[whatwg] <img> element comments

[Spartanicus]

Matthew Raymond <mattraymond at earthlink.net> wrote:

>Michel Fortin wrote:

>> Except that, contrary to bgcolor, the height and width attributes can  
>> help solve a real problem: page jiggling while the images loads. It's  
>> somewhat like the type="image/jpg" attribute you can set for links:  
>> it gives advance information on what the external content is supposed  
>> to be.
>
>  So does CSS, as you point out below.

Indeed, but then there is the mantra that CSS should be considered 100%
optional since the CSS may not be used for various reasons like network
trouble. 

Afaics the question then seems to be; is preventing reflows a serious
enough issue to not delegate it to CSS?

>   The |width| and |height| attributes don't specify the dimensions of
>the source image. They specify the size of the image in the document.
>That's presentational, in my book. Arguing that those attributes are
>properties of the image within the document amounts to a free pass for
>all presentational markup. The <font>, <center>, <s> and <u> elements
>communicate a property of the text, not the presentation. I don't buy
>it. Without the attributes actually describing a property of the source
>image (which is redundant), the |height| and |width| have no semantic
>meaning. Convenient as they are, they're styling as markup.

I don't believe that using a strict presentational vs semantic model is
helpful or even possible, nor do I believe that allowing width & height
attributes could create a precedent.

The question should be if maintaining these serves a valid useful
purpose.

-- 
Spartanicus

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