[whatwg] [HTML5] 2.9.16. The samp element

[Christoph Päper]

2007-12-11 05:56 Ian Hickson:
> On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Christoph Paeper wrote:
>>
>> Would the following be inadequate usage according to this  
>> specification?
>>
>>   <a href="foo.img"><samp><img src="foo.t.img" alt="..."/></samp></a>
>>
> Yes. The former would be appropriate if a computer output the given  
> image
> and that was the subject under discussion;

That means screenshots, doesn't it?
But computers "output" many more kinds of images, e.g. when they  
render, scan, read out cameras or other media, reel through films ...  
I think it's hard to tell the essential difference.

Of course almost nobody actually uses |samp| in galleries and the  
like at the moment, so it's not a big deal.

> I'm not convinced that there's really a need to unambiguously mark  
> up thumbnails as distinct from anything else, though.

Neither am I, but there are programs or browser plugins that could  
make good use out of this information. OTOH it might fit better into  
the |rel| (or |rev|) attribute of the surrounding |a| (or it's done  
by a predefined class for |img|).
Another question would be whether the linked image had to be the  
original (e.g. the full-size screenshot) or just a better  
representation of it (e.g. the larger scan of a book cover).

PS: Thanks for the personal CC, I've not been watching the list for a  
while.