On 10/31/2012 1:31 PM, don kretz wrote:
Just for discussion, it is interesting to note the Chapter Heading markup recommended in DP's new Best Practices document.
<h2>CHAPTER II.<br/> <small>UNDER WEIGH.</small></h2>
My first reaction to this was that I didn't like it, because <small> is purely presentational and purely presentation markup ought to be avoided (not absolutely avoided, but avoided whenever possible). But I got thinking about my two base principles, which are: 1. HTML should degrade gracefully in the absence of CSS support; and 2. <div> and <span> should be used only when there is no other alternative. So just off the top of my head, how about: <h2 class="chapter">CHAPTER II.<br /> <small class="subtitle">UNDER WEIGH.</small></h2> In this case "class='chapter'" tells everyone that it's the header for a chapter, and should be treated as such, but if you don't understand what a chapter is, just treat it like any other level II header. <small class="subtitle"> would allow a style sheet author to alter the meaning of <small> to be, say, normal size, italic (at least as common for subtitles as smaller size), but if you don't understand CSS then just render it smaller. Does this offend your sense of technical correctness?
The corresponding CSS might look like this, or similar:
What the corresponding CSS might or might not look like is completely irrelevant. The way I like my chapter headings to be displayed is between me and my computer, and is none of your business. If DP will get the markup right, I'll take care of the display, thank you very much.