[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote (with snippage):
* I understand the concept of the <dialog/> element but it's named completely wrong. The point
is to markup a conversation between two or more parties. The problem is that the word "dialog",
when in used in user interfaces, refers to small windows that can be interacted with. When I first read
about this element, I assumed it was a way to indicate that part of the page is a dialog window outside of
the normal flow of the document (which I thought was cool). After reading the rest, I was disappointed to
find out that wasn't the intent. I'd rename this element as <conversation/> or <discussion/> to
avoid such misunderstandings.
I was confused by the name of the "dialog" element in exactly the same
way you were, originally thinking it was to do with pop-up dialogue
boxes. The HTML 4 spec states:
Another application of DL, for example, is for marking up
dialogues, with each DT naming a speaker, and each DD containing
his or her words.
... which I presume influenced the addition of this element. If there
is a lot of dialogue marked up on the Web it deserves its own element,
if not I guess DL could be considered to stand for "dialogue list" in
addition to "definition list".
* I'd like to see a common attribute that can be used on any element to indicate information
related to the element. I'm tired of fighting the custom attribute battle. The fact is that it's a
very common need to include extra data related to an element. I'd propose a "reldata"
attribute (short for "related data") be considered as an optional attribute on all
elements. We then, as developers, could use that attribute as we see fit and the document would
still validate (for people who care about such things).
I'm not entirely sure I understand, but if you want to further define
the semantics of an element or make it more "specialised", another group
has put forward the idea of a "role" attribute
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xhtml-role-20071004/>.
Regards,
Dave
