Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
Kepler Gelotte skrev: Hi, I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated while b and i are still allowed. Summary (most things have been said already): Underlines on paper have no usability impact, since you cant click on it! Underlines on web pages have a usability impact, since people think they are clickable links. Underlines on paper printed with a typewriter existed because it took a great while until bold fonts or italics came around - and even when they did you had to manually change the ball in your typewriter. Today italics and bolding - as well as changing font size - exist and are more aesthetically pleasing alternatives. One should not think that conventions from print - or typewriters - apply on the web. The web has its own conventions. On the web, the convention is that links are blue (when not visited) and underlined. Change one with care, change both with extreme care. The main place where you can change this convention is in menus, where there exist other visual clues to guide the user. This means that there is no valid use case left for u. Although most cases where one could have used i or b can be replaced with CSS, em, strong, dfn or a header, there are still some use cases left. E.g. on forum software you may want to allow some styling. Abusing em and strong for styling purposes is worse than using b and i for emphasis. Semantic meaning that has been left out is a lesser evil than semantic meaning that is misused. Abusing em just for italics or strong just for bolding, when no emphasis is intended is the same *sort of* abuse as using tables for layout. It is only abuse of a slightly lesser degree. b and i are actually lesser evils than inline styles, which may be the only option left if they are removed. They are less bloated and way easier to handle from a programming point of view. As the HTML 5 standards stands today, this is the view of the working group as well. The standard will provide some additional use cases where b and i perhaps should be considered the best (or least sucky) option available. http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-i http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-b This means (summary of my summary): 1. A. Never use b and i when there is a usable element with semantic meaning. 1. B. But do *not* use semantic elements outside of their defined meaning, which is even worse. 2. A. If possible use CSS. This means that web designers, who may do stuff like editing the sites main CSS files, should use clever selectors and semantically significant class names (like p class=lede, not p class=italics) to achieve bolding and italics. 2. B. If possible, avoid using inline CSS. This means CMS software should provide access to (a subset of) the designers classes - and content providers be taught how to use them. WYSIWYG editors are often the bane of good markup. If one has to chose between inline CSS and b or i, use the elements. Summary of my summary of my summary: * A web developer should never use b and i. * CMS software and an editor that can not access predefined classes should prefer b and i over inline styles. When googling to provide some additional info I found this, and since he agrees with me it must be a fine resource: http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=222 (I do however believe there is a use case for the mark element - until recently called m.) Lars Gunter *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
I do the exact same thing (clicking on underlined text which isn't a link) but it does make it very complicated to create access keys for forms because u was used to show which letter was the access key. Messing around with endless spans will discourage them. I'm really sorry there is no alternative as there is with b and i. Does anyone know an alternative to xmp? I know you can use entitiy codes but this one saved the trouble and is now depreciated. Perhaps they could bring those two back. IceKat Joseph Ortenzi wrote: Very good points b and i are stylistic and em and strong are semantic. u is stylistic, but the intention of an underlined string of text can be expressed with any of the above, dependent on intention. I am one of those severely frustrated people who want to click underlined text so keep it out please... I like underline on hover as useful feedback that it is in fact, a link. Predefined standard colours are less important these days, but good design does seem to favour blue-ish for link as a convention. Joe On Mar 27, 2008, at 09:14, Stuart Foulstone wrote: Hi, Usability. Users expect link-text to be underlined. Many user studies found that when you underline other text users try to click on it and get quite annoyed when nothing happens (some users would click on the underlined text several times before they gave up). Originally links were to have predefined colours that would have avoided this situation, but Web Designers thought better and decided to start styling their link colours as they thought fit. Even though this styling often does not include underlining, users still expect underlined text to mean links. This led to the confusion, so something had to give - it was u. b and i are not deprecated because there may be times when you want to style the text in that way but without the semantic emphasis that em and strong confer. On Thu, March 27, 2008 4:28 am, Kepler Gelotte wrote: Hi, I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated while b and i are still allowed. Thanks in advance. Best regards, Kepler Gelotte Neighbor Webmaster, Inc. 156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854 www.neighborwebmaster.com phone/fax: (732) 302-0904 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** == Joe Ortenzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
On 27 Mar 2008, at 12:32, IceKat wrote: I do the exact same thing (clicking on underlined text which isn't a link) but it does make it very complicated to create access keys for forms because u was used to show which letter was the access key. Messing around with endless spans will discourage them. I'm really sorry there is no alternative as there is with b and i. Access keys have other problems, and while an underline might be a convention to indicate such things on some systems, it is hardly universal (or useful to blind users). Does anyone know an alternative to xmp? CDATA markers in XHTML documents (served with the right content type). I know you can use entitiy codes but this one saved the trouble and is now depreciated. Set up a macro in your text editor to do it. -- David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/ http://blog.dorward.me.uk/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
em and strong are NOT for screen readers. they are for the semantic markup. screen readers do not render em and strong, they read it as plain text. 2008/3/27, IceKat [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I do the exact same thing (clicking on underlined text which isn't a link) but it does make it very complicated to create access keys for forms because u was used to show which letter was the access key. Messing around with endless spans will discourage them. I'm really sorry there is no alternative as there is with b and i. Does anyone know an alternative to xmp? I know you can use entitiy codes but this one saved the trouble and is now depreciated. Perhaps they could bring those two back. IceKat Joseph Ortenzi wrote: Very good points b and i are stylistic and em and strong are semantic. u is stylistic, but the intention of an underlined string of text can be expressed with any of the above, dependent on intention. I am one of those severely frustrated people who want to click underlined text so keep it out please... I like underline on hover as useful feedback that it is in fact, a link. Predefined standard colours are less important these days, but good design does seem to favour blue-ish for link as a convention. Joe On Mar 27, 2008, at 09:14, Stuart Foulstone wrote: Hi, Usability. Users expect link-text to be underlined. Many user studies found that when you underline other text users try to click on it and get quite annoyed when nothing happens (some users would click on the underlined text several times before they gave up). Originally links were to have predefined colours that would have avoided this situation, but Web Designers thought better and decided to start styling their link colours as they thought fit. Even though this styling often does not include underlining, users still expect underlined text to mean links. This led to the confusion, so something had to give - it was u. b and i are not deprecated because there may be times when you want to style the text in that way but without the semantic emphasis that em and strong confer. On Thu, March 27, 2008 4:28 am, Kepler Gelotte wrote: Hi, I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated while b and i are still allowed. Thanks in advance. Best regards, Kepler Gelotte Neighbor Webmaster, Inc. 156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854 www.neighborwebmaster.com phone/fax: (732) 302-0904 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** == Joe Ortenzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- []'s - Rochester Oliveira http://webbemfeita.com/ Viva a Web-Bem-Feita Web Designer Curitiba - PR - Brasil *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
But semantic mark-up such as em and strong is there for user-agents such as screen-readers to use. That they do not currently render them as different from normal text does not mean that it is not the intention. We create Web standards that user-agents can work towards implementing (if they wish) not the other way round. On Thu, March 27, 2008 4:17 pm, Rochester oliveira wrote: em and strong are NOT for screen readers. they are for the semantic markup. screen readers do not render em and strong, they read it as plain text. 2008/3/27, IceKat [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I do the exact same thing (clicking on underlined text which isn't a link) but it does make it very complicated to create access keys for forms because u was used to show which letter was the access key. Messing around with endless spans will discourage them. I'm really sorry there is no alternative as there is with b and i. Does anyone know an alternative to xmp? I know you can use entitiy codes but this one saved the trouble and is now depreciated. Perhaps they could bring those two back. IceKat Joseph Ortenzi wrote: Very good points b and i are stylistic and em and strong are semantic. u is stylistic, but the intention of an underlined string of text can be expressed with any of the above, dependent on intention. I am one of those severely frustrated people who want to click underlined text so keep it out please... I like underline on hover as useful feedback that it is in fact, a link. Predefined standard colours are less important these days, but good design does seem to favour blue-ish for link as a convention. Joe On Mar 27, 2008, at 09:14, Stuart Foulstone wrote: Hi, Usability. Users expect link-text to be underlined. Many user studies found that when you underline other text users try to click on it and get quite annoyed when nothing happens (some users would click on the underlined text several times before they gave up). Originally links were to have predefined colours that would have avoided this situation, but Web Designers thought better and decided to start styling their link colours as they thought fit. Even though this styling often does not include underlining, users still expect underlined text to mean links. This led to the confusion, so something had to give - it was u. b and i are not deprecated because there may be times when you want to style the text in that way but without the semantic emphasis that em and strong confer. On Thu, March 27, 2008 4:28 am, Kepler Gelotte wrote: Hi, I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated while b and i are still allowed. Thanks in advance. Best regards, Kepler Gelotte Neighbor Webmaster, Inc. 156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854 www.neighborwebmaster.com phone/fax: (732) 302-0904 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** == Joe Ortenzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- []'s - Rochester Oliveira http://webbemfeita.com/ Viva a Web-Bem-Feita Web Designer Curitiba - PR - Brasil *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
I think that b and i are equivalent to u and that they probably should be deprecated. They probably will be in HTML5 (though I haven't looked). In my opinion, those are purely style, not semantic, and should be done with CSS. Joseph Ortenzi wrote: Very good points b and i are stylistic and em and strong are semantic. u is stylistic, but the intention of an underlined string of text can be expressed with any of the above, dependent on intention. I am one of those severely frustrated people who want to click underlined text so keep it out please... I like underline on hover as useful feedback that it is in fact, a link. Predefined standard colours are less important these days, but good design does seem to favour blue-ish for link as a convention. Joe On Mar 27, 2008, at 09:14, Stuart Foulstone wrote: Hi, Usability. Users expect link-text to be underlined. Many user studies found that when you underline other text users try to click on it and get quite annoyed when nothing happens (some users would click on the underlined text several times before they gave up). Originally links were to have predefined colours that would have avoided this situation, but Web Designers thought better and decided to start styling their link colours as they thought fit. Even though this styling often does not include underlining, users still expect underlined text to mean links. This led to the confusion, so something had to give - it was u. b and i are not deprecated because there may be times when you want to style the text in that way but without the semantic emphasis that em and strong confer. On Thu, March 27, 2008 4:28 am, Kepler Gelotte wrote: Hi, I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated while b and i are still allowed. Thanks in advance. Best regards, Kepler Gelotte Neighbor Webmaster, Inc. 156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854 www.neighborwebmaster.com phone/fax: (732) 302-0904 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** == Joe Ortenzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- Christian Snodgrass Azure Ronin Web Design http://www.arwebdesign.net/ http://www.arwebdesign.net Phone: 859.816.7955 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
Hi Kepler, In many ways, b has been deprecated in favour of strong and i in favour of em (emphasis). u (underline) has been deprecated because it shouldn't be part of structural markup, but instead part of styling, so it would be replaced by span class=underline/span or similar. The reason b (bold) and i italic haven't actually been deprecated is that the HTML working group were worried it would lead to the misuse of other presentational tags, indeed such as em and strong, which should be considered whenever you use these 'newer' tags! cheers, John Kepler Gelotte wrote: Hi, I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated while b and i are still allowed. Thanks in advance. Best regards, Kepler Gelotte Neighbor Webmaster, Inc. 156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854 www.neighborwebmaster.com phone/fax: (732) 302-0904 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
Here I found they are not technically depreciated but they have recommended replacements |b| Although technically not deprecated, W3C recommends the |strong |element be used instead. |i| Although technically not deprecated, W3C recommends the |em |element be used instead. http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/adea-sread-eng.asp It does look like they are part of the presentation module http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/abstract_modules.html#s_presentationmodule Michael Horowitz Your Computer Consultant http://yourcomputerconsultant.com 561-394-9079 Kepler Gelotte wrote: Hi, I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated while b and i are still allowed. Thanks in advance. Best regards, Kepler Gelotte Neighbor Webmaster, Inc. 156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854 www.neighborwebmaster.com phone/fax: (732) 302-0904 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
Thanks for the explanation John. I think the standards group still should have deprecated b and i though. Seems a pretty weak argument to say that strong and em will be misused because b and i already are. Bold and italics can be controlled through CSS as well, leaving HTML as clean and semantic as possible. Best regards, Kepler Gelotte Neighbor Webmaster, Inc. 156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854 www.neighborwebmaster.com phone/fax: (732) 302-0904 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N:Gelotte;Kepler;;Mr. FN:Kepler Gelotte ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ORG:Neighbor Webmaster TITLE:Web Designer TEL;WORK;VOICE:(732) 302-0904 TEL;WORK;FAX:(732) 302-0904 ADR;WORK:;;156 Normandy Dr;Piscataway;NJ;08854;United States of America LABEL;WORK;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:156 Normandy Dr=0D=0APiscataway, NJ 08854=0D=0AUnited States of America URL;WORK:http://www.neighborwebmaster.com EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] REV:20070415T052107Z END:VCARD
Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
The presentational elements such as b, i, s and u are deprecated as because it can be achieved by CSS. For example, u can be achieved by *text-decoration: underline*;. I think, em and strong have been left for *screen readers* to understand the emphasize part. Thanks! Venkatesan M On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Kepler Gelotte [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated while b and i are still allowed. Thanks in advance. Best regards, Kepler Gelotte Neighbor Webmaster, Inc. 156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854 www.neighborwebmaster.com phone/fax: (732) 302-0904 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
I agree with the reasoning but in practice I think its actually better to
use b and i (maybe not so much u) - sometimes you just want something
bold and its much less markup to wrap b and i instead of span
class=bold [which in itself creates the conumdrum of separating markup
from presentation: what do you call this class??]some text/span then
.bold { font-weight: bold; etc; etc; } I hope they don't deprecate it
completely, it is useful when you don't want something to be strong for
screen readers, just bold text.
My 2 cents.
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Mahendran Venkatesan
Sent: Thursday, 27 March 2008 4:19 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] Why is u deprecated?
The presentational elements such as b, i, s and u are deprecated as
because it can be achieved by CSS. For example, u can be achieved by
text-decoration: underline;.
I think, em and strong have been left for screen readers to understand
the emphasize part.
Thanks!
Venkatesan M
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Kepler Gelotte
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi,
I am just curious if anyone can explain why the u tag has been deprecated
while b and i are still allowed.
Thanks in advance.
Best regards,
Kepler Gelotte
Neighbor Webmaster, Inc.
156 Normandy Dr., Piscataway, NJ 08854
www.neighborwebmaster.com
phone/fax: (732) 302-0904
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