Strong Vs Bold

[Guest]

Is there any way, without resorting to CSS tricks or search/replace, to make
FP2003 use the STRONG tag instead of the B tag and the EM tag instead of the
I tag? I'm really surprised that Microsoft has had FP around this long and
hasn't provided this option. Dreamweaver does.

 

[David Baxter]

Why does it matter?

 

[MD Websunlimited]

Those tags are depreciated.

 

[David Baxter]

W3C recommendations are just that -- recommendations. The <b> and <i>
versions still work and will continue to do so for the foreseeable
future. I do see a lot of talk about "deprecated" features here and
there but I don't see any real likelihood of them disappearing any time
soon.

 

[Kevin Spencer]

there but I don't see any real likelihood of them disappearing any time

soon.

Well, both sides have merit. Without standards, think of the trouble we'd
have (as if we weren't having enough trouble WITH standards). That said,
your point, David, is certainly well-taken. I don't believe we need to be
too anal about adhering to them. Bottom line is, if it works in the target
browsers, it is "valid."

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.

 

[Andrew Murray]

which ones - <i> and <b> OR <em> and <strong> ???

 

[Ronx]

<i> and <b>

Ron

 

[Andrew Murray]

What do you mean by "depreciated" - Frontpage generates code using these tags
when you click the "I" or "B" tool bar button to bold/italicize, the code
generated is <i> and <b> not <strong> and <em>

 

[Kathleen Anderson [MVP - FP]]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=deprecated

deprecated

Said of a program or feature that is considered obsolescent and in the
process of being phased out, usually in favour of a specified replacement.
Deprecated features can,
unfortunately, linger on for many years. This term appears with distressing
frequency in standards documents when the committees writing the documents
realise that large amounts of extant (and presumably happily working) code
depend on the feature(s) that have passed out of favour.

You will not find <i> or<b> in the current HTML 4.01 Specification:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/ - it is recommended that you use <em> and
<strong> instead: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html

EM: Indicates emphasis.
STRONG: Indicates stronger emphasis.

They may look the same on a web page to a sighted user, but a screen reader
(used by people who are blind or have low vision) reads them with the
intended emphasis.

 

[David Baxter]

re: "Deprecated features can, unfortunately, linger on for many years.
This term appears with distressing frequency in standards documents when
the committees writing the documents realize that large amounts of
extant (and presumably happily working) code depend on the feature(s)
that have passed out of favour."

Please note also that the W3C "standards" are not in reality standards
at all, but recommendations. As such, they are only as good as the
people/websites/software that use them. Some of the proposals have met
with fairly wide acceptance; others have not.

The real standards are what people use. And I would hazard a guess that
more people are using <I> and <B> than <EM> and <STRONG> at this point.

 

[Ronx]

FrontPage also uses the <font> and <center> tags which are deprecated, and
(in text nav bars) the <nobr> tag which is illegal in HTML4.

Just because a tag is deprecated does not mean it's illegal (unless a strict
doctype is being used), and many illegal tags work in modern browsers (like
<nobr>[1]).

As far as <b> and <i> tags are concerned, depreciated is the term I would
use, but they are not deprecated. If you follow the w3c guidelines, the <b>
and <i> tags should be implemented using CSS, whereas <strong> and <em> are
implemented as HTML tags.

The difference between <b> and <strong> is:
<b> means bold text
<strong> means strong emphasis - which usually renders as bold text, but
could render as a larger font, depending on the browser.

See http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/index/elements.html

[1]The illegal <nobr> tag has to be used occasionally since IE does not
render the hyphen correctly. Text in HTML documents should not wrap on a
hyphen, but IE does allow this. The CSS whitespace attribute is not well
supported in earlier versions of IE, and does not effect hyphens anyway.

Ron

 

[Ronx]

See http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/graphics.html

Ron