[whatwg] fieldset (was: The legend element)

Ian Hickson ian at hixie.ch
Sat Oct 17 03:04:02 PDT 2009


On Wed, 14 Oct 2009, Jeremy Keith wrote:
> Hixie wrote:
> > > Then it might be nice to clarify this with a few words in the spec, 
> > > as "The fieldset element represents a set of form controls 
> > > optionally grouped under a common name" can be read as implying 
> > > structuring and thus accessibility matters.
> > 
> > The element does add structure and help with accessibility, but that 
> > doesn't mean it's always necessary.
> 
> I just had a thought (that I sanity-checked in IRC)...
> 
> Perhaps <fieldset> should be a sectioning root?
> 
> It "feels" like it's a similar kind of grouping element to <blockquote> 
> and <td> in that, while it might well contain headings, you probably 
> wouldn't want those headings to contribute to the overall outline of the 
> document.
> 
> What do you think?

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> 
> Since I was the one it was sanity-checked against, +1 to this 
> suggestion.  I sometimes use headings to label individual inputs in a 
> form, and I don't particularly want to expose these in the page outline.

Done. (Also for <details>.)


> A rider suggestion: expose <legend> in the page outline as the heading 
> for the <fieldset>.

I considered this, but I don't really want to make the algorithm any more 
complicated, and I'm not really sure we'd want that exposed, any more than 
you want the headings for individual inputs exposed, in the page outline.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
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