[whatwg] <BIG> Element
Ian Hickson
ian at hixie.ch
Tue Oct 30 01:47:40 PDT 2007
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, Eugene T.S. Wong wrote:
>
> Hi again. Are tired of reading my emails yet? ;^P Please don't answer
> that question!! ;^)
>
> I noticed that there is a <SMALL> element, but no <BIG> element. Is
> there a specific reason for this?
Indeed there is, as Lachlan almost immediately pointed out:
On Sat, 14 Jan 2006, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>
> Both of them are quite presentational, but there is an attempt to
> redefine the small element with some semantic meaning. The same cannot
> be said for big, it is (and probably always will be) presentational, and
> therefore has no place in a semantic markup language.
Not much I can add to that.
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, Eugene T.S. Wong wrote:
>
> <I> & <B> are presentational as well.
Actually both are redefined to be media-independent in HTML5.
> > but there is an attempt to redefine the small element with some
> > semantic meaning.
>
> If that is true, then I encourage the WHATWG to use another name, such
> as <FINEPRINT>ASDF</FINEPRINT>. It is a lot longer, but it does convey
> more semantics.
As was pointed out in the original thread, the name doesn't convey
semantics, the element and its definition do.
> A semantic markup language can't possibly have every single type of
> semantic out there. There are some cases that are so rare, that it would
> be a waste to define them.
Certainly.
> Sometimes <BIG> really does convey something. For example:
>
> <P>I said, "<BIG>NO!</BIG>".</P>
> <P><BIG>YES!!</BIG> I will do it!</P>
> <P><BIG><BIG>NO!</BIG></BIG> You will not!</P>
> <P><BIG><BIG>YES!!</BIG></BIG> I will do it!</P>
> <P><BIG><BIG><BIG>NO!</BIG></BIG></BIG> You will not!</P>
> <P><BIG><BIG><BIG>YES!!</BIG></BIG></BIG> I will do it!</P>
> <P><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG>NO!</BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG> You will not!</P>
> <P><SMALL>Oh, alright...</SMALL></P>
As was later pointed out, <em> is the appropriate element here. Shouting
is an extreme kind of stress emphasis.
> I suppose that you could argue that CSS would create the same effect,
> but you shouldn't have to use CSS to create the effect of a shouting
> match. Besides, those words would have to be surrounded by elements,
> anyways, so it wouldn't hurt to use an element that has a default style.
> There is nothing wrong with using a non-semantic element that has a
> default style as opposed to <SPAN class="shout">YES</SPAN>.
There is one problem, which is that user agents incapable of showing the
original element's default style (e.g. a text mode browser with no font
size control, or a speech browser, or a braille browser) has no guidance
as to what to do with the contents. On the other hand, using a semantic
element like <em> allows the user agent to intelligently substitute the
original recommended rendering with an equivalent rendering that it can
render on its medium.
> The problems of the past arose because:
>
> 1) people used the wrong semantic elements
> 2) people used non-semantic elements where there were semantics
>
> In the above scenario, there are semantics, but there are no semantic
> elements to convey shouting.
I disagree; <em> is appropriate here.
> The elements are modifiable by CSS. I suppose that we could nest
> <STRONG> a few times, but I don't recognize strong emphasis as the same
> thing as shouting.
<strong> in HTML5 represents importance, so I agree that it is not
appropriate here.
> Also, it might be helpful to use <BIG> for math problems, without having
> to resort to MathML.
Mathematics are indeed a thorny problem. It's unclear that <big> would go
far enough in solving it though.
On Sat, 14 Jan 2006, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>
> No, you're using a presentational element where a suitable semantic
> element already exists. It is irrelevant that it doesn't have the
> default styling that you want from big, but that can be handled with
> CSS. That example should be marked up like this:
>
> <p>I said, "<em>NO!</em>".</p>
> <p><em>YES!!</em> I will do it!</p>
> <p><em><em>NO!</em></em> You will not!</p>
> <p><em><em>YES!!</em></em> I will do it!</p>
> <p><em><em><em>NO!</em></em></em> You will not!</p>
> <p><em><em><em>YES!!</em></em></em> I will do it!</p>
> <p><em><em><em><em>NO!</em></em></em></em> You will not!</p>
> <p>Oh, alright...</p>
>
> em { font-size: larger; }
Indeed.
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, Eugene T.S. Wong wrote:
>
> As I've already said, <STRONG> doesn't convey shouting. How much less
> would <EM> convey shouting? The answer is "much less"!
In HTML5 <em> and <strong> are orthogonal in definition.
On Sat, 14 Jan 2006, James Graham wrote:
>
> Although the HTML5 spec does admit a small number of elements of
> questionable semantics (at least historically - they have mostly been
> redefined to have non-presentational meanings) it is only the elements
> that are in wide use and address a use-case that is not already covered
> by another element that have received this special treatment. <small>
> was eligible because it is very commonly used for a single purpose and
> the definition of small as "(legal) small print" basically makes sense.
> <big> does not get the special treatment because there is no use case
> that isn't covered by CSS, <em> and <strong>.
Right.
On Sun, 15 Jan 2006, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>
> It does not. The "semantics" of an element are bound to the definition
> of it, not to the name.
Indeed.
> I think nested <em> elements are in order here. You don't really need
> <big> for that. <big> does not represent "shouting" in any definition
> I've seen so far and <em> comes pretty close as generic element.
Indeed.
> > Also, it might be helpful to use <BIG> for math problems, without
> > having to resort to MathML.
>
> <big> can't possibly be defined to mean two different things while
> staying in the same namespace. Well, I suppose it could be based on the
> context it is placed in, but I think that would get confusing. Also,
> there is MathML.
Indeed.
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006, Eugene T.S. Wong wrote:
>
> Hmm, I was under the impression that we have selectors and classes to
> define elements to have more than 1 meaning..?
CSS doesn't define meaning, only presentation.
On Tue, 17 Jan 2006, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>
> Not sure what you meant with "selectors". The "class" attribute can't
> really give meaning either although there are some efforts going on to
> give you that option. That really sounds suboptimal though. Especially
> in this situation where you want to use an element both for mathematics
> and shouting...
Indeed.
--
Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
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