Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] 3.10.9. The |abbr| element
On Nov 2, 2006, at 3:44 PM, Jonathan Worent wrote: --- Christoph Päper [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: First off I think the requirement for a |title| is too strict, because there are time and space saving abbreviations everyone knows -- i.e. either their expansion or their meaning -- that do not need an expansion, e.g. e.g. or AIDS. Therefore the second sentence should use 'may', not 'should'. Agreed. (At the least, the specification is currently ambiguous about whether title= is required.) I disagree. There is never a guarantee that people will know what an abbreviation stands for, I know what AIDS is but not what it stands for. But that applies not just to abbreviations, but to writing in general. All writing assumes a level of knowledge. If a blind biologist listening to a scientific journal heard DNA expanded as deoxyribonucleic acid on every page, that would quickly become infuriating, even if the UA was smart enough to do it for only the first occurrence on each page. (Temporarily turning off such expansions would be unreasonable if there were other, unfamiliar, abbreviations present; and trying to request expansions from the UA case-by-case would be tiresome.) ... abbr title=that isi. e./abbr This would not be correct usage because the abbreviation i.e. does not represent that is it means that though. In this case you using is to mark up the definition. I use abbr title=that isi.e./abbr not just because that's what it means, but because that's how it *should* be expanded if it needs to be expanded, for example if it is being read aloud. (Expanding it as id est would be pretentiously unreasonable.) Similarly in Mac abbrOS/abbr abbr title=10X/abbr, I don't give abbrOS/abbr a title=, because what OS stands for is never relevant in the context. -- Matthew Paul Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/
Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] 3.10.9. The |abbr| element
Lachlan Hunt wrote: Abbreviation expansions should only be supplied when they help the reader to understand the content, not just because the word happens to be an abbreviation. I agree, unless using abbr with no title is useful to get the correct rendering of abbreviations in non-visual media. I guess e.g. aural browsers must cope with rendering of abbreviations like PET and DNA without needing explicit markup, but I think knowing this sort of thing is important in determining the wording of the spec. -- Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end? -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] 3.10.9. The |abbr| element
James Graham wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote: Abbreviation expansions should only be supplied when they help the reader to understand the content, not just because the word happens to be an abbreviation. I agree, unless using abbr with no title is useful to get the correct rendering of abbreviations in non-visual media. Using abbr without a title would be useful if it automatically referred to a previous instance with the title attribute. e.g. You could mark up the first occurance as like this abbr title=As Far as I KnowAFAIK/abbr Then, later in the document, you could use it without the title attribute abbrAFAIK/abbr and a UA could allow the user to discover the expansion. This idea is already somewhat supported in the current draft, but requires that it references the defining term of a previously marked up dfn, rather than just another occurrence of the same abbreviation. IMHO, that part of the spec needs fixing. http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-dfn http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-abbr -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/
Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] 3.10.9. The |abbr| element
I can see what everyones reasoning for not requiring the title (I change my vote :) --- Lachlan Hunt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: James Graham wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote: Abbreviation expansions should only be supplied when they help the reader to understand the content, not just because the word happens to be an abbreviation. I agree, unless using abbr with no title is useful to get the correct rendering of abbreviations in non-visual media. Using abbr without a title would be useful if it automatically referred to a previous instance with the title attribute. e.g. You could mark up the first occurance as like this abbr title=As Far as I KnowAFAIK/abbr Then, later in the document, you could use it without the title attribute abbrAFAIK/abbr and a UA could allow the user to discover the expansion. This idea is already somewhat supported in the current draft, but requires that it references the defining term of a previously marked up dfn, rather than just another occurrence of the same abbreviation. IMHO, that part of the spec needs fixing. Would dfnabbr title=As Far as I KnowAFAIK/abbr/dfn satisfy this? http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-dfn http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-abbr -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ Low, Low, Low Rates! Check out Yahoo! Messenger's cheap PC-to-Phone call rates (http://voice.yahoo.com)
Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] 3.10.9. The |abbr| element
--- Christoph Päper [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: First off I think the requirement for a |title| is too strict, because there are time and space saving abbreviations everyone knows -- i.e. either their expansion or their meaning -- that do not need an expansion, e.g. e.g. or AIDS. Therefore the second sentence should use 'may', not 'should'. I disagree. There is never a guarantee that people will know what an abbreviation stands for, I know what AIDS is but not what it stands for. Also accessing the title information is optional. If the user knows what the abbreviation stands for they won't need to access the title information. Maybe there could be a mechanism using |link| to external abbreviation glossaries, which may use |dl| instead of |dfn|. (I have kind of a deja-vu here, like I already proposed that sometime somewhere.) I think your trying to use abbr for definitions, which is not what its for. Its for specifying what the abbreviation represents not what the word means. I actually do like |acronym| and use it for words where a number or uppercase letter appears non-initially (except Scottish names), which get a reduced font size and/or small caps whereas true abbreviations (with periods) just have their inter-word spacing reduced. Everything else abbr title=does notdoesn't/abbr need markup. I digress, the main reason for this e-mail is the question for the recommended usage of |abbr| (in an English text): 1. abbri. e./abbr abbri.e./abbr abbrie./abbr abbrie/abbr (That's out of the scope of the specification of course.) 2. abbri. e./abbr abbr title=id esti. e./abbr This would be correct usage. abbr title=that isi. e./abbr This would not be correct usage because the abbreviation i.e. does not represent that is it means that though. In this case you using is to mark up the definition. 3. abbr ... lang=lai. e./abbr abbr ... lang=eni. e./abbr AFAIK |lang| (and |xml:lang| as well) applies to the textual element content _and_ its attributes' contents, where this is not of a language-neutral type. I don't quite follow you on this one. The language would be the same for both the abbreviation and the words it is abbreviating. If you cannot answer 2. and 3. the definition of |abbr| is broken, but I expect either of these: abbr title=id est lang=lai. e./abbr abbr title=that is lang=eni. e./abbr (or inherited language) This is a more expressive solution, but also harder to implement: link rel=abbr glossary href=abbr.html ... abbri. e./abbr abbr.html: dl didt lang=lai. e./dt dd lang=laid est/ lang=enthat is/dd/di Again you seem to be wanting to use abbr to markup the definition of the abbreviation. #9484;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472; Jonathan Worent #9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9488; #9492;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472; Webmaster #9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9472;#9496; Access over 1 million songs - Yahoo! Music Unlimited (http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited)
Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] 3.10.9. The |abbr| element
Le 1 nov. 2006 à 21:44, Jonathan Worent a écrit : I disagree. There is never a guarantee that people will know what an abbreviation stands for, I know what AIDS is but not what it stands for. Also accessing the title information is optional. If the user knows what the abbreviation stands for they won't need to access the title information. There are plenty of better reasons to omit title. I can think of three right know: What if the author doesn't know what an abbreviation stands for? It could be a fictional abbreviation, or it could be an author asking his readers for the meaning of this particular abbreviation. What if the author does not want to disclose the meaning of the abbreviation? The meaning could be a question in a quiz. And what if the abbreviation has two meanings at the same time? For instance, how would you markup the first CSS acronym of the second paragraph here: http://people.opera.com/howcome/2002/dvd/index.html There are legitimate reasons to not fill up the title attribute of abbr. Or should abbr be disallowed in these situations? Michel Fortin [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.michelf.com/
