[whatwg] contenteditable, <em> and <strong>

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

On Jan 11, 2007, at 2:17 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>
> On Jan 10, 2007, at 13:26, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
>>
>> The message "please use <b> and <i> unless you really know what 
>> you're doing, and generate <b> and <i> unless your users really know 
>> what they're doing" is *not* well-known.
>
> What's the expected payoff if the message is made well-known?

As far as I know:
*   Better intonation for screenreaders.
*   Better heuristics for Google Glossary. (Continuing my example from
     last month, whereas "<p><b>foo:</b> bar</p>" is likely a
     definition, "<p><strong>foo:</strong> bar</p>" probably isn't. I'm
     not *sure* that this is how Google Glossary works, but for example,
     all its misdefinitions of the words "update" and "warning" are from
     <b>, not <strong>.)
*   Easier styling for Chinese text.

I didn't know about the last one until yesterday, so I would not be 
surprised if there were others.

>> It has not yet consumed much time, effort, money, blog posts, spec 
>> examples or discussion threads. In the absence of other evidence, I 
>> think it is worth trying.
>
> In that case, I suggest making the content models for <b> and <i> 
> equally versatile as the content models for <strong> and <em>. 
> Otherwise, authors and tool vendors will go with the elements with the 
> more versatile content models just in case the versatility is ever 
> needed.
> ...

Agreed. I also suggest that the first sentence of the usage notes for 
<b> and <i> be toned down a bit, like this: "The b element should be 
used when an author cannot find a more appropriate element, and should 
be generated by authoring tools where users are unlikely to choose a 
more appropriate element".

-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/