On Aug 17, 2005, at 8:31 PM, T. R. Valentine wrote:
On 17/08/05, Scott Swabey (Lafinboy Productions)
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Does a calendar (single month) qualify as tabular data,
are ordered lists a better fit, or should I be looking at
another option?
IMO, a calendar is always tabular data.
I agree that in general, calendars on web pages should be marked up
as tables. This affords some backwards compatibility with the CSS-
challenged. So I in no way want to argue against Valentine's
position, but I do want to discuss a point about it.
"Tabular data" means data that both the row and column add meaning
and context to the displayed data. A calendar is not row-sensitive;
columns are only columns because that is a convenient shorthand for
repeated meta data (days of the week). As I understand it, Mayan
calendars (for examples) represented the same thing as circular
(cyclical?) data, and not tabular.
Case in point: depending on national preference, the calendar "weeks"
may start with Sunday, or end with Sunday. But Sunday, Aug 14, 2005,
would move to a different "week" (a different row, and therefore a
different meaning) if you switched from Sunday-first to Sunday-last.
In tabular data, you cannot arbitrarily switch rows and not change
the meaning, but in a typical calendar Aug 14 would remain the same
regardless of the column order.
The data structure of a calendar is an ordered list, with repeated
meta data (days of week), and sectional groups (months and years).
There is no truly appropriate HTML markup for this, since you cannot
segment an ol.
A current project of mine allows people to select a week by clicking
on any day within it. In this case, changing from Sunday-first to
Sunday-last *would* change the week the Sunday is related to, and so
tabular data it has become.
--
Ben Curtis : webwright
bivia : a personal web studio
http://www.bivia.com
v: (818) 507-6613
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