I am reading: "Contexts in which this element can be used: As the first child of a details<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/interactive-elements.html#the-details-element>element." My feeling is that unconnected DOM elements in a script are not really an HTML document but only its building blocks (bricks). Therefore, any parent-child relationship required by the spec does not apply until the fragments are connected together to form an HTML document to be interpreted (rendered) by a user agent. Therefore, if "if any" applies to fragments only and not to complete documents, then I feel, it should not be present in the spec.
The problem is that if we add "if any", allowing no parent, then we should also define what <summary> means if there is no parent. In short: "if any" should not be added if it is only meant to allow an element to be represented separately as DOM in a script, because, if I understand correctly, such representation is allowed for any HTML element. -- S5sz On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 10:10 PM, Ian Hickson <i...@hixie.ch> wrote: > On Tue, 20 Sep 2011, Bruce Lawson wrote: > > > > Fair dames and damsels of the list > > > > Consider > > > http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/interactive-elements.html#the-summary-element > : > > "The summary element represents a summary, caption, or legend for the > rest of > > the contents of the summary element's parent details element, if any." > > > > I read "if any" to mean there may or may not be "a summary, caption or > > legend". > > > > However, a questioner to HTML5 Doctor believes that <summary> can be used > > outside <details>, reading "if any" to sugest that there may not be a > > "summary element's parent details element". > > > > (She wants to use <summary> at the top of an article to summarise its > > contents, because the ambiguous prose I quote suggests that a parent > details > > element is optional). > > It means that there might not be a <details> parent. The only way this > could happen in a conformance situation is if the <legend> didn't have a > parent at all, which is only possible in unconnected DOM fragments in > script. > > > > Can we remove this ambiguity? "The summary element represents an > > optional summary, caption, or legend for the rest of the contents of the > > summary element's parent details element" would work. > > The summary isn't optional (<summary> is a required child of <details>). > > The "if any" style is used all over the spec; I'm not sure how to make it > clearer without dramatically increasing the verbosity, which I would like > to do to avoid drawing attention to aspects of the spec that are of > relatively little practical importance. For example, replacing it with "if > the element has such a parent" changes this minor point from a two-word > side note to a whole sentence fragment taking a quarter of the sentence. > > Anyone have any suggestions? > > -- > Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL > http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. > Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' >