplementary information that is in support of, but not directly part of, an article. -- Australian Web Designer - http://www.blakehaswell.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
