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Re: Semantic markup vs CSS styling for emphasis

for

From: Mark Fletcher
Date: Aug 6, 2003 10:04AM

Hi Jeff,

Please find my reply comments inline.


> I do agree that it would remove the structural meaning of the mark-up.
I'm
> not sure if this would be penalized in anway, i.e. lower ranking in search
> engines.

No, but it could prevent say blind users being able to locate the emphasized
text though, right?
>
> My natural instinct, as has been expressed by others is to use the
> appropriate tags wherever possible and then pretty them up using CSS. I
> can think of a couple of examples where getting a CSS tag to perform a
> function already available in a standard HTML tag could lead to problems
> down the road.

That sounds very interesting, could you possibly expand upon this, that
would really help?
>
> But then again, it all depends on what you're hoping to accomplish, right?

Yes, of course.

I really appreciate you helping me with these questions.

Cheers
Mark

>
>
> On Wed, 6 Aug 2003 16:30:45 +0100, Mark Fletcher <mark-
> <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> > Hi Jeff,
> >
> >> Even if you're using CSS you still have to mark up where your
> >> emphasis/strong begins and ends. It's much simpler to just use the
> >> appropriate tag than to create a class/div/selector. The only time I
> >> can
> >> think of using a CSS solution that doesn't involve <em> or <strong>
> >> would
> >> be if I needed different kinds of emphasis for some reason.
> >
> > Absolutely I could not agree with you more.
> >
> >> Unless I'm totally missing the point of what you're asking (which is
> >> possible... it's only 11:10am... groan....)
> >
> > The main question is would you do this:
> >
> > This is <span class="emphasis">bold<span>
> > emphasis {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-
> > weight:
> > bold;}
> >
> > Or would you do this:
> >
> > This is <strong>bold</strong>
> >
> > strong {font-weight: bold;font-style: normal;}
> >
> > In my mind using the span removes the structural meaning from the mark-
> > up,
> > do you agree with this?
> >
> > Cheers
> > Mark
> >
> >
> > ----
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> > http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jeff Newman
> Librarian, Reference Department
> Robarts Library, University of Toronto
> p: 416.978.1953
> e: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
>
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> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>


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