[html4all] Issue-tracker Issues
Robert J Burns
rob at robburns.com
Mon May 26 19:25:12 PDT 2008
Hello 4all,
I originally tried sending the issues I want Gregory to add to the
issue tracker as separate emails, thinking it would make discussion
easier. After doing so and accidentally duplicating some messages, I
now think it would be good to combine them all in a single email for
easy URI referencing (plus I've compiled together more issues than I
had before).
Most of these were distilled from discussion in the first 6 months of
the life of the WG. Many are issues that I think should be addressed
by HTML5, but were often dismissed by Ian and many from the WhatWG.
Many have direct accessibility benefits, but they also touch upon
using HTML for archival purposes, academic documents (e.g., an online
encyclopedia) and in many ways rounding out the facilities of HTML.
For example, the implementation of a few of the features raised in
these issues would provide support within HTML documents and HTML UAs
to automatically generate (according to UA, author or user stylesheets):
• A bibliographic source reference list (see [7])
• end notes / footnotes (see [6])
• A glossary of terms (see [8])
• An index of subjects (see [8])
• An index (or indexes) of names (authorities, proper nouns, etc.)
(see [8])
These would be in addition to the automatic generation of a table of
contents already proposed for HTML5. Of course once these semantics
are encoded within an HTML document, the presentation of this data can
also take on new forms and not just rely on the forms used in
traditional printing of documents. Many of these features would serve
he use case of sites such as Wikipedia which now have to provide these
features awkward server-side scripts rather than client-side UA
processing.
Again, I welcome feedback on these, either here, on the WG list or by
improving the associated wiki pages. If anyone wants to recommend
improved language for the summaries of these issues that would be good
too. It may be that I've too deeply reflected on these topics to
adequately summarize them for the uninitiated. Also please feel free
to visit the wiki pages and add supporting discussions, emails and
improved language. Some of the wiki pages are in a rather raw form,
but I hope to clean them up over the next few days.
If those of you attending the HTML teleconf can raise these issues and
advocate for them, I would greatly appreciate it. Though I cannot
usually attend the teleconferences, any of you may volunteer my time
to draft language for the HTML5 recommendation for these issues. I
think the few issues in this list that involve adding new elements ([4]
[6] and [8]) to HTML5 should be treated as the highest priority and
get into the draft as soon as possible (including the minor changes
needed to the parsing algorithm).
The issues listed here in this email constitute the bulk of the issues
I've identified in the first half-year of the WG. There are a few
other more minor issues, but they are all much lower priority than
these. I will likely post these to the HTML4all and the WG email lists
as separate emails to facilitate discussion both there and here.
Take care,
Rob
-------------
The proposed issue-tracker Issues (with endnotes referencing the
relevant wiki page):
-------------
• Add a document authoring requirement to designate role for embedded
content. To ease the burden on authoring tools and authors, and to
provide further information for UAs and users unable to consume non-
text media provide an attribute and HTML specified attribute NCNames
for designating the role of non-text media.[1]
• For Q (quotation) and BLOCKQUOTE a 'marks' content markup attribute.
Permits authors greater control over the separation of concerns of
styling quotations and specifying the semantics of quotations within a
document. Also allows authors to work around the current state of
interoperability across popular UAs.[2]
• Enhanced client-side Image Maps. Provide more complete specification
of client-side image maps to improve accessibility and general
usability and also entirely eliminate the need for server-side image
map processing.[3]
• Markup support for bookmark and clipping support of documents.
Provides a way to markup specific points within a document or
contiguous sections of a document that may not be hierarchically well-
formed (such as the pages of an archival document that may contain
portions of a paragraph).[4]
• Pronunciation attributes for abbreviations, variables, proper nouns
and terms. Adds phonetic and related pronunciation attributes for DFN,
ABBR, VAR and proper names. Adds a phonetic attribute to several
elements as well as type and expressedas attributes to the ABBR
element.[5]
• Cross-referencing and subtext. To provide semantic features in
HTML5 supporting proposed styling features in CSS3 and because
authors have an independent need to markup notes and cross references
regardless of presentation.[6]
• Markup improvements and UA norms to associate attributions,
citations, quotations and references. Adds some attributes for pages,
annotations and ordered and unordered reference lists and UA norms to
retrieve and display attribution, citation and quotation, references
to users (including auto-generation of source reference lists)[7]
• Definitions and Abbreviations cross-referencing. Provide a more
complete and compact markup syntax for associating definitions, terms,
variables, proper names and abbreviated forms. Also promote greater
user enhancements within UA implementations for such semantics by
automatically generating document subject and name indexes, glossaries
and interactive UI for these semantics.[8]
• Support for eliminating authoring distinctions between block and non-
block semantics (particularly within the HTML5 DOM and XML
serialization, but perhaps also in text/html serialization) Proposal
would allow authors to use only Q element and not need to worry about
Q and BLOCKQUOTE distinctions (also could apply to CODE and BLOCKCODE
if HTML5 adopted these semantics).[9]
• Add a new IDENT data type for the id attribute and clearly specify
the CSS selector and DOM method processing for xml:id of type ID and
id of type IDENT (helps facilitate compound documents and current
authoring practice).[10]
• CSS and DOM support and new UA norms for associating data cells and
header cells in tables.[11]
• Meta and HTTP redirect UA norm to improve accessibility and general
usability.[12]
• Add MediaElement, VIDEO and AUDIO related features to the OBJECT
element.[13]
• UAs should provide rich UI to access document data (title, href,
cite, longdesc, aria-describedby, alt, ).[14]
• Support for a new cascading keyboard key binding mechanism.[15]
• Menu commands in the menu bar providing author access for arranging
ordered menu bar menus (for better web application support).[16]
• Mechanism for expressing the semantics of styling (e.g., "[red
letters] indicate [the words of Jesus]").[17]
• New attributes for handling and downloading linked and embedded
resources.[18]
• ALT element or alternate list and other new mechanisms for
delivering alternate content to users (in addition to content
negotiation and rel='alternate' on the LINK and A elements).[19]
• UA language content-negotiation norms (presenting users with choices
for multilingual users and whenever appropriate).[20]
• UA norm for DOM API to return the element containing the script and
a re-implementation of document.write using this method.[21]
• UA norm to expose the metadata properties of non-text media.[22]
Links:
[1]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/EmbeddedContentRoleAndEquivalents>
[2]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AddedAttributeQuotationMarks>
[3]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ImageMapIssues>
[4]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ClipBookmark>
[5]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/PronunciationSemantics>
[6]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/Subtext>
[7]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AttrtibuCitaQuotationReferencing>
[8]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/DefiningTermsEtc>
[9]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/QuotationBlockVInline>
[10]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/IdAndTypeID>
[11]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/DOM%2BUANormForTableHeadings>
[12]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/RedirectNorm>
[13]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/SpatialTemporalAudible>
[14]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/RicherUIAccessToHTMLData>
[15]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/KeyBindingMarkup>
[16]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AuthorAccessToMenuBarForCommands>
[17]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/SemanticPresentationLegendCSS>
[18]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/LinkAndEmbeddingAttributes>
[19]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ABetterAlt>
[20]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ContentNegotiationNorms>
[21]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/NewDocument.WriteSpec>
[22]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/UANormAndDOMForMediaPropeties>
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