HTML's title attribute has a very footnote-ish interaction indeed
for desktop views (and assuming you can make the item recognizable
as being a progressive disclosure by applying color or
typography), but the hover behavior does not exist for touch
interactions, and I'm not sure what the accessibility is of hover
items in a screen reader. These concerns kind of push me toward
markup that has more touchable behaviors with the ability to link
elsewhere (and then back) or use hide/reveal-in-place rather than
produce hover or pop-over content. Am I constraining myself too
much?
--
Don
On 4/19/2016 5:03 AM, Rahel Anne Bailie
wrote:
Another thought is that we live with a lot of
conventions left over from print. For example, a glossary in
print made sense, but online you can have in situ hover-overs.
(This is one thing that drives me crazy in ebooks, where the
author uses some local slang and when I get to the end of the
book, there is a glossary that I no longer need.)
Footnotes definitely have a place in print and have an
equivalent online, though the implementation would be
different. For example, a footnote on an endless scroll page
wouldn't make sense. So where does that go, and does it then
cease to be a footnote, per se?
On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 6:03 AM,
Don Day <>
wrote:
Footnotes may not be easily solved for
equivalence across HTML and Markdown and still
return to DITA. The data models (indeed the intent
behind the designs) is all different.
Markdown has a close proxy to footnotes in its
"reference links", but HTML has no architected
equivalent--rather than providing for a semantic
structure with footnote-like behavior, HTML5 has
you inserting markup that supports the behavior,
but you cannot easily decompose it back into the
intent of a reference link when converting into
DITA. One Markdown extension suggests adding a
caret into the reference (i.e., [^1] to imply a
proper footnote, meaning that extended content can
be ascribed to it (see http://rephrase.net/box/word/footnotes/syntax/).
But since HTML has no way to be similarly
extended, we are limited to whatever processing
and display semantic are available.
One user has proposed a footnote design for a
future HTML5, but don't hold your breath. It would
be a properly architected structure for deferred
content, but good ideas take time to win hearts,
if ever. This proposal article (see http://davidmacd.com/blog/html51-footnotes.html)
actually explains the ePub solution well, and it
is compelling to me for now--I'm inclined to make
use of <aside> for any sort of deferable
content in HDITA structures (perhaps for
<note> as well, if you can accept that it is
deferable (or at least can be floated outside of
the normal galley flow).
Meanwhile, although the details/summary markup
does provide an architected design that represents
content that can be deferred from the main view,
it is more truthfully a visibility toggle, not a
reference to a block of text. This is soo close,
but I understand perfectly why ePub eschews its
use as a footnote. This markup would better serve
the role of a FAQ in which the question is the
<details> and the answer is the
<summary> content, with expanding behavior
in the display.
Try pasting this content into a small HTML file
and drop it onto a browser to see how HTML5
summary/details works.
---------------------------------
<p>The details element in HTML5 works best
as an interaction that toggles visibility on and
off. Normally this is done with spans and divs and
a tiny bit of _javascript_ for the interaction. Note
how content pushes down as summary content is
toggled into view:</p>
<details>
<summary>Q: Why are markup architectures
so difficult?</summary>
<p>A: Humans design solutions for
different reasons.</p>
</details>
<details>
<summary>Q: Why do we care about what we
do?</summary>
<p>A: Because we like to prevail over the
limitations handed to us.</p>
</details>
<p>Note that this markup provides default
behavior in the browser; no _javascript_ is needed.
The downside is that the default presentation is
ugly and not all browsers provide CSS hooks for
styling yet.</p>
------------------------------------------
So although it is useful to see how summary/details
works, I consider it to be a UI gadget rather than a
useful container for content. The nested containers
are good, but their behavior precludes the intent of
a footnote, in my opinion. I'd save this markup for
FAQs and for progressive disclosure use cases.
I say let's see why the ePub solution is not better,
and whether we can shoehorn <aside> as
footnote into Markdown semantics like the reference
link. I think this comes closest to lining up with
DITA fn intent (especially with the caret
extension).
I could be convinced that it is a useful design
point to allow Lightweight DITA to be only as rich
as there exist fully equivalent markup solutions
across all versions (and common Markdown at
that--extensions become liabilities outside the few
environments that support them). 1 Designating
and maintaining the record copy out of 3 near
equivalents is a recipe for Version Control Induced
Insanity.
--
Don
1 Of course, there is always "DITA used
lightly" that I get a lot of present use out of. ;-)
On 4/18/2016 10:52 AM, Michael Priestley
wrote:
Interesting discussion here, on how
it's being done in EPUB and why:
http://idpf.org/forum/topic-885
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff
Member (STSM)
Enterprise Content Technology Strategist
http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley
--
Don R. Day
Founding Chair, OASIS DITA Technical
Committee
LinkedIn: donrday Twitter: @donrday
About.me: Don R. Day Skype:
don.r.day
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in
knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in
information?"
--T.S. Eliot
Virus-free.
www.avast.com
--
Rahel
Anne Bailie, Content Strategy &
Ecosystems / Content Management
& Design
Content
strategies for business impact
Mobile:
+44 (0) 7869 643 685 / skype:
rahelab
Co-producer: Content Strategy
Workshops
Co-editor:
The Language of
Content Strategy
Co-author: Content Strategy:
Connecting the dots between
business, brand, and benefits
--
Don R. Day
Founding Chair, OASIS
DITA Technical Committee
LinkedIn: donrday Twitter:
@donrday
About.me: Don R. Day Skype:
don.r.day
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
--T.S. Eliot
Virus-free. www.avast.com
