In article
<1iwtmle.1qlfwnx1ds6dp3N%real-not-anti-spam->,
real-not-anti-spam- (D.M. Procida) wrote:
> dorayme <> wrote:
>
> > > I think we should disregard the aesthetics - we can change the
> > > presentation any way we like.
> >
> > I was speaking in the context of where author styles were not available.
> > Aesthetics is not about merely pretty. Aesthetics is good when function
> > shines through. And we are talking a particular functional bit of a
> > page, not the whole page.
>
> My point was that we can manage the appearance spearately, so we don't
> need to worry about that here. As for the functional component of the
> aesthetics that can't be dealt with in the styling - well, that's the
> list structure question I was aksing.
>
We cannot manage the the appearance separately in the context of author
styles being off. And it is only in this context that I am talking. I
won't go into it here, but I believe if we *really* could manage the
appearances with author styles, it would not really matter so much how
we marked up, anything to get the appearance needed to communicate with
humans.
> > > If for some reason the user isn't seeing styles, then it could be
> > > because they've chosen that, or because they can't (maybe they're blind)
> > > - either way, they're used to seeing content like that, and more
> > > importantly, the nested list structure gives more clues about the
> > > relationships within its contents.
> > >
> >
> > First, the user *always* sees styles. Don't miss this like troops miss
> > road-side bombs!
> >
> > Where no author styles operate, the vacuum is necessarily immediately
> > filled by a browser supplied set of styles.
>
> Not necessarily. The browser provides information to the user about the
> content via HTML. Sometimes it does this through styles (bold for
> <strong>, big text for headings) but sometimes it simply says "heading
> level one".
>
According to my way of thinking, if a browser causes a voice to say
"Heading level one" and following with the heading content, then that is
a default presentation of that part of the web page. It is a didactic
form of presentation. I believe that HTML markup is only good for its
ability to be a reliable cause of presentation that communicates
information that webpage makers want communicated.
> > I too regard the relationship within content to be important. But the
> > proof is in the pudding and the pudding is not the HTML, it is in the
> > results on the countless devices that humans use.
>
> No, the proof of the pudding is in the *eating*.
>
My phrase is a modern shortened version as befits the wild young modern
thing I am. But I accept the seniority of your version. <g>
> That aside, since humans use countless devices to read HTML, I shouldn't
> try to second-guess them - I should follow the same rules that the
> devices should be following.
>
Under a certain interpretation, I agree wholeheartedly
<http://netweaver.com.au/semantics/whySemanticElements.php>
> Where the rules need interpretion that isn't dead simple, then I still
> think that aiming to understand the rules rather than second-guess the
> browsers is the best policy.
Understanding the rules so that you are practically equipped involves
knowledge of browsers, their defaults, their faults, the likelihood of
device and browser makers understanding what you understand and they
putting into practice these understandings.
>
> > > Your table would be better achieved by using CSS to style the nested
> > > list for you - as long as the author keeps the list at two levels.
> > >
> >
> > Are you saying that better than
> >
> > <http://dorayme.netweaver.com.au/markup3.html>
> >
> > would be to make markup 1 look something similar?
>
> If that's really a list of events, then yes. But not if it's supposed to
> be tabular data.
>
Tables are for displaying lists, from the simplest to the most complex,
and an excellent way to show relationship between list items in
different lists. I use the word "list" in the ordinary English sense of
the word. To use it in an the HTML sense is to beg questions that should
not be begged.
Your original question is enormously interesting to me, Daniele, because
it brings out so many important issues. Thanks for asking it!
I won't bang on here now but I disagree that there is some one "real
structure" of what you wish to communicate. You can see why I favoured
the nested list option. I said why. But it did not include the component
of the one true real structure. I think this is a fantasy of some
website theorists!
I know, I said at the start of my response to your question, "Well, one
thing we can say is that the first markup is simpler than the second in
that it uses one actual element to make do for what the second uses
four. If you are impressed by Ockam's Razor, you will surely use the
first. It elegantly and simply and less disjointedly represents the
structure inherent in what you are saying."
I was talking loosely or, shall we say, without an implication that
there was some one fixed in stone structure. I just meant that you
wanted to let people know when things were on. And I said that I
preferred the first on grounds of simplicity in the one situation we
must always be prepared for, with default styles on. In short, it gets
across what events are on when in a simpler way in this situation.
But there is no inner one abstract structure. If we could rely on author
styles - which we can't rely on - then other markups, such as your
second one or my table example would be fine. At least that is what I am
thinking at the moment. I am happy to consider the matter further and
modify if necessary.
--
dorayme
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