Quote:
Originally Posted by rogue_ronin
That <span class="....> stuff is bad XHTML. The simplest way to do those is with <em> (emphasis) and <strong>. If you're seeing a lot of <span...>, it's because of the overuse of Word, and other programs that insert a lot of cruft.
<span...> and <div...> are generic containers, that should be used when there is no other tag that is appropriate. It's lazy markup. Both of them are overused, and lead to a vague, illegible, incomprehensible document. I only use <div...>, for instance, as actual divisions in my markup -- literally, largeish pieces of the book: ie: cover, frontispiece, foreword, section, chapter, appendix, colophon, etc. I only use <span...> for two unique tags: FirstLetter and FirstWord -- which don't have any easy equivalent in HTML.
A well-thought out set of XHTML tags for use in an ebook can actually make things a lot better and allow for an amazing amount of control.
Done well, you can have less tagging -- or you can ramp it up to quite a high level. The amount of tagging is dependent on the complexity of the document structure, though, not the display complexity.
I can give you a well-constructed ebook, and simply by editing the CSS, you can completely change the way it displays -- you wouldn't even have to open the ebook if the CSS were well-documented.
m a r |
I think this is a matter of preference. Some people prefer indirect formatting (such as modifying the CSS to achieve formatting changes elsewhere in the document), while others prefer direct formatting (such as using the B or STRONG tags to make the text darker).
One of the reasons I tend to prefer direct formatting is based on my experience with styles in word processing. Although styles do make some formatting tasks easier (such as changing the font for certain parts of the ebooks), my experience has been that sometimes it takes more work to achieve a simple effect with indirect formatting.
I think that a good ebook format should allow the user the option of both direct and indirect formatting as well as a mixture of the two depending on the user's preference. To me, the key is to have consistent rules when tagging text.