Comments on: HTML: The Top 5 Forgotten Elements

By: ResearchWizard

ResearchWizard — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:04:15 +0000

Regarding acronyms and abbrehevations and brothercake’s comment: there are two definitions in the wild (both mentioned in the German Wikipedia, but not in the English one) :
Acronyms could also be defined as read(able) alone as a whole word (like NATO), while abbrehevations always are spoken letter by letter (like U.S.A.). In technical sense the usage of this distinction could make it easier for screenreaders to have the correct articulation without having a long list of words that have to be spoken letter by letter. Well, I think this point is pretty irrelevant as long as most webcontent doesn’t provide any of this tags at all.

By: TMAN001

TMAN001 — Wed, 09 May 2007 00:23:08 +0000

Problem seems to be fixed now. No unusual setup. Cheers.

By: AlexW

AlexW — Mon, 07 May 2007 23:59:36 +0000

People,
What’s with the layout of this page. It’s unreadable on PC/IE6 unless you make your browser approx 2000 pixels wide (which on my machine means across 2 monitors). Any less than this and the LHS of the article text is cropped.

For shame. This isn’t aol.com, it’s sitepoint.

It looks ok on my machine, but I’ll take your word for it, TMAN001. Is there anything unusual about your IE setup? — javascript disabled perhaps?

By: TMAN001

TMAN001 — Mon, 07 May 2007 23:49:40 +0000

People,
What’s with the layout of this page. It’s unreadable on PC/IE6 unless you make your browser approx 2000 pixels wide (which on my machine means across 2 monitors). Any less than this and the LHS of the article text is cropped.

For shame. This isn’t aol.com, it’s sitepoint.

By: espmartin

espmartin — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:38:13 +0000

Hurray for semantics!

By: AutisticCuckoo

AutisticCuckoo — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:36:41 +0000

As presented above, the semantic value of is somewhat limited. Its value can be easily increased with the addition of a title attribute containing a brief definition.

That is not necessary, since dfn marks up the defining instance of the term, which should be accompanied by the definition in plain text. It is just a typographic convention, with little semantic value. It does not mark up a 'definition'.

By: mep00

mep00 — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 09:03:36 +0000

As presented above, the semantic value of is somewhat limited. Its value can be easily increased with the addition of a title attribute containing a brief definition. It’s in this way that it really sets itself apart from the

. Where the definition in a

is proper content, with a he definition is meta-content (somewhat like a parenthetical definition).

The use of a title attribute is also recommended for and .

Since most browsers display the title attribute as a tool tip, by adding an underline (or better yet, a dotted bottom border so as not to confuse it with a link) and help cursor in CSS, you draw the users attention to it and increase its value even more.

By: AutisticCuckoo

AutisticCuckoo — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:33:11 +0000

To play devil’s advocate a little: if the creators of IE 5 got the box model wrong, what’s to say that browser creators didn’t misinterpret how var should be rendered?

Microsoft used the wrong box model from the start (IE3). My guess is that they implemented an early draft of the spec -- they're W3C members, after all -- and the spec changed before it became an official recommendation. If var was meant for variables in code samples, wouldn't there be element types for class, function, constant, etc.? I remember some examples of how var was meant to be used, and it must have been from back in the days when the documentation was hosted on CERN's domain. It was clearly meant as a placeholder, not for programming samples. On the other hand, perhaps I'm going senile and I just dreamt that. :)

By: Hal9k

Hal9k — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:53:23 +0000

My comment got mashed up; that's probably the only time you'll ever hear me say that!

So it’s easier and more consistent just to dispense with altogether, and use abbr for everything.

What I was meaning to say is that Internet Explorer <= 6 (not sure about 7) doesn't support the abbr tag by default, so it may not always be easier.

By: Hal9k

Hal9k — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:42:58 +0000

So it’s easier and more consistent just to dispense with altogether, and use for everything.

Internet Explorer always be easier.

By: Manuel

Manuel — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 10:44:22 +0000

i’m missing label in your posting. it’s still rarely used although it’s more than useful.

By: Samuli K

Samuli K — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 09:40:27 +0000

@logic_earth: I know, I know… I was just splitting hairs over the wording in the spec :-) Hitting F1 is using the keyboard, yes, but is it “_text_ entered by the user”? :-) The spec text might read instead “indicates keyboard input”, for example.

By: Matthew Magain

Matthew Magain — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:46:03 +0000

To play devil’s advocate a little: if the creators of IE 5 got the box model wrong, what’s to say that browser creators didn’t misinterpret how var should be rendered? They were no doubt working from the same (ambiguously worded) spec…

By: AutisticCuckoo

AutisticCuckoo — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:05:18 +0000

The explanation of VAR in the HTML 4.01 specification is ambiguous, and it’s no wonder people misunderstand it. But if you remember the origins of HTML — a markup language for scientific documents, mainly — it’s a bit more clear. It’s meant for placeholders: something in an example that will be subsituted by actual data when used. The default rendering (italic) indicates this, since it’s a long-standing typographic convention to italicise such placeholders.

It has nothing to do with variables in programming language code. You don’t normally italicise them, do you?

I’m having a little trouble with dfn being called semantic. Can somebody explain it to me?

DFN does not mark up a definition. It marks up the defining instance of a term. Again, this is to conform with a typographic convention used (primarily) in scientific documents. The first occurrence of an important term is italicised.

By: Matthew Magain

Matthew Magain — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:31:09 +0000

@redux:

i’d temper this statement a tad, as it depends on AT support

Agreed, thanks Patrick.

By: Matthew Magain

Matthew Magain — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:23:21 +0000

@Anonymous (#11): You are correct that a definition list provides more semantic information, given that the term's definition is more explicitly marked up. But that doesn't mean that the dfn term doesn't have a place. If I'm composing a list of terms and their definitions, then I'll use a dl. But if I'm writing a book which is composed of, you know, paragraphs of sentences (not lists), then I shouldn't have to change the format of my prose. If I want to introduce a term in the middle of a sentence, it's my prerogative, and the dfn fits perfectly for that. In SitePoint books, we use the convention that terms that are introduced to the reader for the first time are marked up in bold. But marking up this term using strong makes no sense; dfn, on the other hand, is made for it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 23:37:35 +0000

Good, would have been nice to actually see an example of them in action rather than just the code?!

By: redux

redux — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:54:00 +0000

Your pages will automatically become more accessible, as assistive technologies will have more meta data about your page when interpreting its contents.

i’d temper this statement a tad, as it depends on AT support. so..you’re making your pages *potentially* more accessible. whether or not, at this stage, the effect is actually noticeable by AT users is arguable.

related to this, people may be interested in my little dreamweaver extension to add a few more buttons (including one for DFN) to their toolbar http://www.splintered.co.uk/experiments/88/

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:28:13 +0000

I’m having a little trouble with dfn being called semantic. Can somebody explain it to me?

We already have the definition list, which I’m currently in love with, which explicitly associates a definition term with it’s description. With tags like the acronym or abbreviation, we can add a title to calrify the term. Even with input fields on a form, we have the label to explicitly bind the text to the control.

But where is the ’semantic’ relationship between the dfn, which identifies a term, and the definition of that term? We can only *assume* that the nearby text is relevant to the defined term. Does that make it semantic?

By: brothercake

brothercake — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:51:12 +0000

btw – I’d also dispense with . All acronyms are abbreviations, but all abbreviations are not necessarily acronyms, and there are edge cases – like “PNG”, which is “P.N.G” to some (and hence, an acronym), but “ping” to others (and hence, not an acronym, by the spec’s definition)

So it’s easier and more consistent just to dispense with altogether, and use for everything.

By: brothercake

brothercake — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:48:31 +0000

Citations are not just for books and articles themselves — any reference to an external information source is a citation; so in your example, “Ian Lloyd” could also be wrapped in

And if a citation is also a link, why not use both: …

By: logic_earth

logic_earth — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:56:27 +0000

@Samuli K:
Hitting a key can be considered keyboard input if it performs some action on screen. I say telling the user to press F1 using is valid.

By: Hal9k

Hal9k — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:33:51 +0000

For more on the topic, have a look at an excellent presentation by Tantek Celik.

By: Samuli K

Samuli K — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:23:22 +0000

HTML 4 specs say for KBD: “Indicates _text_ to be entered by the user.” but the “F1″ above is a key and not text, so could this confuse the users? :-)

By: Tyssen

Tyssen — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:11:43 +0000

I don’t believe the example you’ve given for cite is correct. Nearly all dictionary references to cite/citation also mention the act of quoting the source and my view is that a citation or quote is a passage that augments a point you’re making about something else. (The W3C’s examples all involve cite being used in combination with the q element too.) In the example you’ve given, the point you’re making is about the same source you’re citing and there’s no quotation involved.