Gervase Markham wrote:
James Graham wrote:
[1] http://code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/classes.html
What a useful URL. Where in that data is the basis for this "hi" or "m"
element which has caused so much discussion recently?
Since it is designed as an annotation to a page rather than a part of the
markup, I don't think that it would show up in such a study.
As I skim the flood of mail on that subject, I must confess that it
seems that, while prospective use cases can be constructed, and fine
semantic details can be carefully defined, I don't see the web today
crying out for this element, or having to work around its lack.
I believe the element was introduced on the basis that there are lots of pages
that perform some kind of highlighting, especially of others' content e.g.
Google [1] and Yahoo[2] both use this on their cache pages, cam.ac.uk use it on
their search pages [3] (as I suspect do any other ultraseek based searches) and
popular browser addons seem to offer this functionality e.g. [4]. I certianly
agree that there are sufficient real world examples of the proposed semantics to
make this element worth consideration. Presumably the benefits of a specific
element would include a better accessibility story and CSS-based customisation
of the highlighting style.
The current spec is pretty massive, and contains a lot of good stuff. As
the above URL shows, we've covered all the major bases. At this stage,
should we be erring on the side of not increasing the size without an
excellent, real-world reason?
I strongly agree with that in general.
[1]
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:rL_bO-_wkrIJ:www.surtell.com/projects_code_google_highlighting.asp+google+highlighting&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3
[2]
http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=highlighting&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&vc=&fp_ip=UK&u=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax_highlighting&w=highlighting&d=RO_V2-xsOTfc&icp=1&.intl=us
[3] http://web-search.cam.ac.uk/query.html?qt=xray
[4]
http://help.msn.com/resources/targeted/en-US/msnsearchtoolbar_v1/content/SEARCHTBAR_PROC_UseHLV.htm
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"Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?"
-- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
