HTML/XHTML and tag attributes

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: HTML/XHTML and tag attributes

"Philipp Lenssen" <info@outer-court.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> I would say images of the font are the way to go in this case. I don't
> know how a deprecated element would be more suited if the font really
> needs to be there in the document.[/color]

I don't know how an image format would be more suited if we know that the
context is actually text, just to be rendered in a specific font, and
perhaps only used to exemplify that font.
[color=blue]
> Especially when it's a font I don't
> have whatever you do won't help me see it.[/color]

And an image does not help me if I am browsing with image loading turned
off. But a fair comment - it would be best to use _both_ an image _and_
<font> markup when discussing font samples. If you consider sticking to
<img> only, you would be faced with the issue of alt text, and the logical
approach would then be
<font face="Verdana"> <img alt="Sample text" src="sample.gif "></font>
but, as we know, IE fails to get it.

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

[Brian]

Re: HTML/XHTML and tag attributes

Kris wrote:[color=blue]
> In article <Xns943AD227A67 EBjkorpelacstut fi@193.229.0.31 >, "Jukka
> K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> (Anyone seen my Purist's badge lately?)[/color]
>
> Yeah, I have it. Picked it up when you dropped it, on that night we
> were out on the town, molesting Flash authors. I remember we had a
> lot of fun; you even got to woop your bicycle chain over some guy
> who insisted on using JavaScript for form validation.[/color]

rotfl
This gets my vote for funniest post of the week (month?).

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Bertilo Wennergren]

Re: HTML/XHTML and tag attributes

Jukka K. Korpela:
[color=blue]
> And an image does not help me if I am browsing with image loading turned
> off. But a fair comment - it would be best to use _both_ an image _and_
> <font> markup when discussing font samples.[/color]

Hmmm... Is the _meaning_ of the "font" element really "a sample of the
font indicated with the 'face' attribute"? I don't think so.

The HTML 4.01 Spec say:

The FONT element changes the font size and color for text in its
contents.

Nothing about meaning there. It just changes (or suggests a change of)
the display font. It's purely presentational.

It would of course be a tad better, if "font" acually were a meaningful
element. That would put it in with "kbd", "samp" and other esoteric
elements: of little use, but quite OK when it's actually needed once in
a blue moon. But that's just dreaming.

--
Bertilo Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.n et> <http://www.bertilow.co m>

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: HTML/XHTML and tag attributes

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
[color=blue]
> And an image does not help me if I am browsing with image loading turned
> off.[/color]
[color=blue]
> But a fair comment - it would be best to use _both_ an image _and_
> <font> markup when discussing font samples. If you consider sticking to
> <img> only, you would be faced with the issue of alt text, [...][/color]

As a practical example, I give you

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

I think the author has approached the problem with good compromises,
considering the purpose of the page. The demonstrations are never
going to prove anything on a character-cell browser (Lynx etc) or
screen reader anyway, so those kinds of user are going to just have to
believe what he tells them in the text ;-)

The idea of specifying the exact desired font, followed by monospace
fonts as fallback, was particularly ingenious ;-)

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: HTML/XHTML and tag attributes

Bertilo Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.n et> wrote:
[color=blue]
> The HTML 4.01 Spec say:
>
> The FONT element changes the font size and color for text in its
> contents.[/color]

You spotted an interesting oddity. The wording reflects HTML 3.2, which did
not allow the face attribute (though mentioned it!). The intent is, of
course, to say "font size or color or face".
[color=blue]
> Nothing about meaning there. It just changes (or suggests a change of)
> the display font. It's purely presentational.[/color]

Well, it specifies the preferred font, and that's exactly the desired
meaning in my example. There's a difference between using some
presentational feature (for some effects) and discussing the feature itself.

It's actually odd (and I'm not the first one to say this) that <font> is
deprecated, and so is <u>, but <b> and <i> and <tt> and <small> and <big>
are not.

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

[Lauri Raittila]

Re: HTML/XHTML and tag attributes

In article Philipp Lenssen wrote:[color=blue]
> Bertilo Wennergren wrote:
>[color=green]
> >
> > Sometimes you might want something of special importance to you, look
> > very special for you, on a certain site you're visiting frequently
> > (perhaps your bank or something similar). Disabling stylesheets won't
> > help with that.[/color]
>
> And if that site doesn't support "CSS signatures"?'[/color]

Then I need to do clever selector and hope it don't select anything else.
Tends to make userstylesheet big, of about 40kB's of userstyles I have,
30kB is page spefific, even if they only consern few sites.
[color=blue]
> And if they do, what if they change their HTML?[/color]

There is big change nothing bad happens. Usually you end up with dead
lines in your usercss, and need to rewrite them. If page uses CSS-
signature, then that is smaller problem.
[color=blue]
> I don't think it's the job of a site-visitor to write user-stylesheets
> all the time.[/color]

True. There is very few sites with CSS-signature that need to be changed
anyway. The problem is, that there is no other easy way, excluding proxy.
[color=blue]
> I think the concept of user-stylesheets is pretty much
> flawed. Even on perfectly valid HTML strict sites.[/color]

You haven't played it enaugh, I guess. Or your browsing situation is
pretty normal, so you don't need to fix most sites in order to see them
in the way you prefer.
[color=blue]
> And hey, there's not
> too many of them out there in the first place. And let's face it those
> sites you would want to have a user-stylesheet the most are the same
> ones that would be the last to support any strict/ CSS Signatures/
> valid & accesible stuff.[/color]

That is the problem. And exactly the reason I am not at all as exited of
CSS-signatures as I was. But, there is lots of clueless people out there
using XHTML already (invalid or not), if CSS-signature would have same
image of being the thing to do, it would be much better, and even easier
to most people. The nice thing about CSS-signature is that it is easy
implement, much easier than fixing the site. I hope we never see site
that claims that it is accessible as it uses CSS-signature.

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
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