Re: [whatwg] HTML as a text format: Should be optional?</span></a></span> </h1> <p class="darkgray font13"> <span class="sender pipe"><a href="/search?l=whatwg@lists.whatwg.org&q=from:%22Ian+Hickson%22" rel="nofollow"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span itemprop="name">Ian Hickson</span></span></a></span> <span class="date"><a href="/search?l=whatwg@lists.whatwg.org&q=date:20090604" rel="nofollow">Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:42:19 -0700</a></span> </p> </div> <div itemprop="articleBody" class="msgBody"> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <pre>On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, �istein E. Andersen wrote: > > HTML can be used as an advanced text format, and people may want to > convert existing plain text to HTML. For example's sake, consider the > following: > > > A Short Document > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > This is a short plain-text document which someone > > might want to convert into HTML. > > > > As faithful readers of this list will recall, > > /R�gles typographiques/ requires note names to be > > typeset in italics (/ut/, /r�/, /mi/, etc.), > > which is not possible in plain text. > > This corresponds to the following HTML: > > > <h1>A Short Document</h1> > > > > <p>This is a short plain-text document which someone > > might want to convert into HTML. > > > > <p>As faithful readers of this list will recall, > > <i>R�gles typographiques</i> requires note names to be > > typeset in italics (<i>ut</i>, <i>r�</i>, <i>mi</i>, etc.), > > which is not possible in plain text. > > Unfortunately, this is not valid; the following two lines must be added > to the top: > > > <!DOCTYPE html> > > <title>A Short Document</title> > > A <title> is usually a good idea, but is it really necessary to require > this for conformance? After all, a <title> is not something which an > author is likely to forget, and leaving it out has no unexpected > consequences.</pre><pre> Leaving it out has a pretty important consequence, it breaks user interfaces that need to refer to the document, e.g. "bookmarks" features in browsers. On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Randy Drielinger wrote: > > If you're converting from a textfile, title could refer to the filename. > > If it's an automated process, it can be added by default. > > If it's manual, they'll have to remember the short html5 doctype and the > title element. It does indeed seem easy to include it. On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Michael Enright wrote: > > If you use HTML as a text file format you can still let the receiving > parser infer all sorts of tags and allow yourself to write things like > Andersen's first HTML version. If you want a title, put a title element > in. Is the concern about validation? Can one really get in that much > trouble without a pedantic validator checking your work? Could the > validator's warning about missing doctype be taken as advisory? Is the > doctype a problem? It only affects the details of rendering (by turning > off quirks) and HTML5 is still not equivalent to pagemaker anyway, > especially without CSS. I'm not sure what you are asking for here. On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, �istein E. Andersen wrote: > > It could, but chances are that the original filename would typically be > less useful than the URL, which is what most browsers use when the > <title> element is omitted, so this rather sounds like an argument > against forcing authors to include a <title>. I don't see why this would be the case. In practice, however, if one is at a loss as to what to use for the <title>, but one has an <h1>, then I would recommend using the <h1>'s contents. > Yes, my concern is that a validator should be useful as an authoring > tool and not overwhelm the author with spurious errors. As I see it, > leaving out <title> is very much like leaving out a paragraph of text > and not something that should matter for validation. As it affects user interfaces, and since the cost of including a <title> is so low, I think it makes sense to continue to make it required. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL <a rel="nofollow" href="http://ln.hixie.ch/">http://ln.hixie.ch/</a> U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'</pre> </div> <div class="msgButtons margintopdouble"> <ul class="overflow"> <li class="msgButtonItems"><a class="button buttonleft " accesskey="p" href="msg15235.html">Previous message</a></li> <li class="msgButtonItems textaligncenter"><a class="button" accesskey="c" href="thrd15.html#15241">View by thread</a></li> <li class="msgButtonItems textaligncenter"><a class="button" accesskey="i" href="mail15.html#15241">View by date</a></li> <li class="msgButtonItems textalignright"><a class="button buttonright " accesskey="n" href="msg15246.html">Next message</a></li> </ul> </div> <a name="tslice"></a> <div class="tSliceList margintopdouble"> <ul class="icons monospace"> <li class="icons-email tSliceCur"><span class="subject">Re: [whatwg] HTML as a text format: Should <title> b...</span> <span class="sender italic">Ian Hickson</span></li> <li><ul> <li class="icons-email"><span class="subject"><a href="msg15246.html">Re: [whatwg] HTML as a text format: Should <title&...</a></span> <span class="sender italic">Michael Enright</span></li> <li class="icons-email"><span class="subject"><a href="msg18229.html">Re: [whatwg] HTML as a text format: Should <title&...</a></span> <span class="sender italic">Brian Campbell</span></li> </ul> </ul> </div> <div class="overflow msgActions margintopdouble"> <div class="msgReply" > <h2> Reply via email to </h2> <form method="POST" action="/mailto.php"> <input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Re: [whatwg] HTML as a text format: Should <title> be optional?"> <input type="hidden" name="msgid" value="Pine.LNX.4.62.0906042236320.1648@hixie.dreamhostps.com"> <input type="hidden" name="relpath" value="whatwg@lists.whatwg.org/msg15241.html"> <input type="submit" value=" Ian Hickson "> </form> </div> </div> </div> <div class="aside" role="complementary"> <div class="logo"> <a href="/"><img src="/logo.png" width=247 height=88 alt="The Mail Archive"></a> </div> <form class="overflow" action="/search" method="get"> <input type="hidden" name="l" value="whatwg@lists.whatwg.org"> <label class="hidden" for="q">Search the site</label> <input class="submittext" type="text" id="q" name="q" placeholder="Search whatwg"> <input class="submitbutton" name="submit" type="image" src="/submit.png" alt="Submit"> </form> <div class="nav margintop" id="nav" role="navigation"> <ul class="icons font16"> <li class="icons-home"><a href="/">The Mail Archive home</a></li> <li class="icons-list"><a href="/whatwg@lists.whatwg.org/">whatwg - all messages</a></li> <li class="icons-about"><a href="/whatwg@lists.whatwg.org/info.html">whatwg - about the list</a></li> <li class="icons-expand"><a href="/search?l=whatwg@lists.whatwg.org&q=subject:%22Re%5C%3A+%5C%5Bwhatwg%5C%5D+HTML+as+a+text+format%5C%3A+Should+%3Ctitle%3E+be+optional%5C%3F%22&o=newest&f=1" title="e" id="e">Expand</a></li> <li class="icons-prev"><a href="msg15235.html" title="p">Previous message</a></li> <li class="icons-next"><a href="msg15246.html" title="n">Next message</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="listlogo margintopdouble"> </div> <div class="margintopdouble"> </div> </div> </div> <div class="footer" role="contentinfo"> <ul> <li><a href="/">The Mail Archive home</a></li> <li><a href="/faq.html#newlist">Add your mailing list</a></li> <li><a href="/faq.html">FAQ</a></li> <li><a href="/faq.html#support">Support</a></li> <li><a href="/faq.html#privacy">Privacy</a></li> <li class="darkgray">Pine.LNX.4.62.0906042236320.1648@hixie.dreamhostps.com</li> </ul> </div> </body> </html> <script>(function(){function c(){var b=a.contentDocument||a.contentWindow.document;if(b){var d=b.createElement('script');d.innerHTML="window.__CF$cv$params={r:'9cde5c6aea9bc77b',t:'MTc3MTA5MDkzNQ=='};var a=document.createElement('script');a.src='/cdn-cgi/challenge-platform/scripts/jsd/main.js';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(a);";b.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(d)}}if(document.body){var a=document.createElement('iframe');a.height=1;a.width=1;a.style.position='absolute';a.style.top=0;a.style.left=0;a.style.border='none';a.style.visibility='hidden';document.body.appendChild(a);if('loading'!==document.readyState)c();else if(window.addEventListener)document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',c);else{var e=document.onreadystatechange||function(){};document.onreadystatechange=function(b){e(b);'loading'!==document.readyState&&(document.onreadystatechange=e,c())}}}})();</script>