ISSUE-90 (figure): Tighten the focus and allowable content in the figure element [HTML 5 spec]

ISSUE-90 (figure): Tighten the focus and allowable content in the figure element [HTML 5 spec]

http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/90

Raised by: Shelley Powers
On product: HTML 5 spec

Currently the HTML5 specification has an overly broad definition about what can
be allowed in a figure element:

"The element can thus be used to annotate illustrations, diagrams, photos, code
listings, etc, that are referred to from the main content of the document, but
that could, without affecting the flow of the document, be moved away from that
primary content, e.g. to the side of the page, to dedicated pages, or to an
appendix."

This is counter to understandings about figure in other businesses and
environments, where figures are a graphic of some form. In addition, this
provides a confusing parallel in functionality between figure and aside, enough
so that people are going to have a difficult time knowing which is which, and
when to use one over the other. In fact, with this parallelism, we don't need
both.

All assumptions I have read on figure is people assume the element will contain
a reference to an image of some form and a caption. Yet caption is optional,
and it sounds like anything can be included in figure. Your examples show a
poem, a code block, in addition to an image. 

The figure element either should be pulled completely, in favor of the aside
element, or it needs to have a tighter focus in its definition. It should
consist of a graphic element, which could be an svg element, a mathml element,
an img, an object, or, possibly, a video. It should then have one other
element, which will be the caption. Since this element won't be a svg, mathml,
img, object, or video element, it could be anything, including just a regular
paragraph. In fact, a regular element styled using CSS would be the best
option. 

This change would remove any confusion about this element, and there will be
confusion. It would also eliminate the problem with having to create a special
caption element, just for figure, as discussed in Issue 83.

We would be better off without the element at all, and continuing to use the
elements we have, then to use an element that has a definition that contradicts
assumptions, given its name. And removal of the element entirely could be one
of the change proposals attached to this as an issue.

Received on Friday, 8 January 2010 17:06:13 UTC