[whatwg] <details> for long description of image/ video etc

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Lachlan Hunt wrote:

>> If <details> default Boolean setting of 'hidden' results in the
>> equivalent of CSS's {display:none;} (where the content is taken
>> completely out of the page flow, both visually and in the DOM tree)
>> then this would likely be a possible alternative to @longdesc
>
> Yes, it should be implemented equivalent to display:none.

Please clarify. You seem to by trying to express it very briefly, at the 
cost of change of meaning. You don't really mean that the entire <details> 
element should not be displayed at all, do you? Just that only the <summary> 
element is displayed, the rest of <details> content being kept away, right?

I think the assumed typical implementation of <details> rendering is 
described in some detail (no pun intended) at
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/rendering.html#the-details-element-0
Perhaps it is even too detailed to some extent. Personally I don't like the 
idea of defaults like 40px padding, in an environment where the pixel size 
and font size should be assumed to be unknown. (I can understand why some 
measures are given in pixels, following the bad tradition of browsers and 
"sample" stylesheets,  to prevent old documents from breaking apart, but for 
new elements, we could use the em unit, couldn't we?) And it's not quite 
clear what it means... but it makes it clear that only the implied "second 
container" is supposed to be removed from the rendering.

-- 
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/