[whatwg] The new content model for <details> breaks rendering in MSIE5-7

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 3:51 AM, Dean Edwards <dean.edwards at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/10/2009 03:38, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>>
>> Agreed, but<details>  won't be usable at all in modern browsers
>> (without hacking support in via js) until everyone updates.
>
> That's the whole point of this thread. We are specifying something that
> won't be usable for years. Let's make the spec better so that we can use
> <details> sooner.

But we won't be able to, really.

As it stands, <details> doesn't "work" in any of the modern browsers.
You are forced to use js to hack the toggling functionality in.  IE6
and IE7 are slightly more broken, in that they require a relatively
invasive script hack to get them to the same level of not-working that
all the other browsers have.

If we mint a new element, we pay the costs of adding yet another
vaguely-heading element to add to the dozen+ we already have in the
language, and what's the benefit?  IE6 and IE7 will require a less
invasive hack to get them to the same level of not-working that all
the other browsers have.

I can definitely understand why it's felt that that's not sufficient
benefit to justify it.  No modern browser gets anything out of the
deal, only a pair of legacy browsers that are, finally, on their way
out.  And we'd be saddled with still more naming confusion regarding
which of the dozen elements is appropriate in <details> as opposed to
<figure>, <table>, <section>, etc. despite them all serving roughly
the same purpose.  A permanent cost to solve a temporary problem that
will disappear on its own, and one that doesn't even *need* solving -
the only benefit is that you get to change your toggle scripts to look
for <details> rather than <div class="toggle"> sooner.

I wanna use <details> soon too - it gives me the warm fuzzies for some
reason even if I have to hack the functionality in myself.  But I can
accept waiting until IE7 is irrelevant.  I'm going to be doing that
anyway for a number of other HTML5 features.

~TJ