I think this is the kind of situation that can be marked up either as a
definition list or a table without too many people objecting to the
semantics in either case. It comes down to how you want the data to be
perceived I guess. A definition list will encourage users to look at
each movie as a block of information, independent of information about
other movies. This approach is useful if users are expecting to be
focused on single movies at a time.
The tabular approach encourages comparisons between movies and is suited
to situations where users might want to see all movies by a certain
director, or all movies of a certain duration etc.
I would suggest the following improvement on Barney's table markup though:
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col" id="name">Name</th>
<th scope="col" id="date">Entry date</th>
<th scope="col" id="tagline">Tagline</th>
<th scope="col" id="genre">Genre</th>
<th scope="col" id="director">Director</th>
<th scope="col" id="starring">Starring</th>
<th scope="col" id="language">Language</th>
<th scope="col" id="runtime">Runtime</th>
<th scope="col" id="summary">Summary</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td headers="name" scope="row">Cool Hand Luke</td>
<td headers="date name">2007/2/6</td>
<td headers="tagline name">"What we've got here is failure to
communicate"</td>
<td headers="genre name">Drama</td>
<td headers="director name">Stuart Rosenberg</td>
<td headers="starring name">Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon,
Lou Antonio, Robert Drivas, Strother Martin, Jo Van Fleet, Clifton
James, Morgan Woodward, Luke Askew, Marc Cavell, Richard Davalos, Robert
Donner, Warren Finnerty, , Dennis Hopper</td>
<td headers="language name">English</td>
<td headers="runtime name">126min</td>
<td headers="summary name">Luke is sent to a prison camp, where he
gets a reputation as a hard man. The head of the gang hates him, and
tries to break him by beating him up. It doesn't work, and he gains
respect. His mother dies, and he escapes, but is caught, escapes again,
and is caught again. Will the camp bosses ever break him ?</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
- Andrew Ingram
Barney Carroll wrote:
I'd definitely stick to the table. A table is still a list of rows and
columns, and would make the universal nature of the attributes (name,
entry date, tagline) clearer and easier to input/manage.
If you decide you would rather have it displayed as you just have, you
could always use CSS to make it appear that way (you could even allow
users to switch between views).
My suggestion in code:
<table id="DVDlisting">
<tbody>
<tr class="columnHeadings">
<td>Name</td>
<td>Entry date</td>
<td>Tagline</td>
<td>Genre</td>
<td>Director</td>
<td>Starring</td>
<td>Language</td>
<td>Runtime</td>
<td>Summary</td>
</tr>
<tr class="filmEntry">
<td class="Name">Cool Hand Luke</td>
<td class="Entry date">2007/2/6</td>
<td class="Tagline">"What we've got here is failure to
communicate"</td>
<td class="Genre">Drama</td>
<td class="Director">Stuart Rosenberg</td>
<td class="Starring">Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon, Lou
Antonio, Robert Drivas, Strother Martin, Jo Van Fleet, Clifton James,
Morgan Woodward, Luke Askew, Marc Cavell, Richard Davalos, Robert
Donner, Warren Finnerty, , Dennis Hopper</td>
<td class="Language">English</td>
<td class="Runtime">126min</td>
<td class="Summary">Luke is sent to a prison camp, where he gets a
reputation as a hard man. The head of the gang hates him, and tries to
break him by beating him up. It doesn't work, and he gains respect.
His mother dies, and he escapes, but is caught, escapes again, and is
caught again. Will the camp bosses ever break him ?</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
CSS for list presentation:
#DVDlisting td
{display:block}
tr.columnHeadings
{display:none}
tr.filmEntry
{margin:2em 0 0 0}
tr.filmEntry td:before
{font-weight:bold;
content:attr(class)}
td.Name:before
{content:""}
td.Name
{font-weight:bold;
margin:0 0 1em 0}
That would make it appear pretty much as it does in your email, but
you can retain the ease and functionality of cross-reference by
reverting to standard table-cell display.
I think a DL is a lot more ambiguous and messy for something that is
clearly tabular data. Remember, it's only layout purposes that make
tables unpopular!
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