[html4all] Numbered headings (was HTMLWG)

[Henri Sivonen]

On Nov 26, 2007, at 18:20, Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote:

> This would not affect legacy pages. This will affect legacy tools.  
> For example, an accessibility checker tool or markup validator  
> reports to users on incorrect use of headings.

A new spec is inherently incompatible with legacy validators and  
checkers. Browsers ignore unknowns, but validators are all about  
making noise about the unknowns. A legacy checker wouldn't know about  
<section>/<h>, either. A new spec needs new validators.

<h> has been considered. The reason why HTML5 uses <h1> with extended  
semantics is that the way HTML5 is defined, the outline algorithm  
produces (supposedly--I haven't implemented it) a sane document tree  
even if the input mixes <section>s and old-style <h1>-<h6>. XHTML2  
failed to define the interaction of <h> and <h1>-<h6>.

So if you propose revisiting <h>, I suggest first coming up with a  
suggestion for outline generation behavior when a UA gets a mix of <h>/ 
<section> and <h1>-<h6>.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen at iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/