Right now, we support <div> tags, but not <span> tags. I can't imagine there is a legitimate security concern for disallowing <span> tags, and supporting them would allow CSS-correct style changing mid-sentence. (<div> tags put their contents into a new box, like a new paragraph)
Is this the intended behavior? If not, can it be fixed by a configuration change or is it a code issue?
- David [[User:Nohat]]
PS I posted a bug a couple days ago about edit links, and it seems to be pretty serious. The problem is if a section is commented out in an HTML comment (<!-- -->) , then the counters for links and the edit section code get out of sync, and when you click to edit a section, it takes you to the wrong section. This is very confusing if a user inadvertently clicks an edit section link on an affected page. At the very least, a warning about this problem should listed somewhere.
Bug page:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=887680&grou...
Example of an affected page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language
Try clicking the [edit] link for the "Writing system" section
On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 15:21:56 -0500, David Friedland wrote:
Right now, we support <div> tags, but not <span> tags. I can't imagine there is a legitimate security concern for disallowing <span> tags, and supporting them would allow CSS-correct style changing mid-sentence. (<div> tags put their contents into a new box, like a new paragraph)
Is this the intended behavior? If not, can it be fixed by a configuration change or is it a code issue?
I don't think this would be desirable- all structural needs like empahsizing, indenting, lists,.. are provided as wiki markup, the styling should be done with a better system-wide stylesheet. Which styling options do you miss?
PS I posted a bug a couple days ago about edit links, and it seems to be pretty serious. The problem is if a section is commented out in an HTML comment (<!-- -->) , then the counters for links and the edit section code get out of sync, and when you click to edit a section, it takes you to the wrong section. This is very confusing if a user inadvertently clicks an edit section link on an affected page. At the very least, a warning about this problem should listed somewhere.
Guess this is something important for a future 'reply' button for talk pages as well.
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
I don't think this would be desirable- all structural needs like empahsizing, indenting, lists,.. are provided as wiki markup, the styling should be done with a better system-wide stylesheet. Which styling options do you miss?
I'd like to be able to specify a specific large font size via something like
<span style="font-size:36px"> ʃ </span>
on the page about that character (in the example, the esh character, which is part of IPA), or to set one of the other font properties on a page about say, font properties in CSS, like
<span style="color:red"> this is red text </span> <span style="color:blue"> and this is blue text </span>
which is the "correct" way to do it, as <font> tags have been deprecated in HTML since 1997 (7 years!), as are things like <big> and <center>, and yet these deprecated tags seem to be how such formatting is done on Wikipedia right now.
http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-html40-970708/appendix/changes.html (note this is the oldest spec in which <font> and <center> are deprecated, not the most recent version)
In fact, I would argue that Wikipedia policy should be towards compliance with standards, and <font> and <center> tags should NOT be allowed, as they are deprecated from the HTML spec (and not permitted at all in XHTML).
Furthermore, we can already do stuff like this using <div> tags, but each time the style changes it makes a new paragraph. While I wholeheartedly agree that we need more robust system-wide stylesheets, but when we do, the correct way to apply such styles would be via a <span> tag, as in
<span class="styleXYZ"> Text in that style </span>
or whatever. Perhaps there should be a wiki markup for <span> tags, but there isn't one yet. We already allow non-wiki formatting via <div> and <center> and <font>, and since <span> tags are the correct way to do things that we now do via <font> tags, I don't see the harm in allowing <span> tags.
- David [[User:Nohat]]
I'd like to be able to specify a specific large font size via something like
<span style="font-size:36px"> ʃ </span>
I ended up turning <span> "back on" for WikiTeX since, whereas it's hardly possible to predict the bottomline of image-rendered IPA, the following is quite handy:
<span style="bottom: -2.5px"><rend ling "c'atura.nga"/></span>
Best, Peter
At 02:12 PM 2/1/2004, you wrote:
In fact, I would argue that Wikipedia policy should be towards compliance with standards, and <font> and <center> tags should NOT be allowed, as they are deprecated from the HTML spec (and not permitted at all in XHTML).
I would agree with this... but I thought one of the design principles here was to keep it simple to edit, and provide consistent rendering. All the non-wiki html stuff is useful in the right hands, but in the wrong hands (which is a lot of hands) it just ends up making the Wiki look goofy with various skins applied. Nobody doing weird html markup is going to check how it looks with everyone's style sheet...
It would be interesting if you could personalize your own style sheet rather than pick one of the three provided, maybe there's a way to do this already... but I don't know what it is.
The basic premise of the new XHTML type standards is that the style sheet is king. Adding Div and Span tags with specific information in them goes against the intent of these new standards. They support the old stuff only for backwards compatibility (in a half sort of way).
-Kelly
Kelly Anderson wrote:
<snip>
The basic premise of the new XHTML type standards is that the style sheet is king. Adding Div and Span tags with specific information in them goes against the intent of these new standards. They support the old stuff only for backwards compatibility (in a half sort of way).
This is not entirely true. It is perfectly legitimate and idiomatic HTML to have a SPAN tag with style="<<<CSS>>>", especially if you don't have access to the style sheet (which we Wikipedia contributors don't). FONT tags, however, are deprecated from HTML, and we should not encourage their use. Until there are style sheets with styles for everything, the only _correct_ way to sepcify styles is in DIV and SPAN tags.
-Kelly
I'm not entirely sure why I'm getting so much resistance. It is true that in an ideal world, all HTML tags would be generated from the Wiki syntax. But the Wiki syntax isn't sufficient in its current form. Accordingly, we already allow <font> tags, they're all over the Wikipedia, AND they're deprecated from HTML. At least <span> tags aren't deprecated. What exactly is the problem with changing from the status quo to the status quo plus allowing <span> tags?
- David
David Friedland wrote:
But the Wiki syntax isn't sufficient in its current form. Accordingly, we already allow <font> tags, they're all over the Wikipedia, AND they're deprecated from HTML. At least <span> tags aren't deprecated.
Can you give an example of a page other than the main page that really requires styling of this kind?
Timwi
Timwi wrote:
David Friedland wrote:
But the Wiki syntax isn't sufficient in its current form. Accordingly, we already allow <font> tags, they're all over the Wikipedia, AND they're deprecated from HTML. At least <span> tags aren't deprecated.
Can you give an example of a page other than the main page that really requires styling of this kind?
Timwi
Well, on the pages that have statistics tables, like the countries, languages, etc, there are portions where the font size is enlarged or decreased or the font color is changed using a FONT tag.
See:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countries * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Language_Template * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Elements * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_U.S._States * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Universities
etc.
Now I'd be the first to argue that there need to be a consistent set of styles for styling tables like these. However, such styles aren't available and each WikiProject has devised its own method for styling tables attractively, generally using FONT tags.
But I have run into FONT tags all over the place, probably inserted by well-meaning contributors who didn't know how to do the wiki-styling they wanted. Either FONT tags should be banned, or SPAN tags should be permitted. (Or all FONT tags should be changed to SPAN tags).
-- David
At 06:08 PM 2/2/2004, you wrote:
The basic premise of the new XHTML type standards is that the style sheet is king. Adding Div and Span tags with specific information in them goes against the intent of these new standards. They support the old stuff only for backwards compatibility (in a half sort of way).
This is not entirely true. It is perfectly legitimate and idiomatic HTML to have a SPAN tag with style="<<<CSS>>>", especially if you don't have access to the style sheet (which we Wikipedia contributors don't). FONT tags, however, are deprecated from HTML, and we should not encourage their use. Until there are style sheets with styles for everything, the only _correct_ way to sepcify styles is in DIV and SPAN tags.
I stand corrected. Thank you for this clarification. I do still believe that the designers of CSS and XHTML would "like" for every visual aspect to be specified through the style sheet, and only 'structural' information like "this is a list" "this is a list member" "this should be emphasized somehow" should be in the XHTML part. If they aren't there yet, that's one thing, but I think their design goal is pretty clearly what I just stated.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm getting so much resistance. It is true that in an ideal world, all HTML tags would be generated from the Wiki syntax. But the Wiki syntax isn't sufficient in its current form. Accordingly, we already allow <font> tags, they're all over the Wikipedia, AND they're deprecated from HTML. At least <span> tags aren't deprecated. What exactly is the problem with changing from the status quo to the status quo plus allowing <span> tags?
- David
I think that perhaps the reason you are getting push back is the desire for every page of Wikipedia to look like Wikipedia. There is a certain value to "branding" that is gained from a consistent look and feel. Opening up each page to a web designer makes it a collection of related web pages, not a wiki encyclopedia where each page is clearly and easily identified as belonging to Wikipedia. Does that make a little sense David?
-Kelly
Kelly Anderson wrote:
It would be interesting if you could personalize your own style sheet rather than pick one of the three provided, maybe there's a way to do this already... but I don't know what it is.
You know what the "C" stands for in "CSS"? The whole purpose of CSS is that the user can override, with his own stylesheet, the style sheet supplied by the site.... How that is done in practice is a different matter....
Rob
At 05:27 AM 2/7/2004, you wrote:
Kelly Anderson wrote:
It would be interesting if you could personalize your own style sheet rather than pick one of the three provided, maybe there's a way to do this already... but I don't know what it is.
You know what the "C" stands for in "CSS"? The whole purpose of CSS is that the user can override, with his own stylesheet, the style sheet supplied by the site.... How that is done in practice is a different matter....
Rob
How it's done in practice is of course what I was referring to...
-Kelly
On Sunday 01 February 2004 22:12, David Friedland wrote:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
I don't think this would be desirable- all structural needs like empahsizing, indenting, lists,.. are provided as wiki markup, the styling should be done with a better system-wide stylesheet. Which styling options do you miss?
I'd like to be able to specify a specific large font size via something like
<span style="font-size:36px"> ʃ </span>
on the page about that character (in the example, the esh character, which is part of IPA), or to set one of the other font properties on a page about say, font properties in CSS, like
<span style="color:red"> this is red text </span> <span style="color:blue"> and this is blue text </span>
which is the "correct" way to do it, as <font> tags have been deprecated in HTML since 1997 (7 years!), as are things like <big> and <center>, and yet these deprecated tags seem to be how such formatting is done on Wikipedia right now.
Why is that important? These tags are easier to use. If major browsers drop support for them, we could easily convert them to respective span tags.
http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-html40-970708/appendix/changes.html (note this is the oldest spec in which <font> and <center> are deprecated, not the most recent version)
In fact, I would argue that Wikipedia policy should be towards compliance with standards, and <font> and <center> tags should NOT be allowed, as they are deprecated from the HTML spec (and not permitted at all in XHTML).
I think that Wikipedia policy should be towards ease of use. Font and center tags are de facto standard.
Furthermore, we can already do stuff like this using <div> tags, but each time the style changes it makes a new paragraph. While I wholeheartedly agree that we need more robust system-wide stylesheets, but when we do, the correct way to apply such styles would be via a <span> tag, as in
<span class="styleXYZ"> Text in that style </span>
or whatever. Perhaps there should be a wiki markup for <span> tags, but there isn't one yet. We already allow non-wiki formatting via <div> and
<center> and <font>, and since <span> tags are the correct way to do things that we now do via <font> tags, I don't see the harm in allowing <span> tags.
This is an interesting feature, and I don't see why should span tags not be added to the whitelist, though I think that there should be declared a policy of consistence and that span tags must not be used instead font and center.
Perhaps a third type of Wiki markup (after [[]] and {{}}) could be introduced for such purposes:
<<color=red>> <<size=24>> (or, even better, <<size=huge>>) <<left>>, <<right>>, <<center>> <<style=definition>>
Perhaps all tags could close with simple <</>>, I haven't seen it elsewhere but don't see why it would be a problem.
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