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Re: HTML5 and new elements (was Re: Use of SAMP to highlight search results)

for

From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Oct 29, 2010 7:39AM

Jukka, in theory, is it really necessary for user agents to render these various tags in different ways, or would it be enough in some instances to simply recognize the tags and be able to find them on request?

I'm thinking, for example, of when italics are used for the titles books or other references. For another example, consider the use of italics for taxonomic classifications in biology. In either case, the visual styling is not so much to make the terms stand apart from the words around them as to make them easy to locate on skimming.

After all, it wouldn't be particularly useful to a person using a screen reader to hear some unique vocal characteristic each time a title or taxonomic term is mentioned. In fact, I'd find it distracting to hear a change in pitch or tone with each E. coli or The Taming of the Shrew. What would be useful is to find the next taxonomic term, so I could quickly get to the part where the author finally mentions E. coli or hear a list of titles so I could quickly discover which works are mentioned in an essay titled "The Essential Comedies of Shakespeare."

It seems that a user agent could meet that need by simply recognizing the tags (and, in this case, unique attributes) and then locating or listing tagged terms on request.

-Cliff

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

>The _good old_ specification is HTML 2.0, which says:

>"User agents must render highlighted phrases distinctly from plain text.
>Additionally, EM content must be rendered as distinct from STRONG content,
>and B content must rendered as distinct from I content."
>http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_5.html#SEC5.7


Cliff Tyllick
Web development coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512/239-4516
<EMAIL REMOVED>