Re: <di>? Please?

<4F2D42DD.3000708@david-woolley.me.uk>

Current votes: None.

Ambrose LI wrote:

>=20
> I won=92t exactly say DIV is non-structural.  There are such things as
> structural uses of DIV; it=92s more correct to say it=92s an HTML
> container with undefined semantics (defined by conventions) and/or
> undefined style (defined by stylesheets).
>=20

My understanding is that neither DIV nor SPAN were intended as purely=20
presentational units.  They were intended to allow the structure to be=20
extended (by using classes) without having every possibly structure in=20
the formal language, thus keeping HTML much simpler than, say, DocBook.

It may well be that designers are using them without thinking about=20
their structural meaning.

I think one thing that could be done here is to compare this with tagged =

PDF.  That starts from the point of view that presentation defines the=20
structure of the document then tries to overlay it with semantics.=20
Where form follows function, it interleaves the structural information,=20
akin to the current CSS position.  Where there is a conflict, e.g. page=20
headings, it has a second data stream that describes how to group=20
presentational units into semantic ones.

That out of line approach is more like a CSS only approach.

--=20
David Woolley
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