HTML 5: The strong element

I just saw something interesting I thought I’d pass along. In the new HTML 5 proposal, the strong element is being modified to represent “importance rather than strong emphasis.”

The WHATWG gives the following example:

<p><strong>Warning.</strong> This dungeon is dangerous.

<strong>Avoid the ducks.</strong> Take any gold you find.

<strong><strong>Do not take any of the diamonds</strong>,

they are explosive and <strong>will destroy anything within

ten meters.</strong></strong> You have been warned.</p>

</pre>

The <a href="http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-b"><code>b element is supposed to represent "a span of text to be stylistically offset from the normal prose without conveying any extra importance, such as key words in a document abstract, product names in a review, or other spans of text whose typical typographic presentation is boldened."
The WHATWG gives the following example:
<p>The <b>frobonitor</b> and <b>barbinator</b>

components are fried.</p>

</pre>

To me, this is both exciting and confusing.  Knowing we can nest the <code>strong element opens up some new styling possibilities while keeping the markup valid and semantic.  But using both the b and the strong elements, with different conditions for their usage, will ultimately be confusing for most people, including me.  
Wonder how WYSIWYG editors will handle this.



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This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 3:34 pm and is filed under web design and development 
                   with the tags CSS, How-to, HTML, HTML 5, standards, web design and development