On Oct 31, 2006, at 15:34, Michel Fortin wrote:
I think if HTML5 deprecate the use of <dl> for dialog, that it
ought to provide a an alternative syntax for them.
I still think <dl> makes sense for plays and the dialog doesn't need
to be represented on the markup level when punctuation would suffice
in print.
I know it has already been discussed, but I'd suggest this:
<dialog>
What benefits do consumers of HTML get from knowing that something is
a dialog?
What tangible benefits can authors see from marking up dialogs as
dialogs? That is, what is the incentive to bother?
If most authors are not incentivized to mark up their dialogs as
such, is there still enough value for consumers of markup if only
relatively few dialogs are marked up as dialogs?
This leaves much flexibility when writing dialogs, and thus allows
the markup to be used for dialogs at places <dl> could not.
That isn't a benefit if it turns out that there isn't particular
value in marking up dialogs and the value of using <dl> is a
particular presentation with default style sheet.
For instance, this is a dialog, but since its mixed with the main
text you can't surround it by <dialog>. Also, using <cite> in here
isn't very practical, as the text refers to the speakers as "he" or
"she" most of the time.
<p>He was downstair when he heard a strange noise from outside.
When he
went to see, he saw Julietta in the park screaming at him:
<q>Where were
you?</q></p>
<p><q>I was busy fixing the pipes. What happened here?</q> he
asked.</p>
<p><q>There was a cat on the tree</q>, she said. <q>It jumped
and landed
in here.</q> She was pointing at a crate full of pieces of
metal. <q>I
jumped!</q></p>
Why not just use punctuation for the quotations?
It's interesting to note however that the same text could be
surrounded by dialog tags when formatting the same dialog in
French. In the following example, <q> must be styled with no marks
and add em dashes must be added at the start of each paragraph in
the dialog (this could be done by CSS, although here I've done it
in the source for clarity):
<p>Il était au sous-sol quand il entendit un bruit étrange
venant de dehors.
Quand il est alla voir ce qui se passait, il vit Julietta dans
le park qui
lui cria:</p>
<dialog>
<p>— <q>Où étais-tu ?</q></p>
<p>— <q>J'était occupé à réparer les tuyaux. Qu'est-ce qui
c'est passé
ici ?</q> a-t-il demandé.</p>
<p>— <q>Il y avait un chat dans l'arbre</q>, dit-elle. <q>Il a
sauté
pour atterrir juste là.</q>
</dialog>
<p>Elle pointant une caisse pleine de morceaux de métal.</p>
<dialog>
<p>— <q>Et j'ai fait le saut !</q></p>
</dialog>
Note that without <q> in the previous example, there is no easy way
to distinguish inserted text like "dit-elle" ("she said"), these
are typically disambiguated from context in French. But I'd
consider the <q> element optional anyway, even if omitting it
leaves this ambiguity.
If printed text in French (and other languages) works with the dialog
dash style without visual hints where you put the <q> and </q> tags,
why would an author want to go though the trouble of tagging the
dialog like that and then making sure that any styling on the <q>
element is suppressed?
The second type of dialog I considered is more like in a theatrical
piece, where dialogs are completely free of any other prose. It was
previously suggested in HTML4 to use <dl> for this:
<p>Mary and Mark begin walking in the park.</p>
<dl>
<dt>Mary</dt>
<dd>So where do you want to go tomorrow? I can tell you already
have something in mind.</dd>
<dt>Mark</dt>
<dd>What makes you think that?</dd>
</dl>
I think it'd be better expressed this way:
<p>Mary and Mark begin walking in the park.</p>
<dialog>
<p><cite>Mary:</cite> So where do you want to go tomorrow? I
can tell
you already have something in mind.</p>
<p><cite>Mark:</cite> What makes you think that?</p>
</dialog>
Why is that better than <dl>?
--
Henri Sivonen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
