Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
>>   Think about the different "structure" elements in HTML.
>>   For example <H1> means "header level 1". What does the word "header" mean?
>> Does it mean that it should be printed with a really small font at the
>> footer of the page, perhaps?

> It could mean anything.

  No, it couldn't. It means "header level 1", or "top level header" (ie.
it's not under any other higher-priority header).
  It does not mean "paragraph", nor "footnote", nor "quote". It means "header"
and nothing else.
  The fact that it's a structural element does not mean that it has no
meaning at all: All the contrary, it's this fact that implies that it
has a meaning. If it didn't have any meaning, it wouldn't be a structural
element. Interpreting it as something else than a header would break
the structure.

>  When you print a HTML pahe on paper, a new page
> could for example start with every h1 tag.

  This is a minor difference. Regardless of whether it starts in a new
page or not, it should still be a *header*, not something else (eg.
a footnote). You are affecting the layout by specifying that it's a header.
If you had used another tag (eg. <p>), the layout would be completely
different, and the meaning of the text inside the tags would be different.

> But ask yourself what does it mean if someone reads it to you (ignore the
> visual element)?
>  The a header is nothing more than a pause between to
> longer sections of text being read to you.

  But this is just a question of what is possible to represent with the
available media. I don't see how it is pertinent to the current issue.
  Besides, in spoken language a pause can be thought as layout. You affected
the layout by making that piece of text a header and not plain text or
a footnote.

>  Does it mean it has to appear in
> "Helvetica bold 20 pixel height"?  No, it eams "this is a new section and
> here is an outline what will follow in a few words".  What is the more
> important part?  the fact that the text is "Helvetica bold 20 pixel height",
> or what it says?  The answer is clear, I hope...

  And what is so bad if the author would want you to see the header
as "Helvetica bold 20 pixel height"? If the author thinks that that makes
his work look better and nicer, then why not?

> Well, why do you want to disallow users to configure their display such that
> <h1> is rendered in a three pixel size font?

  I don't think CSS disallows users from doing that (at least not any more
than plain HTML does).
  You are still speaking about forcing, while that's not the issue at all.
You can't force anything with CSS. The issue here is helping.

-- 
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N(D)#end#end#macro M()<mod(D,13)-6mod(div(D,13)8)-3,10>#end blob{
N(11117333955)N(4254934330)N(3900569407)N(7382340)N(3358)N(970)}//  - Warp -

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