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<i>/<em> <b>/<strong> and CF 5

Deprecation, or just my software?

         

Filipe

10:27 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I recently upgraded from using ColdFusion Studio 4 to ColdFusion Studio 5 as my main CF, HTML, ASP editor. It used to be whenever I pressed CTRL+i that it would instantly put in <i>¦</i> (Where "¦" is the cursor). Same thing with CTRL+b and <b>¦</b>.

However, with CFStudio 5 it puts in <em> instead of <i>, and <strong> instead of <b>. Are <em> and <strong> part of a new web standard or is CFStudio 5 acting the fool?

DrDoc

10:34 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Well, <em> and <strong> have always been there .. so it's not at all "new standard". If you press F8 (Options) you can set whether <i> and <b> should be used instead of <em> and <strong>.

You are not entirely wrong though. These tags are deprecated. You are strongly encouraged to use Style Sheets whenever possible.

pageoneresults

10:37 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



As quoted from the W3C...

EM and STRONG are used to indicate emphasis. The other phrase elements have particular significance in technical documents. These examples illustrate some of the phrase elements:

As <CITE>Harry S. Truman</CITE> said,
<Q lang="en-us">The buck stops here.</Q>

More information can be found in <CITE>[ISO-0000]</CITE>.

Please refer to the following reference number in future correspondence: <STRONG>1-234-55</STRONG>

The presentation of phrase elements depends on the user agent. Generally, visual user agents present EM text in italics and STRONG text in bold font. Speech synthesizer user agents may change the synthesis parameters, such as volume, pitch and rate accordingly.

These are not deprecated tags. They have a secondary purpose besides allowing visual browsers to render them as <b> or <i>. I always wondered about these two myself; <strong> and <em>. I see more use of these tags now that CSS has come to the forefront. I think we will see many more topics on these and other phrase elements.

[w3.org...]

(edited by: pageoneresults at 10:55 pm (utc) on April 30, 2002)

pageoneresults

10:45 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Its actually the <b> and the <i> that are becoming deprecated!

Avoid the use of deprecated presentation elements and attributes (as well as B and I). Authors should use style sheets instead of presentation elements (TT, and FONT) and attributes ("align" and "background") that control visual presentation. Authors are encouraged to use elements (such as STRONG, EM, H1, H2, ABBR, etc.) that add structure to documents. Documents that use style sheets for presentation allow users to adjust the look of the document (e.g., larger print, color contrast, etc.) through personal style sheets or browser settings.

DrDoc

10:53 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Well, that's what I meant, pageoneresults .. But thanks for clarifying and helping me out. ;)

brotherhood of LAN

10:53 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



well, bit ironic that the <b> and <i> are the ones going out the window.....

you would think that the 3 characters .... < b > would be better than 8 < s t r o n g >

Filipe

10:56 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Documents that use style sheets for presentation allow users to adjust the look of the document (e.g., larger print, color contrast, etc.) through personal style sheets or browser settings.

Can users specify their own stylesheets to use with my pages? I've been using stylesheets partially as a means of preventing users from changing the look of my page via their browser settings - can they do something I never knew they could?

papabaer

10:57 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



As more developers become aware of coding for Web Accessibility, <em> and <strong> will see greater useage as the W3C information notes, these tags elicit variations in pitch and volume from certain aural user-agents.

[w3.org...]
Good starting point for us all...

DrDoc

10:57 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



First of all, let's not get confused as to saying that <B> and <STRONG> are the same tags, 'cause they are not.

When you take the big picture into consideration, the fact that everything is being switched over to CSS, then it makes sense!

Sure, in some cases we'll end up with more characters, and thereby heavier documents, but in the end it's good and saves us a lot of work.

papabaer

10:57 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



!important

You can retain control...

If you, in your style sheet want to mark something as important, use the following code:

P { font-size: 18px ! important }

You are telling your user, that it is important, that you use 18px, as your fontsize.

(edited by: papabaer at 11:00 pm (utc) on April 30, 2002)

pageoneresults

10:58 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I don't think they are going out the window just yet. How long have some of those elements been on the deprecated list? Take the <font> tag for example. I think it will be quite a while before we see that one vanish!

I'll agree that <b> is much easier than <strong>. But, only for visual browsers. Once you get into speech based its a different story. I can see the points from both sides.

I've almost put all of my <b>'s and <i>'s into external style sheets using the <span> tag. If I just need <b> or <i>, that is what I use and it still validates!

DrDoc

10:58 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



papabaer,

tell me, when do you not have a good link to come up with? ;)

papabaer

11:01 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



... who me? ;) LOL!

pageoneresults

11:01 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I agree with DrDoc! And, every time I get involved in a thread where papabaer is, I end up losing sleep researching new materials that he has presented.

That's okay, one of these days, payback! What goes around, comes around! Remember that!

Filipe

11:02 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



When you take the big picture into consideration, the fact that everything is being switched over to CSS, then it makes sense!

Are you suggesting that HTML will be no more, or just HTML style aspects like <b>, <i>, <u> etc?

papabaer

11:02 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



And to further the Doc's point...

Using a mixture of <strong> <b> <i> and <em> just might fall under the realm of good SEO... ;)

papabaer

11:04 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



ROTFSTC !!! (is that it DrDoc?) :)

Pageone... let's face it. We're all nuts!

pageoneresults

11:06 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Oh, and here is the list of deprecated tags just in case...

[w3schools.com...]

DrDoc

11:08 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Nuts!? Oh no! I better not come back anymore ..
I'm allergic to nuts! ;)

Well, close, papabaer .. it's ROTFASTC .. But either one works I guess :)

Makes me wonder though ..
Let me give you an example .. Here, at WebmasterWorld, it's so easy to write a script that replaces [ i ] with <I> .. But those kind of replacements won't be as easy in the future .. Or, should I say - they will result in tons of code, using <span> or something like that! :O

Filipe

11:09 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Is there a newer version of HTML than 4.01? In this list, <b> and <i> aren't deprecated (though <u> is).

pageoneresults

11:10 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



4.01 is the latest. No, <b> and <i> are not deprecated but many are suggesting that you use style sheets where possible to replace them.

DrDoc

11:10 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



pageoneresults,

speaking of losing sleep .. should we just throw papabaer outta here? LOL j/k

Filipe

11:16 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Is it that important that we use style sheets instead of <b> or <i>? I can see applications for other things... e.g., using <em> instead of <i> because of accessibility type things. However, since you can change the appearance of <b> and <i> from within your stylesheets anyway, why does it matter?

What would you use instead?
"<span class="italic">Italicized text</span>"?
It's less readable than "<i>", takes longer to write, and increases the size of your HTML file. It's lack of easy-of-use might also distract a web-developer from content - which many would think is paramount to concerns such as this.

pageoneresults

11:19 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Filipe, I agree with ya 100%. That is why I still use the <b> and <i> when that is all I need to do. Now, if I have text that is bold, italic and has a color, then I'll use a <span> tag instead. If you are like me and are looking to keep your html lean and mean, I take the shorter of the two routes. Whichever produces the least amount of code and still validates!

DrDoc

11:19 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Filipe,

If you only want one or a few words to be italicized, then you should use <em> (for the reasons discussed above), but if you want an entire paragraph italicized, then you should consider using style sheets ..

DrDoc

11:20 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



well said pageoneresults :)

pageoneresults

11:24 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



> speaking of losing sleep .. should we just throw papabaer outta here?

I think we should tape his eyelids open and place him in front of monitor with the W3C pages scrolling in front of him. Of course at a pace where he can read each single line of text.

I'm definitely going to read more on the <em> and <strong> elements, thanks to Filipe and papabaer this time! I like the idea of moving towards 100% accessbility. Bobby, here I come! Oh, that will be one major task!

papabaer

11:24 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Ahem!... ;)

XHTML
[w3.org...]

[w3schools.com...]

XHTML is in!

(edited by: papabaer at 11:26 pm (utc) on April 30, 2002)

Filipe

11:26 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I agree pageoneresults. I should mention the scope I'm talking about more often :) I hope they never totally deprecate <b> or <i>... it would make me sad if they did.

Speaking of blind web-users, how many are there out there?

DrDoc

11:26 pm on Apr 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



LOL That sounds like a great idea pageoneresults!
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