alternates-brainstorming

2007-06-23T01:12:52Z

MffEm5:

= Introduction =
This page is to talk about '''[[alternates]]''', that is, places where a user may be given several different items to choose amongst that at some logical level are considered equivalent. The best stawman so far is [[#Strawman_6_.28lists_.2B_explicit_alternator_.2B_using_existing_HTML_idiom.29|#6]].

== Discussion Participants ==

=== Editor ===
* [http://blogmatrix.blogmatrix.com/ David Janes], [http://www.blogmatrix BlogMatrix, Inc.]

=== Authors ===
* [http://blogmatrix.blogmatrix.com/ David Janes], [http://www.blogmatrix BlogMatrix, Inc.]
* Lucas Gonze
* Greg Borenstein
* KevinMarks

=== Interested Folks ===
* Joshua Kinberg
* Ernest Prabhakar

= Brainstorms =
== Strawman 1 ==
<pre><nowiki>
<fieldset>
<a href="example.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">MP3 alternative</a>
<a href="example.wav" type="audio/wav">WAV alternative</a>
<a href="example.mov" type="video/quicktime">MOV alternative</a>
</fieldset>
</nowiki></pre>

[http://www.davidjanes.com/playlist/test-fieldset.html XHTML Sample]

=== Discussion ===

* is legal but warps XHTML definitions -- [[User:DavidJanes|David Janes]]
* I think that is fieldset abuse -1 KevinMarks
== Strawman 2 ==
<pre><nowiki>
<select id="entryN">
<option value="example.mp3">MP3 alternative</option>
<option value="example.mov">WAV alternative</option>
<option value="example.wav">MOV alternative</option>
</select>
</nowiki></pre>

[http://www.davidjanes.com/playlist/test-select.html XHTML Sample]

=== Discussion ===

* is legal but warps XHTML definitions -- [[User:DavidJanes|David Janes]]
* butt ugly, probably beyond redemption -- [[User:DavidJanes|David Janes]]
* the alternatives aren't clearly links -1 KevinMarks

== Strawman 3 ==

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="altgroup">
<a class="alternate" href="example.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">MP3 alternative</a>
<a class="alternate" href="example.wav" type="audio/wav">WAV alternative</a>
<a class="alternate" href="example.mov" type="video/quicktime">MOV alternative</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>
=== Discussion ===
* Looks better, but we have an existing rel="alternate" in HTML

== Strawman 4 (lists) ==

An example of a list that expresses no preference.

<pre><nowiki>
<ul class="altgroup">
<li><a href="example.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">MP3 alternative</a></li>
<li><a href="example.wav" type="audio/wav">WAV alternative</a></li>
<li><a href="example.mov" type="video/quicktime">MOV alternative</a></li>
</ul>
</nowiki></pre>

An example of a list that expresses a preference (i.e. first is best, last is worst)

<pre><nowiki>
<ol class="altgroup">
<li><a href="example.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">MP3 alternative</a></li>
<li><a href="example.wav" type="audio/wav">WAV alternative</a></li>
<li><a href="example.mov" type="video/quicktime">MOV alternative</a></li>
</ol>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Discussion ===

* this rocks, though I'm a little indifferent to ''altgroup''. The only downside is that 'loosely coupled' alternates may not be covered; on the other hand, this may not be so much of an issue. We will know more from the examples -- [[User:DavidJanes|David Janes]]
* I like this a lot, and the ul/ol distinction is good, but the rel="alternate" should be there too.

== Strawman 5 (lists explicit alternator) ==

This varies #4, explicitly stating what is being alternated. Let's say we're trying to express "location". If there was no alternates, we'd just say:

<pre><nowiki>
<a href="example.mp3" class="location">MP3</a>
</nowiki></pre>

Now, let's say that we have multiple choices. Here's what I think it should look like:

<pre><nowiki>
<ol class="location alternates">
<li>
<a href="example.mp3" class="location">MP3</a>
<br />
I ripped this one using <a href="...">iTunes</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="example.wma" class="location">WMA</a>
<br />
I ripped this one using <a href="...">Windows Media</a>
</li>
</ol>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Discussion ===

[[User:DavidJanes|David Janes]]:

* "alternates" indicates there's a bunch of choices to follow
* "location" appears multiple times because ...
* "location alternates" indicates we're _composing_ the alternates MF with "location"

Lucas Gonze:
* I fiddled around with CSS and javascript to support this and found it was pretty easy to work with. That's a big plus.
* A drawback is that it departs from existing idioms for microformats.
* A plus is that the same method can be applied to other variants of the Alternates microformat. Let's say you have some MF that depends on a class "photo" to distinguish which one of multiple IMG elements is the alternate, you can declare the OL or UL with class="photo alternates".
* Another plus is that the technique can extend out to more than one item per option, like if there must be both a photo and a location; that would be

Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

alternates-brainstorming