--- Jonathan Worent <jworent@yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- Alexandre Alapetite <alexandre@alapetite.net>
> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > 1) Concerning the levels of emphasis, the current
> > XHTML 1.x allows  
> > imbrications of several <strong> and/or <em> tags.
> > Although I
> > am not aware of any browser taking advantage per
> > default of this fact, you  
> > can perfectly create a CSS style to render
> > <strong><strong>test</strong></strong> in a
> > different way than  
> > <strong>test</strong>, and this is in my opinion
> > easier than with
> > various levels. Furthermore, this existing
> behaviour
> > is imho stronger than  
> > the proposed level attribute, when considering
> > longer
> > sentences, where the default text is at level 0, a
> > part of the sentence at  
> > level 1 and one word at level 2:
> > 
> >   <p>This is a sentence where I <strong>say
> > something <strong>very</strong>  
> > important</strong>!</p>
> > 
> > Then in CSS, you could have something such as:
> > 
> >   p {
> >    font-size:medium;
> >    voice-volume:soft;
> >   }
> >   strong {
> >    font-size:120%
> >    voice-volume:200%;
> >   }
> > 
> > Tested with success with Opera 9 (using
> > -xv-voice-volume:).
> 
> One of the reasons for suggesting this is so the
> level
> of emphesis is explicit. Rather that relying on css
> which may or may not be interpreted. But while we're
> on the subject... CSS Attribure Selectors will do
> the
> trick more efficiently imho
>
(http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/selector.html#attribute-selectors ).
> 
> > 
> > 2) In my understanding, <strong> and <em> have two
> > different semantic  
> > meanings. 
> 
> To quote the HTML 4.01 spec
>
(http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#h-9.2.1 )
> "EM: indicates emphesis. STRONG: Indicates stronger
> emphesis.

I must apologize. I quoted the wrong documentation.
The XHTML 2.0 spec does <strong> and <em> different
semantics.
"The em element indicates emphasis for its contents."
"The strong element indicates higher importance for
its contents than that of the surrounding content."

After reading this I think both <strong> and <em> can
benefit from the level attribute. <em>, as already
stated, would use it to indicate different levels of
emphesis including de-emphesis. If <strong> indicates
greater importance, than there should be something to
indicate how much more important as well as a
mechanism to indicate less importance. A level
attribute would do this very well.

> 
> >I usually use <strong> to highlight
> > something
> > more important than the rest of the text, and <em>
> > to highlight something  
> > that is different (e.g. strange, not expected,
> > funny,
> > different context...) than the rest of the text.
> For
> > me, making an analogy  
> > with the human voice, or CSS speech, <strong>
> would
> > be the loudness (voice-volume), while <em> would
> be
> > the style of the voice  
> > (e.g. voice-pitch).
> > 
> > Cordially,
> > Alexandre
> > http://alexandre.alapetite.net 
> > 
> > 
> > ---- Original Message ----
> > From: Jonathan Worent <jworent@yahoo.com>
> > Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:42:53 -0700 (PDT)
> > Message-ID:
> >
>
<20060620184253.1793.qmail@web32204.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> > To: www-html@w3.org
> > 
> > I would like to suggest a change to the way
> empehsis
> > is coded. Instead of  
> > either <strong> and <em> I suggest
> > $lt;em
> > level="#">. "#" Represents the level of emphesis
> > either positivly or  
> > negatively. It would need to be agreed upon a
> limit
> > to
> > the levels for obvious reasons. I suggest 5.
> > 
> > 
> > Currently there are only two levels of emphesis.
> If
> > you want to give  
> > something more or less emphesis you have to use
> css.
> > To get
> > the proper effect you must account for that both
> > visually and auraly. But  
> > what happens if the css is ignored? You're back to
> > two
> > levels of emphesis and you lose the desired
> effect.
> > 
> > I suggest negitive levels to allow de-emphesis.
> > Something that is  
> > currently lacking.
> > 
> > As an example lest say you are writing out a
> > transcript of a podcast (as  
> > per the WCAG) There is no way to mark-up if
> > something
> > is whispered, empesized, or yelled.
> > 
> > Also, strong is just a stronger emphesis. Its
> > redundant to have multiple  
> > tags.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
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