[whatwg] Editorial comment r/e summary element

[Sergiusz Wolicki]

I am reading:

"Contexts in which this element can be used:
As the first child of a
details<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/interactive-elements.html#the-details-element>element."
My feeling is that unconnected DOM elements in a script are not really an
HTML document but only its building blocks (bricks). Therefore, any
parent-child relationship required by the spec does not apply until the
fragments are connected together to form an HTML document to be interpreted
(rendered) by a user agent. Therefore, if "if any" applies to fragments only
and not to complete documents, then I feel, it should not be present in the
spec.

The problem is that if we add "if any", allowing no parent, then we should
also define what <summary> means if there is no parent.

In short: "if any" should not be added if it is only meant to allow an
element to be represented separately as DOM in a script, because, if I
understand correctly, such representation is allowed for any HTML element.


-- S5sz




On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 10:10 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:

> On Tue, 20 Sep 2011, Bruce Lawson wrote:
> >
> > Fair dames and damsels of the list
> >
> > Consider
> >
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/interactive-elements.html#the-summary-element
> :
> > "The summary element represents a summary, caption, or legend for the
> rest of
> > the contents of the summary element's parent details element, if any."
> >
> > I read "if any" to mean there may or may not be "a summary, caption or
> > legend".
> >
> > However, a questioner to HTML5 Doctor believes that <summary> can be used
> > outside <details>, reading "if any" to sugest that there may not be a
> > "summary element's parent details element".
> >
> > (She wants to use <summary> at the top of an article to summarise its
> > contents, because the ambiguous prose I quote suggests that a parent
> details
> > element is optional).
>
> It means that there might not be a <details> parent. The only way this
> could happen in a conformance situation is if the <legend> didn't have a
> parent at all, which is only possible in unconnected DOM fragments in
> script.
>
>
> > Can we remove this ambiguity? "The summary element represents an
> > optional summary, caption, or legend for the rest of the contents of the
> > summary element's parent details element" would work.
>
> The summary isn't optional (<summary> is a required child of <details>).
>
> The "if any" style is used all over the spec; I'm not sure how to make it
> clearer without dramatically increasing the verbosity, which I would like
> to do to avoid drawing attention to aspects of the spec that are of
> relatively little practical importance. For example, replacing it with "if
> the element has such a parent" changes this minor point from a two-word
> side note to a whole sentence fragment taking a quarter of the sentence.
>
> Anyone have any suggestions?
>
> --
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
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>