[whatwg] Table integrity and conformance

[Michel Fortin]

Le 28 oct. 2006 à 6:34, Anne van Kesteren a écrit :

> On Sat, 28 Oct 2006 04:43:10 +0200, Michel Fortin  
> <michel.fortin at michelf.com> wrote:
>>> * align
>>
>> I don't agree. Yes it is presentational, but data tables can look  
>> pretty crappy if you remove their alignement information.  
>> Delegating alignment to CSS will just make tables harder to read  
>> without the corresponding stylesheet to align the data as  
>> intended. That's not just style, it's also a usability issue. So I  
>> think align="" should be preserved for table cells, rows and columns.
>
> It's known that styling and good design improves usability. That  
> doesn't make "align" any less presentational.

align="" is presentational; I didn't say the contrary. And all  
styling has an influence on usability, I'm not contesting that. But  
some style information is more tied to the content than other, and  
some style information should be known even when CSS is not available  
because *not having that information* makes the document less readable.

Sometime, presentational information is needed to display a document  
correctly, and in those few cases where the presentation is tied to  
the content, I think it belongs in the markup. The align attribute,  
when used on table cells, covers one of those cases.


Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://www.michelf.com/