[whatwg] Thoughts on HTML 5 - dialog

[Mikko Rantalainen]

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Tue, 13 May 2008, Ernest Cline wrote:
> I agree that <dialog> isn't perfect and could be (and has been) confused 
> with dialog boxes, but I'm not convinced it's not the best name for the 
> job anyway.
> 
>> The other possibility is <dialogue/> since the computing uses that cause 
>> confusion seem to have standardized on the shorter spelling.
> 
> Experience with language="" on <script> suggests that many authors have 
> serious difficulties spelling words that contain the "gu" letter pair.

I, too, think that the word "dialog" sounds more like dialog window or
dialog box than a dialogue.

I'd prefer dialogue over dialog for following reasons:

- cannot be confused with dialog box or dialog window
- the dialogue tag would probably most often be generated by CMS system
or authoring software so spelling errors are not such a big issue
- dialogue is pretty seldom used feature and I believe it doesn't
deserve any shorter tag

If <dialog> is used instead of <dialogue> then it should be designed in
a such way that it can be used for dialog box in addition to dialogue
(e.g. chat) in the future.

-- 
Mikko


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