Possibly stupid question...

[Paul W. Frields]

On Sun, 2004-08-29 at 14:27, 'D at 7@k|N&' wrote:
> Since I have been working on the hardening tute, I've been doing so with
> the Docs Guide open, so I have an immediate reference for the tags that
> I should be using.  I noticed something, that other people may have
> noticed, but I don't really understand the point of.  The
> <guibutton></guibutton>, <guilabel>, <guimenu>, <guimenuitem>,
> <application>, and several other tags, all seem to just make the text
> bold.  Is there a reason that these aren't more defined?  (Something
> really could would be to id the guimenu buttons, and have the tag insert
> the graphic for that button, etc.)  Without the more differentiating
> characteristics, what is the point of using different tags?

The same as the point of any markup language... if a new stylesheet
(XSLT?) is developed, you don't have to go back and re-markup all those
tags to take advantage of it. Inserting "graphics" for buttons would
mean that you have to have a graphic for any button that might come up,
and if they change, well, that would be a full-time job just to keep
someone on updating them.

In a rendering environment where you could (for instance) simply
surround a selected group of characters with a gray frame with a black
border, the result would look like a key, no? I think this is possible
with Web browsers that support HTML 4.0 (i.e. most everything nowadays).

I'm not sure what the impact is on text browsing people provided you use
a transformation like that; likely minimal. Using an actual graphics
character, though, would likely screw those folks up. Always think
accessibility! I know for a fact there are several visually-impaired
and/or blind persons on some of the fedora lists who are very vocal
about problems they have with some a11y features.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE