Footnote style

**James A. Donald** · Sep 27 '05, 11:55 PM

Re: Footnote style

--
On 27 Sep 2005 12:08:43 -0700, constantinopoli @gmail.com
wrote:[color=blue]
> One thing I've appreciated lately is the way isohunt
> presents its info, as hidden window-within-a-window
> that slides or folds open and shut in place. It works
> well for me as a metaphor for uncovering detail and
> practically as a way to avoid having to juggle
> multiple simultaneous windows, to avoid obscuring the
> main material with a popup window, and to access
> detail without jumping. Google mail does something
> similar with its conversations, which I also like,
> expanding them in place.[/color]

That can be done with client side javascript, but it is
not what people ordinarily expect. People expect
documents to quietly sit there doing nothing. When
faced with a dynamic document, they like it, but it
takes them a little while to get used to it.

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3Tdzcl VpR0+pr3YYQdkG
idwFFOoIdWBeRvc t/kuckoZj3Varp2fC P9hzNstB
4zzGvkTidenBOle 1a91rvtQEe5Tp7f iZNkrG+SRcU

--

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**boclair** · Sep 28 '05, 12:45 AM

Re: Footnote style

James A. Donald wrote:[color=blue]
> boclair
>[color=green]
>>Broadly our practise is:
>>
>>Place notes and commentaries into a database. (their collection,
>>management and updating being a major considerations also.)
>>
>>Provide Section and Chapter Endnote web pages that are print friendly.
>>
>>Enable the Reader, as he wishes, to activate a superscripted link
>>selecting the detail of the note or commentary and displaying it below
>>the passage; Notes and Commentaries can be differentiated by font and
>>background colors. (A major advantage that web pages have over printed
>>pages are that they are expandable. There is not the same constraint on
>>the length of the commentary.)
>>
>>Provide on each web page a link to applicable Section and Chapter
>>Endnote web pages. All Notes and Commentaries are displayed in one or
>>other of the Endnote Pages. (Notes and Commentaries may not be unique to
>>a Section or Chapter Endnote page)[/color]
>
>
> Unfortunately, you write in a dialect with which I am not familiar,
> and your POV is unstable, sliding between the client side page seen by
> the end reader, and the constructs such as database entries and
> categories seen by the author. (End reader does not grasp the
> difference between a note and a commentary)
>
> If I follow you, you say that the footnotes should appear to the user
> at the end of section, or in some similarly appropriate place so that
> the document makes sense when printed, but when viewed on screen, the
> reader should access footnotes by clicking on the link.
>[/color]

Please don't think I am advising you or anybody. I was only outlining
our practice.

The difference between a note (we don't actually use the footnote
terminology; they go under the name, cites) and a commentary is simply;
a note cites something; a commentary is an authors explanatory passage
or aside. The category is apparent in the content.

The reader gets a normal marked up web page made up on the server. All
that happens is that having selected a note he is served an rewritten
page with the note detail displayed in a logical place.

We have found that it is necessary to openly display all cites and
commentaries somewhere other than the content web page. It is not
adequate to only display them on demand and hid them if not demanded.
They are fully listed and detailed in Section and Chapter Endnote web
pages that can be reached from links on each of the content web pages.

We have also found that it is useful to make the Endnote pages printer
friendly. For some material the reader may well need
to have open as he reads the cited references be it on tabbed windows,
other machines or hard copy.

Lastly, serious printed material and web material cannot be mixed in our
experience. Little more than the content is common. If it is produced
for the screen it is for the screen and, apart from limited
circumstances, not for the printer; and vice versa. Perhaps CSS will do
something better in the future for the printer media but it is very
basic at the moment. (and just fitting-to-size is no where near the end
of the need)

Louise

**Toby Inkster** · Sep 28 '05, 08:17 AM

Re: Footnote style

Stan Brown wrote:
[color=blue]
> Why is not deprecated, I wonder?[/color]

<big>, , and just aren't, for no apparent reason. I can see
an argument for keeping (to counter-balance ), but the
rest should have been deprecated.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

**Dr John Stockton** · Sep 28 '05, 11:45 PM

Re: Footnote style

JRS: In article <2jtp03-888.ln1@ophelia .g5n.co.uk>, dated Wed, 28 Sep
2005 08:33:22, seen in news:comp.infos ystems.www.authoring.html, Toby
Inkster <usenet200509@t obyinkster.co.u k> posted :[color=blue]
>Stan Brown wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Why is not deprecated, I wonder?[/color]
>
><big>, , and just aren't, for no apparent reason. I can see
>an argument for keeping (to counter-balance ), but the
>rest should have been deprecated.[/color]

The counterbalance to should be <weak>, and the implementation
to make the characters either a colour intermediate between ordinary
text and background, or using thinner lines; & <big>
counterbalance.

In some fields, there is an established convention, dating from before
computers, for the use of italic and bold in print-on-paper.

Authors in those fields should be able to specify bold and italic - it
is part of the meaning, not just decoration. HTML was introduced for
technical work; although use is now predominantly commercial / amateur,
the technical capability should be preserved.

A really good browser would by default display and as truly bold
and italic, with and defaulting to be perceptibly
different; and the representations should be user-configurable, not
necessarily by CSS.

--
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**Jukka K. Korpela** · Sep 29 '05, 06:15 PM

Re: Footnote style

Dr John Stockton <jrs@merlyn.dem on.co.uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
> The counterbalance to should be <weak>, and the implementation
> to make the characters either a colour intermediate between ordinary
> text and background, or using thinner lines;[/color]

Maybe. And definitely with a simple browser function to turn the
presentation to normal text and back. There's no point in keeping the text
barely readable once the user has decided to read it. The _point_ in using
small font size, or grey text, or something like that is to make the text
look less important by making it look kess readable.
[color=blue]
> A really good browser would by default display and as truly
> bold and italic, with and defaulting to be perceptibly
> different;[/color]

I tend to agree. And the good browser, when working in nonvisual mode or
otherwise incapable of bolding or italicizing, would say "bold" and "end
bolding", "italics" and "end italics", since it could not possibly guess
what meaning, if any, the typographic features carry.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

**Stephen Poley** · Sep 29 '05, 06:35 PM

Re: Footnote style

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 08:33:22 +0100, Toby Inkster
<usenet200509@t obyinkster.co.u k> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Stan Brown wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Why is not deprecated, I wonder?[/color]
>
><big>, , and just aren't, for no apparent reason. I can see
>an argument for keeping (to counter-balance ), but the
>rest should have been deprecated.[/color]

No. There is, for example, a convention that scientific names in
biological texts are written in italics. The correct markup for this is
. It would be wrong to use because it is not a form of emphasis
and browsers are not required to emphasise text by using italics.

--
Stephen Poley

Web Matters - Main Page

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

**Alan J. Flavell** · Sep 29 '05, 08:05 PM

Re: Footnote style

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Stephen Poley wrote:
[color=blue]
> No. There is, for example, a convention that scientific names in
> biological texts are written in italics.[/color]

Yes...
[color=blue]
> The correct markup for this is .[/color]

Given HTML as we currently have it, the correct markup for this is
presumably , to distinguish it from other
typographic conventions where would be the correct markup.

I might have said , but then someone is sure to
leap up and say that class names have NO definitive value, and could
just as well be class="N42" for all that HTML cares. Which is as true
as it's unhelpful, I think.
[color=blue]
> It would be wrong to use because it is not a form of emphasis[/color]

Fully agreed.

However, if we go along with the *philosophy* of HTML, but not limited
by its current definition, then we'd presumably need a <species>
markup, to make this unambiguous. And <stanza> for verse, and so on.

I think one of the hopes of XML was that XHTML-like markups would
evolve for different topic fields, and browsers (thanks to
stylesheets) would get suggestions on how to render them. I don't see
a great deal of movement in that area, out in the field yet, despite
the enthusiastic use of XML internally in a lot of machine-to-machine
communications.

best regards

**Dr John Stockton** · Oct 1 '05, 08:55 PM

Re: Footnote style

JRS: In article <2jtp03-888.ln1@ophelia .g5n.co.uk>, dated Wed, 28 Sep
2005 08:33:22, seen in news:comp.infos ystems.www.authoring.html, Toby
Inkster <usenet200509@t obyinkster.co.u k> posted :[color=blue]
>Stan Brown wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Why is not deprecated, I wonder?[/color]
>
><big>, , and just aren't, for no apparent reason. I can see
>an argument for keeping (to counter-balance ), but the
>rest should have been deprecated.[/color]

I've now seen another reason for using (which would apply to and
<big>, too) --- in quoted material, in which it is appropriate
to reproduce the original form without wondering whether in using
italics the originator really meant or or whatever.

Since the material is specified by the Acts of 1751, the originator is
not available for consultation.

--
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**Toby Inkster** · Oct 6 '05, 11:05 AM

Re: Footnote style

Stephen Poley wrote:
[color=blue]
> There is, for example, a convention that scientific names in biological
> texts are written in italics.[/color]

True.
[color=blue]
> The correct markup for this is .[/color]

Some might argue that.

I would argue that current versions of HTML contain *no* semantically
correct element for marking up species names. As such, I would continue
that and (with appropriate CSS) are equally
correct substitutes. The former has better backwards-compatibility; the
latter will be more useful for automated processing; one can get the best
of both worlds with .

See also: my recent message to the www-html mailing list:

Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 07:16:14 +0000
Subject: Re: XHTML2: Proposal for total separation of semantics from
structure
Message-Id: <1125229466.250 0.29.camel[at]ophelia.g5n.co. uk>

Re: XHTML2: Proposal for total separation of semantics from structure from Toby A Inkster on 2005-08-29 (www-html@w3.org from August 2005)

http://www.w3.org/mid/1125229466.2500.29.camel@ophelia.g5n.co.uk

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

**Toby Inkster** · Oct 6 '05, 11:05 AM

Re: Footnote style

Dr John Stockton wrote:
[color=blue]
> I've now seen another reason for using (which would apply to and
> <big>, too) --- in quoted material, in which it is appropriate
> to reproduce the original form without wondering whether in using
> italics the originator really meant or or whatever.[/color]

So if I'm quoting some material which was originally in pink,

...

is OK?

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

**Andy Dingley** · Oct 20 '05, 11:45 AM

Re: Footnote style

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 11:53:22 +0100, Toby Inkster
<usenet200510@t obyinkster.co.u k> wrote:
[color=blue]
>I would argue that current versions of HTML contain *no* semantically
>correct element for marking up species names.[/color]

Nor should it. That would be far too application-specific (look at
DocBook for an example of this run riot).

However and do have sufficient semantic meaning in their own
right to be maintained. There are plenty of instances where or 
have as much implied meaning in particular application contexts as
<blockquote> or even .

--
Cats have nine lives, which is why they rarely post to Usenet.

**Andy Dingley** · Oct 20 '05, 11:45 AM

Re: Footnote style

On Sat, 1 Oct 2005 16:57:04 +0100, Dr John Stockton
<jrs@merlyn.dem on.co.uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
>I've now seen another reason for using (which would apply to and
><big>, too) --- in quoted material,[/color]

So why not use <q> or <blockquote> ?

**Jukka K. Korpela** · Oct 20 '05, 04:45 PM

Re: Footnote style

Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesm iths.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 11:53:22 +0100, Toby Inkster
> <usenet200510@t obyinkster.co.u k> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>I would argue that current versions of HTML contain *no* semantically
>>correct element for marking up species names.[/color]
>
> Nor should it. That would be far too application-specific[/color]

Things that appear frequently in newspapers (at least on science pages)
aren't really application-specific.
[color=blue]
> However and do have sufficient semantic meaning in their own
> right to be maintained.[/color]

Their semantics is "italics" and "bold", respectively. Nothing more,
nothing less. We don't know from the markup whether it is essential or not,
i.e. whether a browser that cannot (or simply won't) use italics should
render "foo" as something like "italics; foo; end of italics"
or as "foo".
[color=blue]
> There are plenty of instances where or 
> have as much implied meaning in particular application contexts as
> <blockquote> or even .[/color]

Anything can have implied meaning, so that's no excuse for using or
.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

**Dr John Stockton** · Oct 20 '05, 10:45 PM

Re: Footnote style

JRS: In article <p20fl1tpm3auam ru1uuju5te46au4 ih95j@4ax.com>, dated
Thu, 20 Oct 2005 12:33:30, seen in news:comp.infos ystems.www.authoring.h
tml, Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesm iths.com> posted :[color=blue]
>On Sat, 1 Oct 2005 16:57:04 +0100, Dr John Stockton
><jrs@merlyn.de mon.co.uk> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>I've now seen another reason for using (which would apply to and
>><big>, too) --- in quoted material,[/color]
>
>So why not use <q> or <blockquote> ?[/color]

You failed to quote, or to consider the full implications of,
[color=blue][color=green]
>>Since the material is specified by the Acts of 1751, the originator is
>>not available for consultation.[/color][/color]

and to consider the implications of "in quoted material", particularly
the use of "in" rather than "around". In the text, only date-related
words are in italics.

The Calendar Acts of ~1751 specify that certain material should go into
the Book of Common Prayer, and it is the BCP which I was quoting.

<blockquote> is utterly inappropriate for words in the middle of a
sentence, and <q> was not known to any reference that I had to hand, or
to my IE4; a book I'm now reading does have it, but its effect (quote-
marks) is inappropriate and the book says that it does not work in IE6.

Presumably such as S unday, or
with a Class, would do; but it seems bloated.

See <URL:http://www.merlyn.demo n.co.uk/estrdate.htm#31 >, or the front of
a BCP, page headed TABLES AND RULES.

If parts of the original material are printed in italics, then using 
is suitable when quoting it.

--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon. co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME. ©
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demo n.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
The Big-8 newsgroup management is attempting to legitimise its questionable
practices while retaining its elitist hegemony. Read <URL:news:news. groups>.

**Andy Dingley** · Oct 20 '05, 11:45 PM

Re: Footnote style

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005 22:07:57 +0100, Dr John Stockton
<jrs@merlyn.dem on.co.uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
><blockquote> is utterly inappropriate for words in the middle of a
>sentence,[/color]

Agreed. That's why it's called a "block" quote
[color=blue]
> and <q> was not known to any reference that I had to hand[/color]

Then you need better references

Paragraphs, Lines, and Phrases

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#edef-Q