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Re: Proposed: a TN tag to join TH and TD?

for

From: Duff Johnson
Date: Jun 13, 2013 10:43AM

>> Here's the screen-shot I sent in the previous mail on this subject:
>>
>> http://duff-johnson.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/TN-cell-example.png
>
> It has a meeting schedule, with starting times in one column, topics in
> another. A fairly simple normal table….

<snip>

> Now that I come to think of it, tables often contain such headings.

Exactly my point - and thus, the significance of the question.

> So this would be a candidate for the need for new markup. But I'm nor
> sure how important it would be in practice.

Well, if these tables are pretty common - and they are - then at least it's "an issue."

The next question is: how "bad" is the problem, in terms of understanding such tables with AT as they may be constructed today (empty THs and TDs)?

> Anyway, if you want added
> markup, I would still recommend trying a new attribute rather than new
> element.

I take this point - and the backwards compatibility argument is powerful as well.

> A structural definition might be something like the following, assuming
> we propose a new attribute:
>
> The boolean attribute dummy in a td element indicates that the cell
> exists only to satisfy the structural requirements on a table in HTML.
> The content of the cell should be ignored, and it is normally empty.
> A <td dummy> element is normally used when other cells in a row
> contain row headers for the table as a whole or part thereof.
> Common examples include the very first cell of a table where the first
> row and the first column otherwise contain column and row headers
> as well as a row that acts as a heading for some subsequent rows
> so that the heading primarily relates to one column in those rows
> and therefore all but one cells in that row are "dummy cells".

Thanks for this - I'll bring it to the appropriate table.

So… back to my question… what's the history on this subject (if any) in the HTML world?

Duff.