Re: Proposal for an Outlining Markup Scheme For HTML 3.0

Nancy O'Donnell (nancyo@eicon.com)
Fri, 14 Jul 95 14:33:00 gmt

On July 13 1995 17:41 at 17:41, Chris Tilbury wrote
[snip]
> Let's look at how these compare with elements already present in the
> HTML 3 draft[1]. Obviously enough, we have no <OUTLINE> element. The
> closest we can come to is one of
>
> <OL>, <UL>, or <DL>
>
> both of which generate lists of one form or another, and which all
> have the capability to be nested within each other (although how <DL>
> should behave when nested is rather unclear, since the "concept" of a
> definition does seem to rule out having further definitions within
> it.)
And again, later in the same correspondance:
[snip]
> What we don't appear to have is an equivalent to the <OT> item,
> except for <DD> in a definition list - since the exact behaviour of a
> cascaded <DL> is rather undefined (do not the natures and semantics,
> if not syntax, of a definition list item rule out further definition
> lists within itself?), even this is a rather tenuous comparison.
[snip]
My question is, should a cascaded <DL> not be defined - at least for a
second level? For example, if you have a term that is defined as a union of
two
other terms, it could make sense to provide a summary definition of the two

subitems in a second-level definition list. Of course, this example assumes
that
the author wishes to maintain hierarchical groupings of the terms and not
simply
link to other terms at the same level.

Nancy O'Donnell
Technical Writer
Eicon Technology
nodonnel@ie.eicon.com