-Original Message-
From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rimantas Liubertas
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 11:46 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] HR tag and Semantics
Ok, let's take img src=linebreak.gif alt=Horizontal
My last email probably sounded too upbeat to merit acknowledgment, but
for the record are we all agreed that a separator element is a good
idea, just not in the form of hr?
This is really getting out of hand. Very little new meaning circulating.
Regards,
Barney
separator does the job for me, as long as it is supported by screen
readers
- Rob
On 07/02/07, Barney Carroll [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
My last email probably sounded too upbeat to merit acknowledgment, but
for the record are we all agreed that a separator element is a good
idea, just not in
Christian Montoya wrote:
The section actually carries semantic weight, and is meant to be
used carefully... the div does not.
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-structural.html#edef_structural_section
Then again, XHTML 2 does have a separator element which is just like
hr...
Barney
I can't recall ever finding the need to use an hr and never normally
consider doing so. It is purely presentational, i.e. it draws a line across
a page, nothing more, nothing less. It conveys nothing about what is above,
below or indeed why indeed we have drawn a line.
The major point
Rob,
I took Barney's point to be if these people have ever swallowed their
own medicine and then developed a site that satisfies anyone
OK! HR might be about markup not semantics and you have never had to
use it, I am amazed that presentation has no importance at all and go
back to
Tim
Fine, I wouldn't say never use it, if that is the way you are inclined.
However there is nothing it does that cannot be achieved by CSS in using
border properties or background image properties. I really am one of those
crackpots who does not believe in wasting a tag. If the tag does not
Gosh Rob you are stingy with code, spiders must love your sites, but
what about humans, do we also have standards for them or only for bots?
Not a comma wasted, I am of the verbose variety.
Cheers Rob :-)
On 06/02/2007, at 10:24 PM, Rob Kirton wrote:
Tim
Fine, I wouldn't say never use it,
Rob, I see where you're coming from - although it becomes easy at times
like these to mythicise (why isn't that a word?) the benefit of having a
document that requires no intelligent analysis.
What I believe you're getting at... Is that 'horizontal rule' in itself
does not 'mean' anything -
But we're all agreed, I hope, that having an element achieve this effect
is much desired (even if it might be difficult for a machine to quickly
interpret its value) - after all, it's long been in semantic use in
human literature pre-ML. I think we're also all agreed that separation
is a better
Barney Carroll wrote:
[snip]
What I believe you're getting at... Is that 'horizontal rule' in itself
does not 'mean' anything - it is off-putting because it is a tag whose
name signifies a visual symbol which signifies an abstract value. Far
better for all of us, I think, to have this
im using HR's to separate two chapters of text for example. If the second
one has no heading HR is a perfect choice. Making two divs of it ... why
then not make a div for every paragraph? =)
Besides i used to use HR as a clearer(clear:both) for the divs. In this case
it perfectly separates
im using HR's to separate two chapters of text for example. If the second
one has no heading HR is a perfect choice. Making two divs of it ... why
then not make a div for every paragraph? =)
Because paragraph has got its own element. My point is that there very rarely is
a need for any
Beautifully put Bob, a latin scholar!
span lang=lanon serviam!/span
I will not serve and I will continue using HR tags to visually separate
content,
Tim
On 06/02/2007, at 11:34 PM, Designer wrote:
Barney Carroll wrote:
[snip]
What I believe you're getting at... Is that 'horizontal rule'
Sure - if you dont like this tag you could invent 1001 way of not using it.
And im sure they all are right ways.
But just ... why?
I could see all html tags in almost every book. And i consider hr as
something like *** between chapters. It appears in almost every book. And
i dont think that it
@Designer:
p separates text into individual blocks. It is used for the same
reason as we use spaces, commas, full-stops (periods), page breaks... A
paragraph should be self-contained in meaning. If you argue that this is
presentational, there's not much stopping you from making the leap to
the
Barney Carroll wrote:
@Designer:
p separates text into individual blocks.
big [snip]
Regards,
Barney
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Bob
Surely...
divIs a collection of html elements which can include p
pIs a collection of sentences
spanIs a selection within a sentence
of course only p has any semantic meaning, and from this small set of
tags, is the only one of real consequence to search engines and readers
alike. The
Designer wrote:
p separates text into individual blocks.
And that's different to div or span because . . .???
Span is an in-line text divider, most of the time. It can be used to
highlight all sorts of differences in text significance. Paragraphs are
block level elements.
A div-level
@Barney Carroll
you are completely right. Chapter was may be a wrong word. Anyway it has
some separational meaning, and thats what w3c guys were keeping im mind
while inventing it, IMO. There is a *separator* / for that purpose in
XHTML 2.0
w3c:
The
Hi!
From the HTML 4.01 specs:
The P element represents a paragraph.
A paragraph is a division of text that semantically belongs
together.
The DIV and SPAN elements, in conjunction with the id and class
attributes, offer a generic mechanism for adding structure to
documents. These
Perhaps for another time and maybe a different group on English
language Barney, I would like to see a topic on the effect that Google
is inadvertently having on the English language, apart from linkfarms
being used to promote selling widgets, repeating keywords in level
heading and
@Rimantas:
You seem to be of the camp which maintains that use of the horizontal
rule as a visual device is never justified. I disagree.
I am in a slightly different camp, namely, I agree that there _may be_
the situation when HR is the most appropriate element, but I did not
happen to came
Tim wrote:
Can we discuss in this group Google's effect on the English language,
promoting pagerank for compliance with their search algorithms.
Tim
I'm pretty sure these people are never actually hired for the 'service'
of their attitudes to the shape of documents to come, and as such I
Tim
On 06/02/07, Tim [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
It seems to me that what some people are really concerned about is that
you cannot stuff keywords into a HR tag?
That is not the real concern from my perspective, it is simply a fact that
it adds nothing other than a visual effect that can be
,
Mike
From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Kirton
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 3:32 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] HR tag and Semantics
Tim
Mike
Therefore your implication that nothing can be added to bare words to
create meaning is simply ridiculous.
Regards,
Mike
More likely it was me being ridiculous! I take on board your point about
the importance of images / video, however surely Google 's understanding is
only from the
The face of standardisation that wants to drag every form of media into
an indefinitely future-compatible world where everything is stripped
down to the lowest common denominator of
systematically-compartmentalised data... Has its place.
But it often takes the romantics to keep it in there.
Rob Kirton wrote:
More likely it was me being ridiculous! I take on board your point
about the importance of images / video, however surely Google 's
understanding is only from the point of view of words we associate with
a picture via a tagging mechanism ? Therefore words for the bot ,
...
But if there is a problem with these ephemeral and hard-to-define
elements, standardistas should use their sense of order and clear markup
to help integrate these elements - attempting to remove them is futile,
if anything it'll just result in them being used or simulated badly.
So, what's
] On Behalf Of Rob Kirton
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 3:32 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] HR tag and Semantics
Tim
On 06/02/07, Tim [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
It seems to me that what some people are really concerned about is
that
you cannot stuff keywords into a HR tag
Barney
So no, the future isn't just a massive tag field (I bloody hope).
I hope so too.
I just don't thing it will be coming any time soon. Hence my thing about
words and tags
They've had difficulties with disambiguation of words in one language, I
suspect pictures will prove to be very
Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
...
But if there is a problem with these ephemeral and hard-to-define
elements, standardistas should use their sense of order and clear
markup to help integrate these elements - attempting to remove them
is futile, if anything it'll just result in them being used or
You are completely missing the point. It needs to be *MORE* than just
visual for Accessibility reasons. While an hr / may not have any true
semantic meaning (in a strict sense), it is structural none-the-less; it
indicates a clean break between what proceeds it and what follows it. This
I am with Rimintas on this one. I don't think we'll all agree this.
From where i am sitting a div causes a nice logical break as much as hr
(without needing to use one) and the top / or bottom border can be styled to
appear like a horizontal rule if required. div constructs are sometimes a
John Foliot wrote:
You are completely missing the point. It needs to be *MORE* than just
visual for Accessibility reasons. While an hr / may not have any true
semantic meaning (in a strict sense), it is structural none-the-less; it
indicates a clean break between what proceeds it and what
Rob Kirton wrote:
I am with Rimintas on this one. I don't think we'll all agree this.
From where i am sitting a div causes a nice logical break as much as
hr (without needing to use one) and the top / or bottom border can be
styled to appear like a horizontal rule if required. div
John Foliot wrote:
Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
Very interesting and very unconvincing. For one, HR can be styled, so
not too much problem for today's ultra-cool graphic interface. As for
Accessibility I am really interested how HR helps it, and how it is
rendered in non visual browsers, and is
...
Since the hr / *is* a page element, it is announced and rendered as such -
it is a Horizontal Rule - or break, in just about every user-agent known to
mankind; it is one of the most basic of HTML constructs. There is a reason
*why* you as a page author/content creator wants that
Hooray! I've been watching this with my jaw hanging ever closer to the
ground...
To sum up:
div and span have NO semantic meaning and are transparent to screen
readers and (sans style) invisible in common browsers
hr indicates the end of a section and/or beginning of a new section with
no
So, if following section deserves own header - give it, if not -
render longer pause in aural version, and some eye candy for visual
media with CSS. If aural browser does not support
pause-before properly: too bad.
I think pause is just what screen readers would do at hr / - so why not
use it
I think pause is just what screen readers would do at hr / - so why not
use it for its purpose?
Because we can style the div/whatever that would come after HR the
same way–to render
pause and that makes HR redundant, imho.
So let's tomorrow discuss do we really need that weird non semantic br
John
Thanks for the thought provoking contribution..
Except Rob, Adaptive Technology does not explicitly announce divs, as
while they add structure, they have no inherent semantic meaning, which
the
hr / does. You may be able to style your div to visually render
separation of content, but
Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
Thats my point: there must be the reason for such separation and I
don't think that Horizontal Rule be it visual or aural.
Yet if you insert a visual separator into your document, there *is* a
reason. There are as many reasons *for* doing this as for *not doing*
Ok, let's take img src=linebreak.gif alt=Horizontal rule /. In
visual media it will be horizontal rule, aural browser will announce
it as image: horizontal rule. Is it any worse than just Horizontal
rule?
First, move beyond screen reading technology - web accessibility is way more
than web
Rob Kirton wrote:
We now get down to usability issues for
adaptive technology instead of the boring old accessibility ones,
that every body should know about. Would a screen reader user
prefer to have it read out that there was a horizontal line (if they
even have the concept what that
So, what's so bad with separators simulated with CSS.
Con: you won't have them with CSS off.
Pro: cleaner code, more flexibility.
(http://rimantas.com/bits/hr/nohr.html was a quick example I made in
May 2005, when similar discussion is going on some of w3 mailing
list).
For me the con outweighs
On 2/6/07, Ben Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
For whatever another 2c is worth in this thread ;)
Actually, Ben, that's the 2c that convinced me that hr /s do have a
raison d'etre. The tag truly is unfortunately named, though.
Dan
I love HRs,
I use seven different stylesheets and have a different background image
for each HR which is a very wide thin tiling pattern. Then you can have
different HRs for each style. I also use them to ensure clear breaks on
both sides. Explorer does not seem to support the background
On 2/5/07, Andrew Ingram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I've found myself wondering just what semantic meaning the hr tag adds
to a document. The typical usage is when you want to separate sections
of a page. The thing is that a hN tag indicates a new section too.
Another issue is that we generally
Christian Montoya wrote:
On 2/5/07, Andrew Ingram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
one example would be XHTML 2 which has sections to
separate parts of a page. That offers a lot more for semantics than
just having hrs strewn about.
What is the difference between the new section and a div ?
Kat
On 06/02/07, Kat [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
What is the difference between the new section and a div ?
Sections are typographical sections, divs are for adding extra
structure. You can see divs as fuzzy semantically distinct content
areas and sections as a textual semantical grouping.
On 2/5/07, Kat [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Christian Montoya wrote:
On 2/5/07, Andrew Ingram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
one example would be XHTML 2 which has sections to
separate parts of a page. That offers a lot more for semantics than
just having hrs strewn about.
What is the difference
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