[uf-discuss] proposed title-design-pattern is not backwards compatible, too big of a change

[Tim Parkin]

Brian Suda wrote:
> On 4/29/07, Jeremy Keith <jeremy at adactio.com> wrote:
>> If we were to find an existing HTML element that was semantically
>> suited to encoding datetime and/or geo information *and* didn't cause
>> problems with assistive technology, then I would jump all over it and
>> agree wholeheartedly that the title-design-pattern should be
>> restricted to that particular element. But I don't believe such an
>> element exists.
> 
...
> We skirt the issue by moving data to the title attribute of
> alternative elements, how do we know screen-readers now or later won´t
> read out those as well? we are coding around a problem by potentiall
> creating other ones and ignoring the semantics of the HTML spec in the
> process.
 >

Could someone point me to the place(s) where I can read about the 
advantages and disadvantages of all of the possible ways of encoding 
data with html document tags and attributes? I realise this might not be 
in one place. I'd like to help in some way but I feel I'm missing the 
part where people discussed things like encoding data in class names 
(e.g. dt-20070605) or partitioning of data in title attributes (i.e. if 
you want to represent more than one item of data, can you put both in 
one attribute).  Hopefully I won't suggest stupid ideas if I can fully 
review prior content (without having to review the whole irc/mailman 
archive hopefully).

Many thanks

Tim Parkin

p.s. so far I think it would be inconsistent to arbitrarily limit the 
title to just span (if abbr isn't used). Obviousness is a good attribute 
for a 'format' to have and it's not obvious to me why a title should 
only appear on a certain element(s) in this case.

p.p.s The examples used above are not suggestions but examples of 
something that I'm assuming has been discussed previously.