

Re: Comments on the XHTML 2.0 WD

From: Kelly Miller <lightsolphoenix@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 17:58:36 -0400
Message-ID: <4296468C.1040609@gmail.com>
CC: www-html@w3.org

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

>At least it should be named "description list", with subelements called
>"item" and "description" for example. It is absurd to say that <dt> means
>definition term and then tell people to use it to name a speaker.
If you ask me, <dt> and <dd> are unnecessary anyway.  Why not create a 
"description" element for lists, and allow it in ANY list?  Using CSS, 
one could make it disappear or display in a certain way, and then people 
can add extra info about the list item if necessary instead of having to 
use a whole separate thing if they want to do descriptions.  Especially 
considering XHTML 2.0 expects you to use <li href=""> to do a hyperlink 
in a navigation list now.

IMO, it should be possible to do:

    <li>Item 1</li>
    <ld>Item 1 is the first item in this list.</ld>
    <li>Item 2</li>
    <ld>Item 2 is the second item in this list</ld>

Admittedly, this is not a good example of how one would use the list.  A 
better one would be something like this:

    <li href="">First Link</li>
    <ld>This link takes you to the Home page of this site.</ld>
    <li href="">Second Link</li>
    <ld>This link takes you to the Sitemap.</ld>

You could even put link subreferences in the <ld>'s, and thus create a 
glossary for people who may not completely understand your terminology.  
Don't get rid of <dl>, just have it use <li> and <ld> instead of <dt> 
and <dd> (which, as has been mentioned, are actually semantically 
incorrect, because not every use of a DL contains terms and descriptions).

Received on Thursday, 26 May 2005 22:24:21 UTC
