Extended <head> chapter: NOT necessary? - Page 5

Tex2002ans · 02-22-2017, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

That's too easy - I want Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in the original ME dialects

... as played by 1960s Parisians.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaot

Plus - there is oblique. Depending the font it can look different to italic.

Yep, that can be changed in CSS using "font-style: oblique;":

https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_font_font-style.asp

Italics are typically cursive+slanted while Oblique is typically Roman+slanted. There aren't as many Oblique fonts though, and some programs might create "fake obliques" by distorting the Roman font.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Someone please show me a real world example where & and & are different. I've seen lots of eBooks that use & and they are used just the same as you would use & .

[... 2 seconds later ...]

But you do know that you can swap how & work via CSS. So technically there is no difference.

Are you blocking Javascript just like me? Were the counter-examples hidden behind a Javascript button? I knew I should have supported that few % that don't use it by default!

Here is a condensed list of the "real world examples" you requested:

1. Emphasized words () within Italics ().
2. Book Citations ()
3. Book Title () + a quotation with emphasis ()
4. Math (bold/italic variables)
5. BetterRed: Foreign word/restaurant () + emphasized words ()
6. Semi-Related Issue: Syntax Highlighting

Let me toss in a #7, w3 themselves:

7. https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/text-lev...the-em-element

Quote:

The em element represents stress emphasis of its contents.

The level of stress that a particular piece of content has is given by its number of ancestor em elements.

The placement of stress emphasis changes the meaning of the sentence. The element thus forms an integral part of the content. The precise way in which stress is used in this way depends on the language.

Quote:

These examples show how changing the stress emphasis changes the meaning. First, a general statement of fact, with no stress:

Cats are cute animals.

By emphasizing the first word, the statement implies that the kind of animal under discussion is in question (maybe someone is asserting that dogs are cute):

Cats are cute animals.

Moving the stress to the verb, one highlights that the truth of the entire sentence is in question (maybe someone is saying cats are not cute):

Cats are cute animals.

By moving it to the adjective, the exact nature of the cats is reasserted (maybe someone suggested cats were mean animals):

Cats are cute animals.

Similarly, if someone asserted that cats were vegetables, someone correcting this might emphasize the last word:

Cats are cute animals.

By emphasizing the entire sentence, it becomes clear that the speaker is fighting hard to get the point across. This kind of stress emphasis also typically affects the punctuation, hence the exclamation mark here.

Cats are cute animals!

Anger mixed with emphasizing the cuteness could lead to markup such as:

Cats are cute animals!

The em element isn't a generic "italics" element. Sometimes, text is intended to stand out from the rest of the paragraph, as if it was in a different mood or voice. For this, the i element is more appropriate.

You don't show examples? JSWolf wins.
You show examples? JSWolf "wins".
HTML Standards themselves? JSWolf wins!

chaot · 02-23-2017, 12:52 PM

Time for a joke!

a) It's getting worse, sigh!

Who is to read, learn and then take into account all this?

b) Losers are out.

JSWolf · 03-06-2017, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Here is a condensed list of the "real world examples" you requested:

1. Emphasized words () within Italics ().
2. Book Citations ()
3. Book Title () + a quotation with emphasis ()
4. Math (bold/italic variables)
5. BetterRed: Foreign word/restaurant () + emphasized words ()
6. Semi-Related Issue: Syntax Highlighting

Let me toss in a #7, w3 themselves:

7. https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/text-lev...the-em-element

With an eInk Reader, how would the following words in look?

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system.

I tried this using Calibre's viewer and all I got was a line of italic text. showed nothing. So without using CSS to redefine , what do you get? If you have to redefine , why not use with a class?

chaot · 03-06-2017, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

With an eInk Reader, how would the following words in look?

Why you ask? You got plenty ereaders!

Click image for larger version

Name: Test em.png
Views: 226
Size: 97.9 KB
ID: 155492

Test vs  calibre File Preview

100% exactly like that they look in my ereader!
 can only show the same as . Specify your question, please!

Code

Spoiler:

The last two codes are a little bit off-topic. Just for showing something!

Quote:

Das HTML Element Emphasis marks text that has stress emphasis. The element can be nested, with each level of nesting indicating a greater degree of emphasis. Source

Indicating doesn't mean showing!

Turtle91 · 03-06-2017, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

With an eInk Reader, how would the following words in look?

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system.

I tried this using Calibre's viewer and all I got was a line of italic text. showed nothing. So without using CSS to redefine , what do you get? If you have to redefine , why not use with a class?

ummm... I got this one:

1) you're not "redefining" you are "styling" how you want the word emphasized with CSS...which is what you are supposed to do. The default style for is italicized, that does not make it the ONLY way to emphasize some text.

2) is specifically a font style (font-style:italic) - it changes the display but it semantically does nothing

3) is shorter than and designed specifically for emphasizing words. So it is semantically more correct.

4) I'm willing to change my outlook (and coding) based on new standards rather than continually argue about how it used to be done. I'm willing to look at different ways of doing things instead of insist everyone use my way...

5) I do not code for e-ink devices exclusively. I code for how I want the product to look with today's technology and standards. If a publisher cares about backwards compatibility then they can add the appropriate CSS to handle the different media types...which is much easier to do if you have the proper semantic markup. It is silly to intentionally limit all of your reader's experiences to e-ink capabilities. E-ink readers are not the only devices out there...as a matter of fact their use has dropped considerably. "One of the main problems is that e-reader devices have failed to develop in any major technical form since their introduction in 2008." (stats found in the article "The E-Reader Device is Dying a Rapid Death") note: The article is referencing e-ink devices when they say "e-reader" - another section talks about ebook sales skyrocketing and attributing that to the prevalence of smart phones and tablets.

Cheers,

JSWolf · 03-06-2017, 01:39 PM

I have never seen used as anything other than an alternate for . What I have seen is when text inside italics are wanted to be different be it not italic, you get another set of . You don't get to show non-italic. This not sayng that cannot be used, it's that it's not used.

Tex2002ans · 03-06-2017, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle91

3) is shorter than and designed specifically for emphasizing words. So it is semantically more correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I have seen is when text inside italics are wanted to be different be it not italic, you get another set of . You don't get to show non-italic.

In all the Typography + Style Guides + books I have digitized, italics/emphasis inside of italics flips between Italic/Roman. So if the entire book's <h3>s were italic:

Code:

<h3>Shakespeare's <i>Romeo & Juliet</i></h3>

CSS:

h3 {
	font-style: italic;
}

h3 i {
	font-style: normal;
}

I have seen 2 layers deep quite often, but I admit I haven't seen one ever go 3+ layers deep.

I assume the rule would be very similar to multiple sets of quotes inside of quotes (or brackets inside of parentheses)... the deeper you go, you flip between Outer/Inner/Outer/Inner.

I tried to come up with an example of 3 deep italics... and it just looked absolutely wrong having layer 1 match layer 3. So I made up something I believe works:

1st layer (Italic) = Italic
2nd layer (Emphasis) = Roman
3rd layer (Emphasis) = Bold

1st layer = Roman
2nd layer (Emphasis) = Italic
3rd layer (Emphasis) = Bold/Italic

Results in this:

Spoiler:

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have never seen used as anything other than an alternate for . [...] This not sayng that cannot be used, it's that it's not used.

This is absolutely absurd. I can't seriously believe you typed this out with a straight face. Many real-life examples were laid out in the previous posts of use-cases with mixed and .

Now, if you want to get into Typography... there are a few alternate methods of displaying emphasis that AREN'T italics (letterspacing and/or smallcaps):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphas...Letter_spacing

Those aren't used as often in English books today, but those methods were prominent in older books. Just because defaults to italics TODAY doesn't mean it always has to.

Also, different languages may also have different rules. Just because = italics in English doesn't mean all languages do.

Side Note #1: Anyway, I was reading more into the Text-to-Speech angle. JAWS is one of the leading Screen Readers:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/JAW...Headquarters01

I was taking a much closer look at their documentation:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/Tra...ds_Schemes.htm

and they mentioned a few relevant methods in Text-to-Speech that I hadn't previously thought of:

Assigning Sounds to HTML Elements
- For example, assigning a certain ding sound which plays before you hit a specific tag (like ).
Create a Scheme to Speak Bold Text Using the Bold Voice Alias
- "You can use voice aliases to have JAWS announce certain items, attributes, or states in a different voice. In this section, you will assign a voice alias to bold text."

Also, on a semi-related note, it seems like JAWS (and other Screen Readers) already have support for Multi-Language markup with HTML lang. Here is a sample video showing the test page being read:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45R0pb8YwFE

The ereader TTSes definitely have some catching up to do. :P

Side Note #2: It also seems like JAWS also has support for a lot more languages (and variants of voices) than I initially thought. They call them Synthesizers:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/Downloads/synthesizers

English (US) has 5 females + 2 males.
English (UK) has 2 females and 3 males.
English (AU) has 1 female + 1 male.
English (South African) has 1.
English (Scottish) has 1.
English (Irish) has 1.
English (Indian) has 3.

Now BR could have his Canterbury Tales read by 20 different English voices! No Middle English yet though.

BetterRed · 03-06-2017, 05:07 PM

For my own reading purposes I style as dark red, I find it difficult to discern italicised text when its just a few words in the middle of a sentence. I don't read on E-ink devices.

But that's the easy part, finding the right s and changing them to s is the hard part. Sometimes I bother, often I don't. I find it easier to find them in a word processor than in an ePub editor - then all I have to do is bend the word processor's Emphasis style into an epub style during conversion.

BR

JSWolf · 03-06-2017, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

For my own reading purposes I style as dark red, I find it difficult to discern italicised text when its just a few words in the middle of a sentence. I don't read on E-ink devices.

But that's the easy part, finding the right s and changing them to s is the hard part. Sometimes I bother, often I don't. I find it easier to find them in a word processor than in an ePub editor - then all I have to do is bend the word processor's Emphasis style into an epub style during conversion.

BR

Why bother to change (or whatever is used) to when you can just edit the CSS and get your red effect?

BetterRed · 03-06-2017, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why bother to change (or whatever is used) to when you can just edit the CSS and get your red effect?

Because I don't want all tagged text to be red, only the text where the author has used italics for emphasising a word or phrase, but not where italics are used to conform to a convention mandated by the style guide he/she is using - Publisher, Strunk and White, CMS, APA, MLA etc.

BR

Turtle91 · 03-06-2017, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why bother to change (or whatever is used) to when you can just edit the CSS and get your red effect?

Italics doesn't always mean emphasis, and emphasis doesn't always mean italics.

BetterRed · 03-06-2017, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Italics doesn't always mean emphasis, and emphasis doesn't always mean italics.

we're

BR

GrannyGrump · 03-07-2017, 05:43 AM

BetterRed said:

Quote:

Because I don't want all tagged text to be red, only the text where the author has used italics for emphasising a word or phrase

EXACTLY!

I want EMphasis when someone is shouting. or laughing. or sarcastic, or whatever. I might decide to style the EMphasis as BOLD.

I want *I*talics for book titles, ship names, foreign-language fragments, *TYPOGRAPHICAL "emphasis"* such as a chapter title. These should remain as italic, because that is the accepted convention (not only in style guides, but to meet people's expectations)

Why does this seem like such a difficult concept?

JSWolf · 03-07-2017, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

BetterRed said:

EXACTLY!

I want EMphasis when someone is shouting. or laughing. or sarcastic, or whatever. I might decide to style the EMphasis as BOLD.

I want *I*talics for book titles, ship names, foreign-language fragments, *TYPOGRAPHICAL "emphasis"* such as a chapter title. These should remain as italic, because that is the accepted convention (not only in style guides, but to meet people's expectations)

Why does this seem like such a difficult concept?

So if you want to be bold, why not use ?

GrannyGrump · 03-07-2017, 06:12 AM

Ok, let me amend my post with some nit-noid examples.

Let's just pretend my Body Text is set to Sans-Serif. Let's further postulate, that the body font displays in BLACK.

Simultaneously, I want to use BOLD for typographical bolding, using the *sans-serif* Body Font, for Chapter Titles and subheadings. And ONLY for that text, no other. Because this is TYPOGRAPHICAL markup -- NOT semantic.

At the very same time, I want italics for book titles, ship names, foreign languages, and footnotes. And ONLY for that text, no other. Because this is TYPOGRAPHICAL markup -- NOT semantic.

So now, let's say I want my EMphasis to appear in BOLD DARK RED *SERIF* FONT. (This is for those shouted laughing sarcastic remarks)

Meanwhile, I style my STRONG to appear in DARK BLUE MONOSPACE FONT. (This is for that important information, like historical dates and names, that you want to go look up in Wikipedia)

(By the way, this kind of thing is VERY useful for proof-reading)

One point of all this is that limiting to only and italics and bold is too -- well, limiting. And I don't see why the use of 'em' and 'strong' should be discouraged. It's a little like being offered a new car for free, and saying, well, my old coaster bike still gets me to the store, no thanks.

03-06-2017, 01:39 PM	#66
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 73,983 Karma: 128903378 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	I have never seen <em> used as anything other than an alternate for <i>. What I have seen is when text inside italics are wanted to be different be it not italic, you get another set of <i>. You don't get <em> to show non-italic. This not sayng that <em> cannot be used, it's that it's not used.

03-06-2017, 05:07 PM	#68
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 20,572 Karma: 26954694 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	For my own reading purposes I style <em> as dark red, I find it difficult to discern italicised text when its just a few words in the middle of a sentence. I don't read on E-ink devices. But that's the easy part, finding the right <i>s and changing them to <em>s is the hard part. Sometimes I bother, often I don't. I find it easier to find them in a word processor than in an ePub editor - then all I have to do is bend the word processor's Emphasis style into an epub <em> style during conversion. BR

03-07-2017, 06:12 AM	#75
GrannyGrump Obsessively Dedicated... Posts: 3,200 Karma: 34977896 Join Date: May 2011 Location: JAPAN (US expatriate) Device: Sony PRS-T2, ADE on PC	Ok, let me amend my post with some nit-noid examples. Let's just pretend my Body Text is set to Sans-Serif. Let's further postulate, that the body font displays in BLACK. Simultaneously, I want to use BOLD for typographical bolding, using the sans-serif Body Font, for Chapter Titles and subheadings. And ONLY for that text, no other. Because this is TYPOGRAPHICAL markup -- NOT semantic. At the very same time, I want italics for book titles, ship names, foreign languages, and footnotes. And ONLY for that text, no other. Because this is TYPOGRAPHICAL markup -- NOT semantic. So now, let's say I want my EMphasis to appear in *BOLD DARK RED SERIF* FONT. (This is for those shouted laughing sarcastic remarks) Meanwhile, I style my STRONG to appear in DARK BLUE MONOSPACE FONT*. (This is for that important information, like historical dates and names, that you want to go look up in Wikipedia) (By the way, this kind of thing is VERY useful for proof-reading) One point of all this is that limiting to only <i> and <b> italics and bold is too -- well, limiting. And I don't see why the use of 'em' and 'strong' should be discouraged. It's a little like being offered a new car for free, and saying, well, my old coaster bike still gets me to the store, no thanks. Last edited by GrannyGrump; 03-07-2017 at 06:48 AM.*

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02-23-2017, 12:52 PM	#62
chaot Head of lunatic asylum Posts: 349 Karma: 77620 Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: UTC +1 Device: Tolino Vision 3HD	Time for a joke! a) It's getting worse, sigh! Who is to read, learn and then take into account all this? b) Losers are out.

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