>> --- one of the main goals of microformats is to make data Human Readable. Which means visible. In your examples the USD and DKK values are no longer human readable values
FYI, my examples were meant in the case where USD wasn't part of the visible HTML prior to Microformat markup. If it was necessary, this could work abeit a bit redundant (and for the moment, ignoring the other issues you brought up): <abbr class="currency usd">$5.99</abbr> USD <abbr class="currency dkk">35.66 kr</abbr> kr >> - we use the <abbr> element alot of the time to get the Machine readable portion way from users, and give them the more friendly human-readble string. I used <abbr> by happenstance; I could just as likely chosen <span> when I crafted my example. I wasn't really aware of the difference. As an aside, I think this identifies some holes in introductory information somewhere (although as I looked for it, I couldn't find specific examples; maybe it was how things have been discussed on the list?) So I am just starting to grok how you have been using <abbr> vs. <span>/<div> but practically what I remember hearing and reading to date was that classes and titles can be equally applied to any HTML element, so that made me think they were all equal. But what I'm now learning is that, although they are all equal, <abbr> is more equal than others. Right? I don't know how I would have made me understand that before now, but if I take a stab at it maybe what would help would be examples in places like this: http://microformats.org/wiki/semantic-xhtml-design-principles Maybe when I read the FAQ inititially I was still too overwhelmed with everything to comprehend that part, instead thinking "I'll study that part later..." Anyway, FWIW on that subject. >> I still think this is bad semantics. I don't think "USD" is really a title for "$5.99"" I'll go with that. Especially since I wasn't really aware of the semantics when I proposed the example. That said, is this any more acceptable (<span> instead of <abbr>? <span class="currency usd">$5.99</span> <span class="currency dkk">35.66 kr</span> But of course you made a good point about "minting an XMDP file" and not wanting to enumerate all the currencies, so that one is specifically bad. But is this? <span class="currency" title="USD">$5.99</span> <span class="currency" title="DKK">35.66 kr</span> Or this?: <span class="currency" title="5.99 USD">$5.99</span> <span class="currency" title="35.66 DKK">35.66 kr</span> I think I'm starting to get your objections; in the browser for the four prior examples you would see "USD", "DKK", "5.99 USD", "35.66 DKK" none of which might be the best for those numbers, right? (Though I'm not sure what title would be appropriate. Hmmm.) >> the previous answers were sort of techy, do they make sense? or are you looking for a more concrete explaination? Oh, I'm very technical, but also a business person of the entreprenurial bent. But I need to see things technically to understand them, so it was perfect. When I said I was here partly to learn, I meant more about the social aspects of the semi-standards process and of this group in particular as if it were just technical I wanted I could probably go off and learn that in a vaccuum. >> I personally like this idea: >> <span class="money"><abbr class="currency" title="USD">$</abbr> >> <span class="amount">5.99</span></span> I'm still really bothered by the *amount* of markup for something that is, w/o markup, very tiny. >> It has worked well for ADR, TEL, EMAIL in hCard and is also being explored for UIDs. >> <span class="uid"><span class="type">ISBN</span>:<span class="value">1234567890</span></span> Let's look at hCard using mine as an example. It doesn't feel wrong to have one container around something (i.e. one <div>, one <span>, one <abbr>, etc.) And my hCard marks up a lot of text; lots of things I'd be doing anyway: <address class="vcard"> <img src="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/images/MikeSchinkel_120x120.jpg" class="photo"> <a target="_blank" class="url fn" href="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/" rel="tag">Mike Schinkel</a> <div class="org"> <a target="_blank" class="url" href="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/">Guides, Inc.</a> </div> <a target="_blank" class="email" href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</a> <div class="adr"> <span class="locality">Atlanta</span>, <span class="region">Georgia</span><br/> <span class="country-name">USA</span> </div> <span class="tel">404-474-8948</span> (w)<br/> <span class="tel">404-276-1276</span> (c)<br/> </address> Now strip out the Microformats and you get the following (assuming I *don't* use <span>s on City/State/Country and telephone numbers, etc. for formatting to make it very tight): <address> <img src="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/images/MikeSchinkel_120x120.jpg"> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/">Mike Schinkel</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.guidesinc.com">Guides, Inc.</a> <a target="_blank" href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</a> Atlanta, Georgia<br/> USA<br/> 404-474-8948 (w)<br/> 404-276-1276 (c)<br/> </address> And MS-Word's statistics quotes me 682 vs 400, or just a little more than 70% bloat. That's probably acceptable. However, for money we have: <span class="money"> <abbr class="currency" title="USD">$</abbr> <span class="amount">5.99</span> </span> Versus: $5.99 Or (to give it a fighting chance) <span class="money">$5.99</span> Where MS-Word quotes: 108, 6, and 33, or between 1800% bloat and 327% bloat, respectively. Now call me pedantic, but I just don't think that is going to be well received in the general web development community and w/o good reception we won't be taken seriously and won't get adoption. I really think it would make sense to see what a broad cross section of web developers feel about this issue via a non-biasing survey before carving a bloated standard like this in stone. However, I didn't come here to make waves. If I'm the only one bothered by it I will acquiesce and hope we don't end up with a situation where my fears are revealed to have been significant and we wish we had heeded them. If so, I'll do my damnedest not to say I told you so (honestly.) -Mike P.S. Another option is to seriously consider a page-global aspect for markup. Then it could be a lot smaller for default cases, even in multibyte character sets. P.P.S. Sure we can't just lobby the W3C to approve REL tags and maybe a few more for all (X)HTML elements? :-) :-) :-) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Suda Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 11:06 AM To: Microformats Discuss Subject: Re: RE: title attribute and abbreviatedclassnames(Was:[uf-discuss]Currency Quickpoll: Preliminary results) On 10/18/06, Mike Schinkel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > However, at the risk of being shot for heresy, has anyone considered allowing this? > > <abbr class="currency usd">$5.99</abbr> > <abbr class="currency dkk">35.66 kr</abbr> --- one of the main goals of microformats is to make data Human Readable. Which means visible. In your examples the USD and DKK values are no longer human readbable values - we use the <abbr> element alot of the time to get the Machine readable portion way from users, and give them the more friendly human-readble string. Jan 1st 2006 is much more human readable than 20060101T000000+000000Z .... but with the <abbr> we still have something which the users can see. (i that case Jan 1st 2006). With your example, the USD doesn't really have an equivalent human-readable value, well it does, and would be "$5.99" or "35.66 kr", you even agreed that ">> I still think this is bad semantics. I don't think "USD" is really a title for "$5.99"" So hooking usd, dkk, or other currency TYPE in the class around the whole value is not ideal, semantically or for human-readablity. > OR (something tells me this is even worse, but...): > > <abbr class="money currency-usd">$5.99</abbr> > <abbr class="money currency-dkk">35.66 kr</abbr> --- from a parsing stand point, this gets to be a tricky issue as well. Besides the reasons mentioned above, there is another issue with '-' seperated values. What you are attempting to accomplish is to sort of "double-pack" the value currency-XYZ, by saying that this is a currency AND it is of a given type. The trouble with this is that when we mint an XMDP file for the microformat we have an enumerated list of values for each class. So we would have to have a value for each 'currency-ABC' to 'currency-XYZ'. If/When we add a new currency or a ABC value changed (not likely, but hey, they introduced the Euro!) we would have to go back and edit the XMDP and since parsers are to use that as WHAT are legal values, we'd have to then extend/update the XMDP to account for the new currency-ZZZ value, then increment the version number and all the parsers would have to be update with the new information, etc.... it is much easier to say class="type" then leave the VALUE of that element to be open-ended rather than an enumerated list of values. the other bonus is that it doesn't force authors into one way of doing things, both of the following are still valid: <abbr class="type" title="usd">$</abbr>3.99 3.99<span class="type">USD</span> > I'm sure there is something just so wrong about this, but part of the reason I'm on this list is to learn. So why not? --- the previous answers were sort of techy, do they make sense? or are you looking for a more concrete explaination? I personally like this idea: <span class="money"><abbr class="currency" title="USD">$</abbr><span class="amount">5.99</span></span> It has worked well for ADR, TEL, EMAIL in hCard and is also being explored for UIDs. <span class="uid"><span class="type">ISBN</span>:<span class="value">1234567890</span></span> -- brian suda http://suda.co.uk _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss