[whatwg] Significant inline content vs. attributes and sectional elements

[Henri Sivonen]

On Mar 10, 2006, at 00:08, Ian Hickson wrote:

> Here are some of the things I'm worried about:
>
>  * It should be possible for scripts to add content to placeholder
>    elements without those placeholder elements being non-conformant.
>    This is a very useful programming idiom, not least of which because
>    adding content to an existing element (whether attributes or child
>    nodes) is a lot easier than adding the element in the first place.

Well, it depends. Either the script writer has to locate each  
placeholder or alternatively (s)he only needs to locate a parent to  
which append (e.g. head).

Anyway, adding the base URL via a script seems like a bad idea that  
does not deserve to be optimized for, and the meta element is usually  
meant for data mining tools that do not execute scripts. I see the  
point with the link element, although a link without a rel and a href  
still intuitively feels wrong.

>  * It should be possible to have a group of pages that have a similar
>    structure, with elements annotated as necessary. For example, a  
> menu
>    list could be the same on each page, but with the currently loaded
>    page simply not having the "href" attribute on its link, or some  
> such.

Well, I suppose an <a> without a href could make sense for styling in  
such a case. Still seems wrong somehow.

>  * It should always be clear from a semantic point of view whether the
>    content is a single "paragraph", or whether it is a group of
>    paragraphs.

Yes, changing flow to exclusive or of block and inline seems reasonable.

>> href and rel on link
>> href on base
>> name and content on meta (other than the encoding decl)
>> src on img
>> code, height and width on applet
>> name and value on param
>
> I've made a note of this in the draft so I don't lose track of it.  
> Your
> proposals make sense on the whole.

Nice. :-)

> Exceptions: <base target> may mean that
> <base> should have either href or target.

The current draft does not even have target. How would the target map  
to XHTML where the base element is not allowed?

>> I suggest that the
>> alt attribute on img be made optional.
>
> I agree.

Cool.

> You can have empty sections. They might not be written yet, for  
> instance.

OK.

> I agree. I think I'll remove mention of the "significant inline  
> content"
> concept.

Seems practical.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen at iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/