HTML headings article

[Spartanicus]

I wrote an article on HTML headings:
http://codewallop.110mb.com/goodprac...adingology.htm

--
Spartanicus

[Toby A Inkster]

John Hosking wrote:

Well, then: how about we split the difference. Keep the semantic logic
of heading *levels*, but bend their *presentation* to suit the content.

h1 {font-size:180%;} /* or whatever sizes we really like */
h2 {font-size:160%;} /* and bold and text-align as we like */
h3 {font-size:140%;}
h4 {font-size:120%;}
.caseStudy {font-size:120%; bottom-border:1px dotted grey;}

Nope, still not happy with that as a solution at all. It has nothing to do
with font size, or any other aspect of how the headings look -- just a
feeling of uneasiness over some case studies being afforded a higher level
than others.

Imagine a summarising program that took a document's structure from its
headings, and allowed you to generate an even shorter summary from
trimming this heading tree down to just H1-H3. Imagine the difference
between the resultant precis using each of the two heading models
discussed here.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Geek of ~ HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python*/Apache/Linux

* = I'm getting there!

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Toby A Inkster:

For example

<h1= Document heading
<h2= Chapter heading
<h3= Subchapter heading
<h4= Heading for a "Case Study"

Fine.

where case studies may appear within either a chapter or a
subchapter.

Then the division into chapters and subchapters has been made inadequately
and should be fixed. The document structure is not balanced if some chapters
contain subchapters and some don't.

For purposes of consistency, it may be considered
preferable to have all case studies at the same heading level.

But in your example, they would not be at the same heading level. If a case
study appears after a 2nd level heading without an intervening heading, it
is at heading level 3. Using markup that claims it to be at level 4 would be
semantically wrong.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Mark Goodge]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:09:12 +0300, Jukka K. Korpela put finger to
keyboard and typed:

>Scripsit Toby A Inkster:

>For example

<h1= Document heading
<h2= Chapter heading
<h3= Subchapter heading
<h4= Heading for a "Case Study"

Fine.

>where case studies may appear within either a chapter or a
subchapter.

Then the division into chapters and subchapters has been made inadequately
and should be fixed. The document structure is not balanced if some chapters
contain subchapters and some don't.

Why? Real life isn't necesarily that neat. If a document relates to a
real life situation, then there are quite likely to be cases where
some chapters require subchapters and some don't.

>For purposes of consistency, it may be considered
preferable to have all case studies at the same heading level.

But in your example, they would not be at the same heading level. If a case
study appears after a 2nd level heading without an intervening heading, it
is at heading level 3. Using markup that claims it to be at level 4 would be
semantically wrong.

It's level 4 with respect to the document as a whole, even if it isn't
with respect to that particular page of the document.

Mark
--
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"A sky isn't always blue, a sun doesn't always shine. It's alright to fall apart sometimes"

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Mark Goodge:

>Then the division into chapters and subchapters has been made
inadequately and should be fixed. The document structure is not
balanced if some chapters contain subchapters and some don't.

Why? Real life isn't necesarily that neat. If a document relates to a
real life situation, then there are quite likely to be cases where
some chapters require subchapters and some don't.

Strangely enough, no real life case has been cited in this discussion. An
example of a page where one needs to skip heading levels might be an
interesting challenge, though probably an easy one, to anyone who wants to
refute the need.

Real life (which probably spells "pointy-haired boss" here) might prevent
the author from structuring a document properly, but this does not mean that
the resulting markup would be adequate. If you have been forced into using
illogical markup, I won't blame you, as long as you're not trying to present
it as a virtue.

It's level 4 with respect to the document as a whole, even if it isn't
with respect to that particular page of the document.

There's no level 4 in that respect, since heading levels only exist in
relation with the implied logical nesting of parts of a document. If level 4
heading does not mean a heading for something that is nested inside
something at level 3 etc., what _does_ it mean?

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Ben C]

On 2007-04-11, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tu t.fiwrote:

Scripsit Mark Goodge:

>>Then the division into chapters and subchapters has been made
inadequatel y and should be fixed. The document structure is not
balanced if some chapters contain subchapters and some don't.

Why? Real life isn't necesarily that neat. If a document relates to a
real life situation, then there are quite likely to be cases where
some chapters require subchapters and some don't.

Strangely enough, no real life case has been cited in this discussion. An
example of a page where one needs to skip heading levels might be an
interesting challenge, though probably an easy one, to anyone who wants to
refute the need.

Real life (which probably spells "pointy-haired boss" here) might prevent
the author from structuring a document properly, but this does not mean that
the resulting markup would be adequate. If you have been forced into using
illogical markup, I won't blame you, as long as you're not trying to present
it as a virtue.

>It's level 4 with respect to the document as a whole, even if it isn't
with respect to that particular page of the document.

There's no level 4 in that respect, since heading levels only exist in
relation with the implied logical nesting of parts of a document. If level 4
heading does not mean a heading for something that is nested inside
something at level 3 etc., what _does_ it mean?

It could mean "an item of merely quaternary importance". If so then
there's no need to nest headings properly-- my whole document might only
deal with items of quaternary importance. The ranking is in relation to
other things generally, not restricted to the contents of this document.

This is how to make sense of Toby's point I think-- "Case Studies" are
all of the same general importance regardless of how the document is
structured.

This seems a reasonable way to understand the meaning of <h1>, <h2>,
<h3>. The alternative is to use classes, and keep heading levels for
nesting, so:

<h3 class="notVeryI nteresting">Cas e Studies</h3>

for example. Then I can put a veryImportant section inside a
notVeryInterest ing section and still get a hierarchical TOC.

[Darin McGrew]

Toby A Inkster wrote::

>For example

<h1= Document heading
<h2= Chapter heading
<h3= Subchapter heading
<h4= Heading for a "Case Study"

where case studies may appear within either a chapter or a
subchapter.

Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tu t.fiwrote:

But in your example, they would not be at the same heading level. If a case
study appears after a 2nd level heading without an intervening heading, it
is at heading level 3. Using markup that claims it to be at level 4 would be
semantically wrong.

That depends on what you think the underlying structure is.

I think the underlying structure is document heading, chapter heading,
subchapter heading, case study heading, etc. However, HTML does not include
elements for these types of heading, so somehow we have to map HTML's H1-H6
headings to the underlying structure.

It seems that you think it's more consistent to preserve the hierarchy of
HTML's H1-H6 headings and to use class="caseStud y" to identify the case
study headings. Others of us think it's more consistent to use HTML's H4
heading consistently for case study headings.

To me, the class="caseStud y" approach is too close to div soup.
--
Darin McGrew, mc****@stanford alumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp. com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"If you aren't part of the solution, then you are part of the precipitate."

[Mark Goodge]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:08:11 +0300, Jukka K. Korpela put finger to
keyboard and typed:

>Scripsit Mark Goodge:

>>Then the division into chapters and subchapters has been made
inadequatel y and should be fixed. The document structure is not
balanced if some chapters contain subchapters and some don't.

Why? Real life isn't necesarily that neat. If a document relates to a
real life situation, then there are quite likely to be cases where
some chapters require subchapters and some don't.

Strangely enough, no real life case has been cited in this discussion. An
example of a page where one needs to skip heading levels might be an
interesting challenge, though probably an easy one, to anyone who wants to
refute the need.

You're right, it is easy. Consider, for example, a product catalogue
of parts:

Level 1 - manufacturer name
Level 2 - product name
Level 3 - product variant
Level 4 - part name/number

For a product which has multiple variants or models, level 3 will be
needed. Where a product only has one model, level 3 will be
superfluous.

Or consider a tourist guide to various towns and cities:

Level 1 - name of region
Level 2 - name of city
Level 3 - subdivision of city
Level 4 - individual tourist attraction

Small towns and cities probably won't need subdividing. You can fit
all the attractions in my howetown on to one page! But if the city is
London or Berlin, then subdividing by map sector makes sense.

>Real life (which probably spells "pointy-haired boss" here) might prevent
the author from structuring a document properly, but this does not mean that
the resulting markup would be adequate. If you have been forced into using
illogical markup, I won't blame you, as long as you're not trying to present
it as a virtue.

It isn't illogical to structure a document by reference to the data it
contains. It's illogical to force a unified structure onto a document
if the data it contains isn't that consistent.

>It's level 4 with respect to the document as a whole, even if it isn't
with respect to that particular page of the document.

There's no level 4 in that respect, since heading levels only exist in
relation with the implied logical nesting of parts of a document. If level 4
heading does not mean a heading for something that is nested inside
something at level 3 etc., what _does_ it mean?

Levels don't necessarily imply nesting. They imply status - a level 4
section on one page is equivalent in status to a level 4 section on
another page, even if the first page has a level 3 section and the
second page does not.

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk Photos: http://www.goodge.co.uk
"My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating"

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Darin McGrew:

Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tu t.fiwrote:

>But in your example, they would not be at the same heading level. If
a case study appears after a 2nd level heading without an
intervening heading, it is at heading level 3. Using markup that
claims it to be at level 4 would be semantically wrong.

That depends on what you think the underlying structure is.

The HTML heading elements express a nesting structure. This doesn't depend
on what I think. I would not have designed a markup language that way, but I
can live with other people's design.

I think the underlying structure is document heading, chapter heading,
subchapter heading, case study heading, etc.

You can call 2nd level parts chapters and 3rd level parts subchapters; that
would match one particular way of naming parts of a document. This is
immaterial, however, since the HTML elements are independent of such naming.
If "case study heading" is supposed to mean a heading for a case study,
wherever it appears in a document's nesting structure, then it's simply
something that is not expressible in HTML.

However, HTML does not
include elements for these types of heading, so somehow we have to
map HTML's H1-H6 headings to the underlying structure.

The point is that the document should be structured so that comparable
parts, such as case studies, are at the same level of nesting, so that the
mapping is self-evident.

It seems that you think it's more consistent to preserve the
hierarchy of HTML's H1-H6 headings and to use class="caseStud y" to
identify the case study headings.

No, I didn't say so and I didn't think so. If you have decided to structure
a document so that comparable parts appear at different levels of nesting, I
will abstain from saying which markup you should use.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Ben C]

On 2007-04-12, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tu t.fiwrote:

Scripsit Darin McGrew:

>Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tu t.fiwrote:

>>But in your example, they would not be at the same heading level. If
a case study appears after a 2nd level heading without an
intervening heading, it is at heading level 3. Using markup that
claims it to be at level 4 would be semantically wrong.

That depends on what you think the underlying structure is.

The HTML heading elements express a nesting structure. This doesn't depend
on what I think. I would not have designed a markup language that way, but I
can live with other people's design.

Are you sure? The HTML specification says,

"There are six levels of headings in HTML with H1 as the most
important and H6 as the least. Visual browsers usually render more
important headings in larger fonts than less important ones."

And then remarks:

"Some people consider skipping heading levels to be bad practice. They
accept H1 H2 H1 while they do not accept H1 H3 H1 since the heading
level H2 is skipped."

It doesn't say for example, "Numbered headings denote nesting levels of
sections within a document, *not* the relative importances of each
section".

It seems the primary meaning is level of importance, and as you suggest,
that may be isomorphic with nesting level in many documents. But it is
not necessarily so.

[...]

>However, HTML does not
include elements for these types of heading, so somehow we have to
map HTML's H1-H6 headings to the underlying structure.

The point is that the document should be structured so that comparable
parts, such as case studies, are at the same level of nesting, so that the
mapping is self-evident.

Why?

>It seems that you think it's more consistent to preserve the
hierarchy of HTML's H1-H6 headings and to use class="caseStud y" to
identify the case study headings.

No, I didn't say so and I didn't think so. If you have decided to structure
a document so that comparable parts appear at different levels of nesting, I
will abstain from saying which markup you should use.

Fair enough.

[Toby A Inkster]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Strangely enough, no real life case has been cited in this discussion. An
example of a page where one needs to skip heading levels might be an
interesting challenge, though probably an easy one, to anyone who wants to
refute the need.

Here's a book for you: Watt & Brown "Programmin g Language Processors in
Java". (Good book by the way.) It's structured into chapters, subchapters,
sub-subchapters and examples. Although all chapters have subchapters, not
all subchapters have sub-subchapters. Imagine typing this document up
into an HTML document. Using the structure for which I've been arguing,
you'd have:

<h1= Book heading
<h2= Chapter heading
<h3= Subchapter heading
<h4= Sub-subchapter heading
<h5= Example heading

If you wanted to pull out a table of contents, not listing examples, then
it would be a simple matter of pulling out <h1-4>.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Geek of ~ HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python*/Apache/Linux

* = I'm getting there!