<i>, <em> or <span> for italics ?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Interesting. I just did a search on my ebook archive (ebooks before they are loaded into calibre for fixup). Out of 7914 epubs, 7401 had <hx> tags while the remaining 513 did not. I looked at 20 or so of the ones that didn't and they used <p> tags for the headers. Makes building the TOC whether nav.xhtml or toc.ncx) more of a pain than it needs to be.

Most used at most 2 levels <h1> and <h2> while one coded by an anal retentive went all the way from <h1> to <h6>.

Some of them created by Vellum wrapped 4 or more levels of <div> around the <hx> tag. The funny part being that 2 or 3 of the <div> tags had a class that did not exist in the CSS.

That search ran most of the day while I was busily working from home. I suspect that having to unpack the epubs into a temp directory before searching did nothing for the search speed.

But is that more statistically significant than finding two books that didn't use <Hn> ?

Isn't the existence of multiple tools that automatically map headers into TOC entries just a coincidental fluke?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

But is that more statistically significant than finding two books that didn't use <Hn> ?

Isn't the existence of multiple tools that automatically map headers into TOC entries just a coincidental fluke?

What?

So, Jon finding two books that use p for headings isn't less statistically significant than a search showing that 93% of nearly 8,000 eBooks did use headings?

???

There's nothing "coincidental" about tools using headings--that's what they are meant to do. They are, again, hierarchal. Ever use Word? Ever use Word's built-in Outline View? (Which has existed since long before eBooks?) How does that work? By the use of heading styles, which creates a hierarchy, which you use a) for outlining and structure and b) to create--TOCs.

There's not one damned thing coincidental or flukey about it. That's akin to saying that pregnancy is a coincidental flukey outcome around sex.

Right? Or have I misunderstood your post?

Hitch

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Hitch

and b) to create--TOCs.

ToCs are created manually, as the text content of the header and the ToC entry is different.

Headings are not used for ToCs as each header contains several paragraphs, with different formatting and positioning.

Only primitive and amateuric books can use HTML built-in styles.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

ToCs are created manually, as the text content of the header and the ToC entry is different.

IMHO, it's much more efficient to generate TOCs from h1..h6 entries, and if the text of the TOC entry is not identical with the content of the header tag, you can define it as a h1..h6 title attribute, which some tools, e.g. Sigil, use for generating the TOC.

Moreover, both W3C and DAISY recommend the use of h1..h6 tags:

Originally Posted by W3C

Heading markup will allow assistive technologies to present the heading status of text to a user. A screen reader can recognize the code and announce the text as a heading with its level, beep or provide some other auditory indicator.

Originally Posted by DAISY

Headings are one of the primary means of navigation for users of assistive technologies.

Each section should have a numbered heading (e.g., h1) that reflects its level in the document hierarchy, as numbered headings allow assistive technologies to navigate the document structure.
Each heading element must represent a single heading. Do not break a heading up into separate tags for visual formatting.

IMHO, publishers and ebook producers who don't use h1..h6 tags to mark headings violate best practices.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Interesting. I just did a search on my ebook archive (ebooks before they are loaded into calibre for fixup). Out of 7914 epubs, 7401 had <hx> tags while the remaining 513 did not. I looked at 20 or so of the ones that didn't and they used <p> tags for the headers. Makes building the TOC whether nav.xhtml or toc.ncx) more of a pain than it needs to be.

Most used at most 2 levels <h1> and <h2> while one coded by an anal retentive went all the way from <h1> to <h6>.

Some of them created by Vellum wrapped 4 or more levels of <div> around the <hx> tag. The funny part being that 2 or 3 of the <div> tags had a class that did not exist in the CSS.

That search ran most of the day while I was busily working from home. I suspect that having to unpack the epubs into a temp directory before searching did nothing for the search speed.

Vellum code can be pretty bad. What I do in the case of <div> and <span> with classes that don't exist is gen rid of the classes with removing all unused classes. Then I'll dump <divs> an <spans> that have no classes. If it turns out that an empty <div> is used for an <img>, I'll fix that. But it does seem that more eBooks these days are using h? in the chapter header. But there are still a lot of eBooks out there with some not nice code. The code in HTML is not that bad for a lot of eBooks these days. It's still the CSS that needs to be made better.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

ToCs are created manually, as the text content of the header and the ToC entry is different.

Headings are not used for ToCs as each header contains several paragraphs, with different formatting and positioning.

Only primitive and amateuric books can use HTML built-in styles.

How does each header contain several paragraphs?

h? is used by some programs such as Sigil and Calibre for generating the ToC. You can still edit the ToC after it's generated to how you want. But the main thing is that you have a ToC with the chapter headers to start from without having to fully build a ToC by hand.

There are defaults an using them is not a problem if that's what you want. For example, using the default font size of 1em for the body text.

Using h? can have a multi-layer ToC generated automatically if the code is setup correctly.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

ToCs are created manually, as the text content of the header and the ToC entry is different.

Headings are not used for ToCs as each header contains several paragraphs, with different formatting and positioning.

Only primitive and amateuric books can use HTML built-in styles.

Where do you get that idea? Any of it? Who has chapter heads that are "several paragraphs long?"

If you mean that some books have, for example, a chapter number that's left-aligned and then a heading (title) that's centered, and then an epigram that's something else, that's design and layout. Not "a" heading.

If the designer who does that, does it, fine--but that doesn't mean that the heading style/level shouldn't be properly applied. And yes, that designer might then end up having to manually create his/her TOC...but you're completely missing the point.

Conflating DESIGN with structure is just muddying the waters.

Hitch

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Hitch

What?

There's not one damned thing coincidental or flukey about it. That's akin to saying that pregnancy is a coincidental flukey outcome around sex.

You mean it's not?

Right? Or have I misunderstood your post?

Your overexposure to fact free rhetoric has completely destroyed your sarcasm detector.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

You mean it's not?

And thus began every horrible conversation, between every enraged Dad and his encumbered daughter, ever....

Your overexposure to fact free rhetoric has completely destroyed your sarcasm detector.

Thank GOD, I was starting to lose faith in book-making-kind.

Hitch

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

h element is useless.
It was intended for manuals, which use hierarchical headers, like
0.1 Introduction
Books, even non-fiction, do not use hierarchical headers; headers in books are complex structures which span several paragraphs. p is the only logical choice.

Also, div is used instead of p to fix the extra space between paragraphs.

Headers work fine for chapter changes and TOC generation. Particularly important in non-fiction.

Dale

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

h element is useless.
It was intended for manuals, which use hierarchical headers, like
0.1 Introduction
Books, even non-fiction, do not use hierarchical headers; headers in books are complex structures which span several paragraphs. p is the only logical choice.

Also, div is used instead of p to fix the extra space between paragraphs.

Fix space? A style sheet entry can adjust that.
H tags are perfectly proper to label chapter SECTIONS.

What we have is a whole bunch of people that 'just get it done looks' and throw out the possible use of automated tools that generate TOC

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Hitch

that's design and layout. Not "a" heading.

Then which part of it is a "heading"?

Also, you have to use CSS shenanigans to harmonize the h# elements with its p preamble prohibiting top space, page break before etc.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Then which part of it is a "heading"?

You're hair-splitting, simply to try to win the argument that for some reason, heading elements--it's even their name, mind you--should be paragraphs. Hell, why not divs, while you're at it? Blockquotes? Why bother to use any standardized elements or CSS????

A chapter number is just that--the number. The chapter title, generally, is the heading. An epigram is just that--the epigram. Simply being grouped together, at the top of a given page, doesn't make all the elements "the heading." I mean, do the first two data rows of a table qualify as "heading rows" just because they're NEAR the heading?

The chapter number can either be part of the heading--or not. Some people can and do have chapters like:

01. The Beginning

Some have them like so:

01
The Beginning

And some have them in other layouts. When, as a designer, you choose to separate your elements with a line (or however), then it's up to you to figure out how you wish to build your TOC. You're conflating that Sigil built-in TOC-making ability, with the functionality of headings as structural elements. If Jane the bookmaker wants to put her chapter number at the right-hand margin and her chapter title centered, that doesn't mean that some piece of software is meant to automagically compensate for the design decision. Nor does that choice abrogate the idea that the bloody heading is structural.

Also, you have to use CSS shenanigans to harmonize the h# elements with its p preamble prohibiting top space, page break before etc.

WHAT? Nonsense. That's sheer silliness. You have no more, or fewer, CSS elements around headings than paragraph classes for that. The CSS, after all, is what YOU design. So your p class and your hx class could look exactly the same. It is you who decides the "harmonizing" of the two.

I mean...you're not using Sigil's built-in heading classes for styling, are you? (I've seen people do that and a loooong time ago, when Cap was 'learnin' me" the ropes, I originally started out, in my PG-bookmaking days, trying to use heading styles as graphic styles, rather than as structural elements, but I thought that the difference and distinction were fairly well understood now.) The CSS determines the styling! And as I said, whether you have p's, div's or headings there for the chapter head, the CSS would be exactly the same to "harmonize" it.

"Prohibiting top space, page break before..." I absolutely don't understand what you're talking about here. YOU decide the CSS. Why would you need more or less CSS for a heading than a paragraph than a div? While there are some nesting restrictions to choose from between those three, in reality, you could, if you really wanted to (NOT saying that this would be a good idea!!) use those interchangeably and make them all look and work exactly the same. In terms of appearance, I mean.

So...what are you talking about? Seriously. I'm trying to understand what you're saying.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Then which part of it is a "heading"?

Also, you have to use CSS shenanigans to harmonize the h# elements with its p preamble prohibiting top space, page break before etc.

What exactly is CSS shenanigans? Without CSS, you cannot make your eBook look as you want. I know I can't make an eBook look as I want without CSS.

I use CSS to define <p> and I have <p> set to have no paragraph spaces and an indent of 1.2em. I could not do any of that without CSS. Your <div> that you like so much cannot be properly styled without CSS. Without CSS, your <div> has no paragraph space and no indent making the eBook rather difficult to read.

You don't need to use <h?> for your chapter header, but you then will have more difficulty making the ToC. The tools that generate the ToC based on <h?> won't work.

Also, an eBook without CSS will look terrible and your way of <div> instead of <p> will make it unreadable. Given you don't use <h?> for the chapter header and you don't like CSS, your chapter headers won't look like chapter headers.

You'd be better off saving your eBook as text and reading the text file.

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Hitch

You're hair-splitting, simply to try to win the argument that for some reason, heading elements--it's even their name, mind you--should be paragraphs.

I asked a simple question: in my example, which text should be deemed worthy of the h# block element, and which just p; and more importantly, why?

You have no more, or fewer, CSS elements around headings than paragraph classes for that.

The default style for headings includes some unwanted properties which you had to explicitly disable, making CSS more complex than necessary.