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>The 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>To me, this is both exciting and confusing. Knowing we can nest the 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.