<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 11:13 AM, Pentasis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pentasis@lavabit.com">pentasis@lavabit.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Yes, but this is a theoretical explanation that does not provide a<br>
consistent, practical solution.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I don't understand why these solutions aren't consistent or practical.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></div>
First of all, the spec admits it itself:<br>
"HTML does not have a dedicated mechanism for marking up footnotes. Here are the recommended alternatives."<br>
Alternatives are not real mechanisms.<br>
<br>
It gives us the option of using the title attribute (which has no mechanism of expansion and we cannot group them).<br>
Then it gives us the a element solution, which is how it is already done in most cases but leaves much to be desired (there are plenty of articles about it on the web).<br>
And last it tells us we can use the aside element. But in this example there is no *direct* relation to the actual word/phrase we put in the aside. It also gives us -again- no direct mechanism of expansion and no way of grouping footnotes/sidenotes.<br>
<br>
Now, I am perfectly happy for this spec not to provide a footnote construct, but in that case I would strongly suggest removing these alternatives and simply say it should be resolved using scripting (which has much more flexibility) or not say anything at all about it.<br>
</blockquote></div><br><div>Grouping and such is a stylistic concern, though - as long as the document expresses a footnote semantic, that's all it has to do. For the rest, we have a CSS Module that will cover that area, the Generated and Replaced Content module [1]. By an astonishing coincidence, the editor of this module is no less than Ian himself.</div>
<div><br></div><div>[1]: <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-content/">http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-content/</a></div><div><br></div><div>~TJ</div>