This is incorrect:
1. <dl> has no corresponding (viz. implicit) role, but can be given the role group, list, none or presentation <https://w3c.github.io/html-aria/#el-dl>.
2. You’re only allowed to define aria-label on elements that have a compatible role, implicit or explicit <https://w3c.github.io/html-aria/#docconformance-naming>.
3. aria-label is allowed on all but a handful of roles <https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.2/#aria-label>, which in this case knocks out presentation and none, leaving group and list.
4. group doesn’t feel right, list feels acceptable.
In summary: either ditch the aria-label, or add role="list" (meaning also role="listitem" on children).
—⁂—
One thing the article misses is that you can have multiple <dt> in a row too, not just <dd>. The spec has a good example: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/grouping-content.html...
They’re not name–value pairs, they’re name–value groups.
It shouldn’t be so controversial to say that if 99% of usage routes around your API, it’s probably the API’s fault.
ibm :: 370 :: DCF :: SH35-0050-2 Document Composition Facility Generalized Markup Language Implementation Guide Rel 3 Mar85
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibm370DCFSpositionFaci...
https://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
https://info.cern.ch/ (A landing page of sorts to give context and orientation about the actual first website.)
TIL I’ve been naming it wrong for a decade.
I.e. can we do
<dl>
<dt>Actions</dt>
<dd><dl>...</dl></dd>
</dl>https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#the-dd-element
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/...
<tr>
<td> first
<td> second
<tr>
<td> what
<td> ever
For example in XHTML you can use custom elements as table rows or cells (provided you give them the correct role and CSS display property). This is because XHTML does not modify the tree during parsing, unlike HTML which will hoist out custom element children of the table to the table's parent.
> Description list support continues to be generally good (with VoiceOver still the outlier), even if you may not like how it is supported.
You shouldn't try to fix this kind of thing by mangling the HTML, since (1) users tend to be used to their screen reader's quirks, and (2) in situations like these, making it juuuust right in one screen reader is likely to make it incomprehensible in another. But it is important to be aware of these quirks, so you don't accidentally design an interface that relies on less-quirky behaviour.
https://roadmap.sh/html (see "Definition lists")
Wait what? <DL> has been in HTML since.. the first draft in 1993!
I like DL's but they can be challenging to style. This article is using a lot of fixed pixel widths which would break on really small screens or larger data.
Some of the extracted CSS chunks
#statblock{
box-shadow:0 20px 25px -5px rgba(0,0,0,.1),0 10px 10px -5px rgba(0,0,0,.04);
font-family:Lato,'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;
font-size:85%;
min-width:50ch;
max-width:70ch;
margin-inline:auto;
background-color:#fffaf0;
padding-inline:2rem;
padding-block:1rem
}
dl.statblock-bio{
color:maroon;
line-height:1.5;
border-top:5px solid maroon;
border-bottom:5px solid maroon;
margin-block:0.75em;
padding-block:0.75em
}
dl.ability-scores{
min-width:40ch;
display:flex;
justify-content:space-around;
color:maroon
}
dl.ability-scores>div{
text-align:center;
line-height:1.5
}
dl.ability-scores dt{
font-weight:700
} dl {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 1fr 3fr;
grid-template-rows: auto;
}
dt {
grid-column-start: 1;
}
dd {
grid-column-start: 2;
}
And... it also uses the wrapper div for styling
I dunno, I guess I’m a caveman. If it looks right and works (including accessibility) then I figure I’m pursuing something that doesn’t matter a lot.
I need to learn more about web accessibility, but if you completely ignore it (and other sane practices) HTML looks really simple.
I think the design of HTML is just too much. There’s so many tags that don’t do much. It’s like w3c decided that any common thing people use in websites needs a tag. The end result is more and more tags…
Can anyone convince me otherwise? It screams design red-flags to me.
PS: I love the web and think it’s the best platform and future platform we have at the moment. It’s just quirky and loves not breaking old websites!
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Why is it preferred over <table> for laying out columns via a the character attributes at the bottom of TFA?
Am I the only one?
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Given the spotty screen reader support for dt/dd to begin with, I'd steer clear of using multiple `<dt>` s if a11y is top priority, and just modify your content to have one dt per dd. Your single dt text could be "X or Y", repeat the definition twice, etc.
If you're familiar with Jakob's Law, it applies to a11y too, so stick with what users might have seen on other sites.
e.g. == f.e., for example
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We'd all be better off if the W3 dispensed with all that ideological semantic purity BS and started doing more realpolitik. Think not about whether your API is semantically pure, but about what developers want to do, what hacks they'll use to achieve their goals despite your objections, and how to enable doing those things in a way that is maximally beneficial to everyone involved.
ARIA live regions are the perfect example. What developers actually want is `document.speakText`. What developers actually have is a weird API that announces text on the page as it changes. They have to bridge from one to the other, which is difficult and hacky, even when implemented well. But hey, at least that live region approach is semantically pure HTML...
Obviously thats not what we got, but I feel like the set of established UI patterns is manageable enough that it could be built.
A great example is the new <select> styling that developers styled in all kinds of creative ways. Now give me that for comboboxes, trees, data-grids etc...
You shouldn't have to care about screen readers the same as you shouldn't have to care which browser someone uses but you always have to care about people; people who can't see or hear what you create, people who can operate a keyboard (or keyboard-equivalent) but not a mouse or touchscreen, people who can use a touchscreen but not a physical keyboard, etc.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/ari...
:wrap(dt, dt+dd) {border: solid 1px}It's clear the RFC writers got a little out of hand. "402 Payment Required", "407 Proxy Authentication Required", "508 Loop Detected" look to me like attempts to work in functionality specific to certain types of apps or deployments. Why do these RFC authors get their specific needs implemented into the bedrock of the web and then expect me to find where my needs happen to overlap and then tuck every aspect specific to my app into "400 Bad Request" or "500 Internal Server Error"? Every time I see a web app actually utilize more than the bare minimum of HTTP status codes I roll my eyes. Put that shit into the application layer. The protocol wasn't made for you. It was made for LAMP-stack apps serving mostly static assets.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goldfarb who shepherded GML/SGML and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Generalized_Markup_La...
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The suggested (not obligatory) user agent styling for <b> is `font-weight: bolder` an agent or authors could use lots of different things to bring attention to what the element contains and treat it differently from <strong>.
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/text-level-semantics....
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/rendering.html#phrasi...
Nearly two!
[1] https://validator.w3.org/nu/?showsource=yes&showoutline=yes&...
As someone who had written lots of XHTML in the past, not having closing tags makes my eyes twitch like Scrat in Ice Age. I even occasionally write `<br>` like `<br/>` out of habit.
<table><tr><th>Term 1<td>Definition 1
<tr><th>Term 2<td>Definition 2
</table>
<dl><dt>Term 1<dd>Definition 1
<dt>Term 2<dd>Definition 2
</dl>https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/grouping-content.html...
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/...
EDIT everyone replied at once lol. I'm surprised too about div.
Also, screen reader support: https://a11ysupport.io/tech/html/dl_element
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<my-element> != <div>
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_compone...
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLDivElem...
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The use of HTMLElement and HTMLUnknownElement for the non-standard elements is to support future additions to the standard elements and enable subclassing down-tree instead of across-tree, which is noted in the spec.
Somehow, people got convinced that <div> elements are evil and should never be used no matter what. Yes, you should use a more semantic element when it makes sense, but try to remember what that phrase actually means.
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And that's just for browsers, there's no shared spec for the operating system accessibility APIs the browsers' accessibility tree has to be translated into or how screen readers (and other assistive technologies) will use the OS's APIs.
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I don't really like the div either (I use the design system all day, and maintain a set of components), but it makes documentation much easier.
I put dl lists in a grid with no divs needed. As MDN says, div is the last resort, invariably there is something better, and nowadays that is grid styling.
New to me is multiple dd's.
For legacy layouts littered with divs and classes, display: contents helps get rid of the div wrappers, promoting whatever is wrapped.
Even with disclosure elements there are ways to avoid div wrappers using the pseudo element for everything enclosed by the details element apart from the summary element.
> I need to learn more about web accessibility, but if you completely ignore it (and other sane practices) HTML looks really simple.
Everything looks really simple when you ignore vast amounts of the subject and nuance.
Your rules don't mention keyboard or focus behavior, the only mention of either is the association between <label> and its <input>. <output> does have functionality, it's an HTML-native ARIA live region (that can be associated with a <label>).
I’ve noticed that discussions of semantic meaning of tags often contain the word “feel.” Nothing wrong with that, taste matters, but it does point to the non-functional goals that are being pursued when people disagree.
<ol> vs <ul> - they are both ordered, because markup is ordered. One gets decorated differently than the other by default. Is the difference semantic or typographical?
<ul> Players
<li> Alice
<li> Bob
<li> Carol
</ul>
<ol> Leaderboard
<li> Bob
<li> Alice
<li> Carol
</ol>So is it a decoration hint? Or is it actually semantic? And what system is interpreting the semantics rather than the visual presentation?
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There are lots of elements, if you don't find some of them useful, don't use them. Other people may find uses for the distinctions; even if they use distinctive styling for them all, they may need to document why they're used, not just for all the authors but for the audience as well; clearly we can't expect developers to know what all the elements are for so that's doubly true for the audience.
The difference, of course, is that one is a Latin word, and the other is an English phrase with the same meaning. But they're different words, so different tags. It's all completely rational and logical, and if you don't see the logic and/or reason, well: you're unworthy to write HTML. See Figure 1.
P.S. I love this ancient "see figure 1" meme. It's originated in the early 80s, and still as relevant as ever, and probably will be forever.
Please stop submitting SPR's. This is our system. We designed
it, we built it, and we use it more than you do. If there are some
features you think might be missing, if the system isn't as effective
as you think it could be, TOUGH! Give it back, we don't need you.
See figure 1.
---------------------------
! - !
! { } !
! | | !
! | | !
! .-.! !.-. !
! .-! ! ! !.-. !
! ! ! ! ; !
! \ ; !
! \ ; !
! ! : !
! ! | !
! | | !
! !
---------------------------
Figure 1.but then you can always use HTML tables in markdown and Pandoc transforms it just fine
However, "semantic elements" became popular shortly after the push for the "semantic web" which was entirely based around making the web easier to process for machines. Many of the original sources talk about how it's easier to digest for humans too, but that's just a happy byproduct.
https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Semantic.html
https://www.lassila.org/publications/2001/SciAm.pdf
https://informationr.net/ir/7-4/paper134.html
https://jonchristopher.us/blog/a-semantic-breakdown-of-resta...
https://shapeshed.com/the-importance-of-semantic-markup/
In theory.
In practice, no one cares about semantics and the choice of tags is based on how a target set of browsers happens to display them.
Your question about who interprets markup is exactly right. In theory, you have no idea. Maybe it's a browser, maybe it's assistive software, maybe it's a browser printing, maybe it's some custom knowledge base with different views of documents for different users. In theory, you're supporting all of that by only marking up semantics and allowing the consumer to interpret them, because there isn't one right answer.
In practice, your client is Chrome.
In theory, that's irrelevant because you're using CSS to style semantic markup so it works in Chrome and still makes sense to other clients.
In practice, you're writing a web application, using a framework, and nothing in the stack wants you to do that.
Some phrases have stuck with me, like “mandatory defaults“, “they told their users to see figure 1 a long time ago” and the flippant “sometimes we blow it though”.