[whatwg] The m element

Lachlan Hunt lachlan.hunt at lachy.id.au
Wed Feb 7 14:20:09 PST 2007


Leons, you forgot to CC the list.

Leons Petrazickis wrote:
> Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>> <m> is for highlighting text that is of some interest to the reader, but 
>> it does not alter the meaning of the text itself.
> 
> Would you say that <em> is semantic and <m> is presentational, with 
> the difference from <span>  is in default formatting?  Or is "meaning"
>  not quite the right word -  is <m> like a highlighter in revision
> change tracking, meant to be seen and then discarded?

No, <m> does have semantics.  It marks a specific point of interest, as 
you might do with a highlighter, it just doesn't alter the meaning of 
the text itself.

<m> isn't really needed for revision tracking, we have <ins> and <del> 
for that.  Though, another use case is that it could be used to mark a 
section that needs to be reviewed and/or edited later.  That could be 
particularly useful collaborative editing, like in a wiki.  That's often 
what I use the highlighter tool for in MS Word.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/



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