Re: Where are Fonts and Phrases allowed? [Was: HTML 2.0 Call for Review ]
Murray Maloney <murray@sco.COM>
Subject: Re: Where are Fonts and Phrases allowed? [Was: HTML 2.0 Call for Review ]
To: html-ig@oclc.org
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 17:52:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Murray Maloney <murray@sco.COM>
In-reply-to: <9406102025.AA08126@ulua.hal.com> from "Daniel W. Connolly" at Jun 10, 94 04:28:13 pm
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>
> In message <199406102002.NAA02913@rock>, Terry Allen writes:
> >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >I agree it's simpler to say that nesting of font changes has
> >no effect, and that this is appropriate to the desired simplicity
> >of HTML. But if nesting has no effect, it shouldn't be allowed
> >(at the level at which we become proscriptive: 2.0? 2.5? 3.1?),
> >or, if the context is current practice, should be deprecated,
> >because the writer may make the mistake of believing that if
> >he can nest, then nesting must have some effect.
>
> Yes, there is the potential for confusion here.
>
> To clarify: we have several choices:
>
> "Implementations _must_ distinguish nested emphasis"
> (my opinion: bad idea. How many levels must they
> distinguish?)
>
> "Implementations _may_ distinguish nested levels"
> (my option: this is the way to go.
>
> We end up with the unfortunate situation where Joe
> uses nested emphasis and it works on browser X but not
> on browser Y, but given all the various style
> configuration mechanisms that are popping up, I don't
> see the value in prohibiting this.)
I'd like to say that I support this option. As and when broiwsers
are able to support differentiation of nested emphasis elements,
the richness of the markup will become more evident. This is
(or will be) a good thing.
I'd also like to point out another kind of nesting that might occur:
<CITE>some quoted text <EM>emphasized text</EM></CITE>
Now, say that the browser has decided to render <CITE> as italic,
and, under normal circumstances to render <EM> as italic, then
the font selected for the "emphasized text" text above would
not be emphasized at all. However, if you allow for some
context-sensitivity in font selection, then the browser could
decide to use bold or underscored text to emphasize. Similarly,
<STRONG> could continue to be rendered as bold, unless that was
prefered as the alternate for <EM>, in which case underscore
could be used.
Now, you may argue that an author should know better than to do
such a lame thing with their markup, but note that an author
might simply copy/paste a citation from another document and
place it in a <CITE>.
is
>
> "Implementations _must not_ distinguish nested emphasis"
> (this is my 2nd choice.)
>
> I think it's also worth saying something like "while nested emphasis
> syntax is allowed, it is deprecated and may not be legal in future
> versions of the spec."
>
> Dan
>