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HTML headings article Spartanicus 04-08-2007
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Posted by Spartanicus on April 8, 2007, 8:06 am
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I wrote an article on HTML headings:
http://codewallop.110mb.com/goodpractice/headingology.htm

--
Spartanicus

Posted by Darin McGrew on April 9, 2007, 2:29 am
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> I wrote an article on HTML headings:
> http://codewallop.110mb.com/goodpractice/headingology.htm

Another argument in favor (or if you prefer, in favour :-) of skipping
heading levels is that sometimes, skipping heading levels better reflects
the document structure.

For example, you might have sections which use H2. Some of those sections
might have subsections which use H3, while others would have no
subsections. If the content within those sections and subsections needs to
be structured into "chunks", what heading levels should be used for those
"chunks"? The "never skip heading levels" argument would have some of the
"chunks" use H3, and some of them use H4. But it can make more structural
sense to use H4 for all the "chunks", even though this skips the H3 heading
level in sections which have no subsections.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"When strong encryption is outlawed, only outlaws jvyy hfr fgebat rapelcgvba."

Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on April 10, 2007, 2:08 am
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Scripsit Darin McGrew:

>> I wrote an article on HTML headings:
>> http://codewallop.110mb.com/goodpractice/headingology.htm
>
> Another argument in favor (or if you prefer, in favour :-) of skipping
> heading levels is that sometimes, skipping heading levels better
> reflects the document structure.

"Another"? It seems that I have to scan through the cited article to see its
argument for skipping heading levels in some cases. It seems to be the
age-old "but h1 looks so BIG!!" argument in slightly modernized clothes.

The article complains about lack of arguments in specifications that
recommend that heading levels be not skipped. To me, the basic argument has
always been so evident that it need not be mentioned: you must not skip
levels for the same reason why you must not skip numbers when counting 1, 2,
3, ... Heading levels indicate logical nesting of parts of a document, and
you cannot nest something at the 3rd level without having something at the
2nd level. But people apparently often view the heading levels as "levels of
importance", and some unfortunate wordings in specifications might
contribute to this misconception.

> For example, you might have sections which use H2. Some of those
> sections might have subsections which use H3, while others would have
> no subsections.

That's possible, though it often results from insufficient structuring or
poor division into sections.

> If the content within those sections and subsections
> needs to be structured into "chunks", what heading levels should be
> used for those "chunks"?

"Chunk" is not an HTML concept or a document structuring concept.

> The "never skip heading levels" argument
> would have some of the "chunks" use H3, and some of them use H4. But
> it can make more structural sense to use H4 for all the "chunks",
> even though this skips the H3 heading level in sections which have no
> subsections.

You seem to postulate the existence of document structure "bottom up", e.g.
so that at the lowest level we have paragraphs, they may be grouped into a
larger blocks, etc. However, the HTML structuring idea is clearly "top
down". You can't really have it both ways.

The solution is to design the structure according to the "top down" division
into parts. If you can't do this and you need headings for the "chunks",
then you might decide to violate the recommendations in HTML specifications
(and the HTML _standard_, ISO HTML ! :-) ), but it doesn't help to explain
that this is a good thing to do.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/


Posted by Max Demian on April 10, 2007, 6:02 am
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> Scripsit Darin McGrew:
>
>>> I wrote an article on HTML headings:
>>> http://codewallop.110mb.com/goodpractice/headingology.htm
>>
>> Another argument in favor (or if you prefer, in favour :-) of
>> skipping heading levels is that sometimes, skipping heading levels
>> better reflects the document structure.
>
> "Another"? It seems that I have to scan through the cited article to
> see its argument for skipping heading levels in some cases. It seems
> to be the age-old "but h1 looks so BIG!!" argument in slightly
> modernized clothes.
> The article complains about lack of arguments in specifications that
> recommend that heading levels be not skipped. To me, the basic
> argument has always been so evident that it need not be mentioned:
> you must not skip levels for the same reason why you must not skip
> numbers when counting 1, 2, 3, ... Heading levels indicate logical
> nesting of parts of a document, and you cannot nest something at the
> 3rd level without having something at the 2nd level. But people
> apparently often view the heading levels as "levels of importance",
> and some unfortunate wordings in specifications might contribute to
> this misconception.

In a non-CSS document, skipping heading levels is a way to stop the
sub-headings from being so ENORMOUS :->

--
Max Demian



Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on April 10, 2007, 7:03 am
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Scripsit Max Demian:

> In a non-CSS document, skipping heading levels is a way to stop the
> sub-headings from being so ENORMOUS :->

Did you actually read the message that you quoted?

Maybe your comment has some subtle sarcasm in it, despite the use of an
emoticon. After all, if _skipping_ levels in the strict sense, e.g. having
h1 followed by h4 with no intervening h2 and h3, is supposed to _solve_ the
size issue, then it's really a laughable "solution". It creates a strong
discrepancy between font sizes of h1 and an element that is supposedly meant
to be logicall a 2nd level heading.

Anyway, people who surf around the net these days with a non-CSS browser or
with CSS support disabled can surely be expected to be interested in the
_content_ and logical _structure_ of pages rather than visual experience.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/


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