Brian Heinrich wrote:
> On 20 Jul 2002, it is alleged that fantasai sauntered in to
> netscape.public.mozilla.documentation and loudly proclaimed:
>
>> John Keiser wrote:
>>
>>> fantasai wrote:
>>> > But using <b> to do so will not help anyone without a graphical
>>> > browser. At least if you declare your intent--which is to highlight
>>> > the information--someone can write the necessary style rules for
>>> > devices with other capabilities.
>>>
>>> But that's the intent with b and i. Highlighting is presentational.
>>> The fact that non-graphical browsers highlight things differently
>>> just means they have a different presentation.
>>
>>
>> By highlighting, I meant making text stand out. That's not the intent
>> with <b> and <i>. <b> means use bold-face type, <i> means use an italic
>> font. It does not mean "make this stand out". In the HTML spec, they
>> are explicitly associated with changing font style, *not* for attaching
>> semantics. Here's an example:
>>
>> <h1>The Hobbit</h1> <h1>The Hobbit</h1>
>> <b>by J. R. R. Tolkien</b> <strong>by J. R. R.
>> Tolkien</strong>
>>
>> In the first snippet, I have listed the title and the author of a
>> document. The author line is bold. In the second, I have also listed
>> the title and the author of the document, and in Mozilla, it is also
>> bold. But that's just the presentation in Mozilla--in another browser,
>> it could be rendered in italics or in a red font, or in a bigger font,
>> or any number of other formats that make the text stand out. You see,
>> in the second one, the author line is emphasized. If I were to read it
>> aloud to you, I would stress the author line. (Perhaps it's quoting the
>> title page to point out that the author is Tolkien, not C. S. Lewis.)
>> I would not do that with the first snippet because it is not meant to
>> be emphasized. At least, the author hasn't told me to emphasize
>> it--only to make it bold, which as far as I can tell, is just a
>> formatting convention to make it look pretty.
>
>
> Not necessarily. Consider a standard bibliographical entry:
>
> Tolkein, J. R. R. <i>The Hobbit</i>. Place: Publisher, date.
>
> In this case, <i> would be correct, whereas <em> would be incorrect,
> since book titles (as a few other things) are italicised. It's purely
> presentational; no semantic or content-based meaning is implied.
I agree here. There are times when presentational markup is necessary.
But, also this entire bibliographical entry should be in <cite> tags
which is usually rendered in italics anyway. Actually, a markup
language or at least the use of <span> should probably be used here
since italics are the same as underlining in this case. Plus, there is
rarely a difficult time seeing underlines, but there is difficulty
seeing italics. Perhaps it should be:
<cite>Tolkien, J. R. R. <span class="title">The Hobbit</span>. Place:
Publisher, date</cite>
with a style sheet of:
@media "print" {
span.title { font-style: italic }
}
@media "screen" {
span.title { text-decoration: underline }
}
>
> /b.
>
>>> Non-graphical browsers most likely interpret b the same as strong,
>>> and i the same as em.
>>
>>
>> They shouldn't. If some do it's only because most authors are negligent
>> and mapping <b> to <strong> and <i> to <em> is a good enough guess that
>> they find it makes reading pages easier for their clients.
>>
>>> And b is a helluvalot easier to type than strong. Vilify me if you
>>> want for not wanting to type 10 extra characters every time I want to
>>
>>
>>> highlight a sentence ...
>>
>>
>> I'm not going to vilify you for that. I completely understand that
>> typing so many extra characters is a chore--I code by hand too, you
>> know. If you're using a text editor with search & replace, though, is
>> it too much to ask you to run a replacement on <b> and <i>? As the
>> author, you will know when <b> really means <strong> and when it's just
>> there for formatting.
>>
>> ~fantasai
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________
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>
>
> (No, I don't, actually. . . .)
>
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>> http://health.yahoo.com
>
>
--
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