Geoff Pack wrote:
As for lists, the pipe separated menu list is perfectly clear to most
people. What is missing is a clean way to mark it up with HTML. You
could use an unordered list, styled inline, but that is overkill in many
cases, and not an useable if you want the list to be inline when styles
are missing or turned off.
Hi,
I don't think anyone is arguing whether or not pipe separators are
/visually/ clear in meaning--they, of course, are. When I see them, I
know exactly what they mean; generally a separator for inline list items:
Banana | Apple | Orange |
If, however, I see them in an unstyled list (browser default for
example), they carry much less meaning visually:
* Banana |
* Apple |
* Orange |
The items are already clearly delineated by the UA and the persistence
of the pipes adds no semantic meaning--I don't even think it /looks/
proper at this point, but I digress.
In either instance pipe separators have little to no meaning outside of
a visual context, which by nature makes them presentational. As such it
only makes good sense to leverage CSS, either through the use of
background images or borders, to present this visual usability enhancement.
I will continue to use visual cues like these myself, but will do so as
semantically as possible.
--
Best regards,
Michael Wilson
******************************************************
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
******************************************************
