<blockquote> help, please

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever understand this stuff!

(Evidently I was lucky when I changed my blockquote style to simply p. block { !)

Your luck may have been that it got ignored.
Have you ever seen a BQ inside a P? I don't think that usage is even valid.
BQ inside a DIV

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by theducks

Your luck may have been that it got ignored.
Have you ever seen a BQ inside a P? I don't think that usage is even valid.
BQ inside a DIV

I think he was ironic, he was making a joke

[phossler]

Evidently I was lucky when I changed my blockquote style to simply p. block { !)

Oh, I was thinking that it was a <p> tag class

<p class = "block"> blah, blah, blah </p>

Paul

[JSWolf]

What I want to know is why use a simulated blockquote when a real blockquote will do? This just smacks of laziness.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I want to know is why use a simulated blockquote when a real blockquote will do? This just smacks of laziness.

That's just like people who use
.italic {font-style:italic}
<span class="italic">yadda yadda yadda</span>

instead of
em {font-style:italic}
<em>yadda yadda yadda</em>

Although I wouldn't call it laziness as much as "industrious bloat lovers that might not fully understand the code"...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

That's just like people who use
.italic {font-style:italic}
<span class="italic">yadda yadda yadda</span>

instead of
em {font-style:italic}
<em>yadda yadda yadda</em>

Although I wouldn't call it laziness as much as "industrious bloat lovers that might not fully understand the code"...

In English, lazy as if they bothered to learn what they were doing, they'd use <blockquote>, <i>, and <b>.

[GrannyGrump]

Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that <i> and <b> were being deprecated, and that we were encouraged to use <em> and <strong> (I usually style these in the CSS as italic and bold, respectively). I would rather use the concise <i> and <b>, but not if it means they will fail some years down the road. Although, I guess they could be styled in the CSS as well:
i {font-style: italic}

I also don't quite get the usage of blockquote. What is the advantage of blockquote over a div? Other than getting "default" blockquote styling. Wouldn't it be just as easy to style a div for what is required? I'm sure I am overlooking the obvious here.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by grannyGrumpy

Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that <i> and <b> were being deprecated, and that we were encouraged to use <em> and <strong> (I usually style these in the CSS as italic and bold, respectively). I would rather use the concise <i> and <b>, but not if it means they will fail some years down the road. Although, I guess they could be styled in the CSS as well:
i {font-style: italic}

I also don't quite get the usage of blockquote. What is the advantage of blockquote over a div? Other than getting "default" blockquote styling. Wouldn't it be just as easy to style a div for what is required? I'm sure I am overlooking the obvious here.

You can always use a div. I have seen automatic tools that use div everywhere. While it may work it is impossible to understand. Semantically correct code files are much easier to work with and much easier to understand. The less div's the better. Besides div does not support the semantics and syntax of quoting the author source. Although in ePub 2 it is unlikely that that will get displayed in a meaningful way in most readers.

Dale

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by grannyGrumpy

Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that <i> and <b> were being deprecated, and that we were encouraged to use <em> and <strong> (I usually style these in the CSS as italic and bold, respectively). I would rather use the concise <i> and <b>, but not if it means they will fail some years down the road. Although, I guess they could be styled in the CSS as well:
i {font-style: italic}

You are correct... However, I don't use <em> and <strong>. I know I can specify in the stylesheet how they must look like, but now it is up to the browser how to display them. I rather use <i> and <b>. The have been deprecated for a long time, but I don't see them going anytime soon.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by phossler

Oh, I was thinking that it was a <p> tag class

<p class = "block"> blah, blah, blah </p>

Paul

Yes, that's what I do. Works a charm. I'm not going <blockquote> text </blockquote> in the body of the book. Oddly, that never occurred to me, though I do it all the time on web pages.

My blockquotes (or blocks) are Courier. I find that while this works fine in *.mobi format, when I use Sigil to build an epub, special characters like bullets and en dashes don't display correctly; I must change them to asterisks and hyphens. Why would that be?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Yes, that's what I do. Works a charm. I'm not going <blockquote> text </blockquote> in the body of the book. Oddly, that never occurred to me, though I do it all the time on web pages.

My blockquotes (or blocks) are Courier. I find that while this works fine in *.mobi format, when I use Sigil to build an epub, special characters like bullets and en dashes don't display correctly; I must change them to asterisks and hyphens. Why would that be?

Those are likely not present in the Courier font. Using entities might serve as a workaround but even there it would depend on the reading device to recognize them and use a different font set. However, Courier is a fixed width font which does not work well with the idea of an emdash.

Dale

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by grannyGrumpy

Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that <i> and <b> were being deprecated, and that we were encouraged to use <em> and <strong> (I usually style these in the CSS as italic and bold, respectively). I would rather use the concise <i> and <b>, but not if it means they will fail some years down the road. Although, I guess they could be styled in the CSS as well:
i {font-style: italic}

There is just too much code out there with <i> and <b> for them to be going anywhere. It just isn't going to happen.

I also don't quite get the usage of blockquote. What is the advantage of blockquote over a div? Other than getting "default" blockquote styling. Wouldn't it be just as easy to style a div for what is required? I'm sure I am overlooking the obvious here.

Well for one thing, it's a lot easier to read the code when you see a blockquote where it should be then when you see a div. Also, you know what a blockquote is meant to be doing. You don't have to figure out what you need to do to the div to simulate the blockquote. It's just easier to use a blockquote when that's what you want.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by grannyGrumpy

I also don't quite get the usage of blockquote. What is the advantage of blockquote over a div?

Actually, one could do everything with just <div>s (and maybe <a>). Even <span>s are mostly not needed.

<p> -> <div class="paragraph">
<blockquote> -> <div class="blockquote">
<h3> -> <div class="header3">
<i> -> <div class="italic"> (with display:inline)
<table> -> <div class="table"> (with display:table)
etc.

But, as JSWolf says, using the right element makes it more readable, and better behaved when CSS is not properly supported / available

[GrannyGrump]

I've never had anything that require the "cite" function. And always styled a div for poetry, quoted print items, quoted letters, quoted signs/cards, etc.

So do I understand correctly that it would be preferable to use various blockquote stylings to set up these pieces of text?

[Jellby]

IMO, for quoted letters and print items definitely. For signs/cards and poetry I still use <div>s, because their layout is more visual than semantical.