[uf-discuss] Re: Simple solution to abbr-D-P accessibility concerns: 'Title Trigger'

[Toby A Inkster]

Jeremy Keith wrote:
> Andy Mabbett wrote:
>
>> Use a class name; say "ufusetitle" (for "microformat, use title") or
>> something equally unlikely to otherwise occur in the wild, on any
>> element, to trigger the use of the title attribute.
> 
> But now the class attribute contains an instruction rather than a  
> description of the enclosed contents. This feels like an abuse of the  
> class attribute to me.

The HTML 4 spec (which XHTML 1.x specs use as a normative reference)
defines a valid use of the class attribute as being:

	* For general purpose processing by user agents

which I'd say covers this usage.

Whatsmore, I'd disagree that it's an instruction any more than the href
attribute for <a>. It's a pointer to a particular location where some data
is kept: not an instruction to do something in particular with that data.

Personally, I'd also be in favour of:

	<span class="dtstart value:2007-08-16">16 Aug</span>

Colon and dashes are allowed values for class names in HTML. Not 100% sure
about the plus sign which is needed for timezones, but I think that's
allowed in class names too. 

-- 
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 57 days, 20:32.]

                                   Elvis
              http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/08/16/elvis/