RE: H1 semantics

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Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 14:11:40 +0200
From: Klaus Harbo <Klaus.Harbo@euromath.dk>
Message-id: <199308121211.AA03519@hill>
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: RE: H1 semantics 
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Status: RO

Nathan Torkington writes:

> I see I didn't make myself clear enough :(.  I meant that people seem
> to be under the impression that 
> 	<H1>globglob</H1>
> 	textytexty
> 	<H1>globglobglobglobglob</H1>
> is in some sense a definition of a semantic region that lies between
> the </H1> and the next <H1> tags and thus that headings are semantic
> rather than presentation tags.  I would classify this sort of heading
> as being a presentation-mainly quasi-semantic tag.  If a region has a
> heading associated with it, it should be defined as a region ie
> 	<REGION><H1>heading1</H1>
> 	text of the region
> 	</REGION><REGION><H1>next heading</H1>

I think I know what you mean. 

HOWEVER, I my view (as I think I've stated before, only then with
regard to P elements) HTML ought to be redesigned to have richer
structure, ie. using containers much more.  The present HTML DTD makes
document instances flat, being mostly a sequence of elements.

Having
	<!ENTITY % h1contents	(h1title,(A|P|H2|%text;|....)+)> 
		<!-- this sketch only serves to demonstrate
		     that H2 elements would nest in H1 elements. -->

or possibly
	
	<!ENTITY % h1contents	(title,(A|P|H2|%text;|....)+)> 
		<!-- with a generic title element -->

would change your Nathan's suggestion

> 	<REGION><H1>heading1</H1>
> 	text of the region
> 	</REGION><REGION><H1>next heading</H1>

into

> 	<H1><H1TITLE>heading1</H1TITLE>
> 	text of the region
> 	</H1>

which is much nicer, which - again - illustrates the desirability of
using container rather than sequencing everything.

Going over this mail, I realize that I agree with the people that
Nathan mentioned in the mail I followed up to: That H1 *should*
"define a region", it is the present DTD that is wrong on this point.

  -- This does not change the fact that you cannot misinterpret the
current DTD on this point.


-Klaus

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