Although since the beginning I wasn't convinced (that's why I started this thread) about using fieldset/legend for adding structural labels to non-<form> content (particularly, "action" links or "site nav" links), I'm still not convinced by exposed counter arguments against using it.
I wasn't convinced at first because: - fieldset/legends are used in forms to group controls. This is common usage/practice, and even more, it's the usage recommended by the W3C, as some of you already remarked on this thread, .ç - couldn't find any research nor articles in favor or against this practice, particularly, when it concerns to possible issues on accessibility. I wasn't convinced by counter arguments because: - this isn't a CSS/JS issue. In fact, the idea is to have it as structural labels/markup, that will be probably invisible for sighted users. I'm not trying to achieve something fancy, although I have said that fieldset+legend looks fine, and more important, *helpful* for users when CSS is "disabled" (browser default CSS) And also, not convinced because of this other reasoning (hope it's not a fallacy): - if it validates (true) and - if the W3C doesn't explicitly says anything about not using fieldset/legend outside forms (¿true?) then -> it could be used to add semantics or meaning in a new way outside forms. Let me add other real-world examples of using/combining HTML elements/attributes to create new semantics, all well known by us: - ul > li > a = a navigation menu - div + abbr + span + predifined classes = microformats (chunks of HTML with added meaning). As Jason stated above: "<div>s are for separating components/sections of a page and can be semantically very strong, especially when given a meaningful class or id name" Probably, at first, nobody though that by combining an unordered list of items with links could be "seen" as a navigation. In fact, before the Web Standards mindset change, not too many people were doing nav menus that way. And that's probably my point: trying to add new semantics and better accessibility with current HTML elements. Of course, if the fieldset/legend *really* hurts accessibility, print this thread, delete it and burn the printed copy to ashes. @Ted wrote: Go for the header and div. it's semantic and the header gives screen readers > (and Opera) something to navigate with. Probably this is the most common way of doing it. But we all know the problems that arise when using headings: it's pretty hard to establish with level of heading should go for different navigational/secondary content on a page. If we think and rethink a webpage as a document, I really doubt that a navigation menu, or a "skip to" menu, or even the footer deserve a heading. Haven't you ever think that you were mis-using or wasting headings for the sake of semantics? If we take a look to manual/scientific books (a kind of document, probably the "parent" of a web pages), there are sometimes notes or boxes with little complementary content on the margins of the page. Although most of the times, they are marked up as a heading and a little paragraph, I've seen also some of this side notes as fieldset+legend+content. I'm not trying to say that fieldset/legends could be used to mark side notations of an article on webpages. Again, the primary use I can think is about adding structural labels. Hope someone could do further research regarding usability/accessibility, which is what should decide the benefits or cons of this proposed practice and what could lead us to have better common practices with current set of HTML elements. Thanks. On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 7:53 PM, Jason Grant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Julian, > > One more subtle point here (after taking this discussion into the office > with guys that work with me) a point was made today that within DOM > <fieldset> is part of the <form> hence you cannot reference a <fieldset> > through DOM unless it is inside a <form>, so it is definitely a wrong > approach to use it in that way, especially if you want to do fancy > JavaScript stuff with it all. > > Hope this helps. > > Regards, > > Jason > www.flexewebs.com > > On 5/21/08, Thierry Koblentz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> > So, there were a number of sites that began using fieldsets and legends >> outside of forms. >> > You may still find documentation talking about how nice it is to work >> with. Unfortunately, >> > fieldsets and legends are only for forms and you shouldn't use them >> otherwise. I've actually >> > been dealing with this recently in the zemanta firefox plugin. This >> inserts a fieldset with >> > a list of links for adding related content to blog posts. I logged a bug >> and they'll fix it >> > in a future release. But it just goes to show this is a commonly misused >> pattern. >> >> >> People were also using fieldsets simply because they contain floats >> >> >> >> -- >> Regards, >> Thierry | http://www.TJKDesign.com >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> ******************************************************************* >> 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] > ******************************************************************* > ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
