[whatwg] <summary> and <details> elements' specification
Tomasz Jamroszczak
toja at opera.com
Mon Apr 11 06:40:41 PDT 2011
I've got another proposal for making <summary> and <details> easier to
implement and - what's more important - easier to understand and thus
easier to use.
Instead of making <summary> inside <details> working as <legend> inside
<fieldset>, we can throw away the <details> tag and make <summary> work
like <label> element with form element. There's no need for "open"
attribute, instead already existing "hidden" attribute can be used on any
HTML element. Clicking on <summary> adds or removes "hidden" attribute
from element with given id.
Here's default UA style:
summary {
display: list-item;
list-style-type: -o-disclosure-closed;
}
[hidden] {
display: none;
}
Here's example HTML:
<summary for="detailsId">This is summary. Click to show/close
details.</summary>
<div id="detailsId" hidden>...</div>
Pros:
1. Simple to understand by web page authors - its representation and
semantics play well together.
2. No XBL involved.
3. Nicely rendered by browsers not supporting <summary> tag.
4. No quirky rendering.
5. Less keywords to memorize by web authors, reusing existing keywords in
semantically correct way.
Cons:
6. Error-prone for web developers using copy-and-paste method.
7. Additional burden for web developer to maintain summary - id matching.
It's equivalent of absent <summary> element in current specification.
8. Magic when it comes to displaying expand marker inside <summary>.
--
Best Regards,
Tomasz Jamroszczak
More information about the whatwg
mailing list