...Which is why I proposed using <big> and <small> tags: they actually map to the function of a tagcloud: to visualize relationships between discreet data.
There's a reason that we don't call them "taglists" but are instead clouds -- essentially a graph! Hell, you should be able to derive a pie chart from the data embedded in this microformat! ;) Inasmuch as IE-blah won't support messing around with styling based on title values (which seems like a bad idea anyway) more and more we need to be cognizant of the accessibility on mobile devices as well (as I write this on my Blackberry). If again we look at the core utility of a tagcloud, it is to present, *visually* the relative prominence of one tag in a system to another. Any microformat for a tagcloud should reflect this aspect, should it not? Otherwise, we're just talking about a taglist, which is another thing altogether. Now, to be clear, let me state that size is not the only way to express said relationships, but it is the most obvious when it comes to tagclouds; so long as the core use of the tagcloud is reflected in the derived microformat, we won't be reducing the functionality when presentational styling is removed. Lastly, David, rel=tag is not appropriate for a tagcloud, as Tantek mentioned, unless the local content is to be tagged with the tags from the tagcloud. Phew! ;) Chris On 9/20/06, John Allsopp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Drew, > On 20/9/2006, "Stephen Paul Weber" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Considering the fact that many tagclouds are based on actual numerics >> (ie, 50 bookmarks on this tag), it might be nice to have access to >> that information further than just a rating. imho, styling is not >> the >> microformat's job, the implementor can add extra classes or whatever >> to make that work if title isn't good enough for that. > > It's true that styling is not the job of a microformat, but we must > seriously consider how it would be styled. If there's not a practical > way to style the tag cloud, no one will use it and we'd all be wasting > our time. I'd have to concur with that. When considering what I felt was, and subsequent discussion demonstrates is a reasonably tricky issue, that of how to properly markup the weights, or popularity of tags, I kept in mind 1. appropriate use of HTML 2. what developers are likely to actually adopt, based on an analysis of current practice, my anecdotal knowledge of widespread current practices, and a straw poll of some developers I know One important aspect of the latter is stylability. The title attribute of a link if styled with attribute selectors, won't actually appear styled in any current released version of IE for Windows. So to my mind that excludes using title (at least alone) because tagclouds would be effectively useless for the majority of todays web users, and so what developer would use title for this? It's an interesting issue. In the case of some microformats, for example rating is hReview, or XFN, it's not that big a deal. But tagclouds are somewhat different - the visual nature of them is a strong driver of their appeal. This raises a secondary issue, straight from the uf process http://microformats.org/wiki/process#Propose_a_Microformat If I looked at this microformat in a browser that didn't support CSS or had CSS turned off, would it still be human-readable? Are this format's elements stylable with CSS? In the first instance, in one sense it would be readable - you could read the words. But in a sense, no, as the meaning of the tagcloud is lost - we just get an alphabetical list of words with no indication of how they compare with one another in terms of say popularity - or whatever the cloud represents. Are they stylable with CSS? Well, title is stylable thusly a[title="vv-popular"] {} But as observed elsewhere, as IE 6 and older on windows do't support it, is it in reality stylable? so, in fact, "styling is not themicroformat's job" does not entirely reflect at least the published process of developing a uf Thanks Drew and Stephen for the thoughtful comments j John Allsopp style master :: css editor :: http://westciv.com/style_master blog :: dog or higher :: http://blogs.westciv.com/dog_or_higher WebPatterns :: http://webpatterns.org Web Directions Conference :: Sydney September 28-29 :: http://wd06.com _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
-- Chris Messina Citizen Provocateur & Open Source Ambassador-at-Large Work: http://citizenagency.com Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog Cell: 412 225-1051 Skype: factoryjoe This email is: [ ] bloggable [X] ask first [ ] private _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
