Proper Pullquote semantics with Aside

  • Resolved jmatthewgore

    (@jmatthewgore)


    7 years, 11 months ago

    Hi Adam,

    I love the functionality of your plugin… very nice work.

    However, I think that the semantics are not correct. For pull-quotes, blockquote tags should not be used. Instead, html5 “aside” tags should be used, since pull-quotes are outside the flow of the body text, and may be repeated sections from the body text.

    This site has a good explanation of why aside tags should be used: https://quinnlabs.com/articles/pullquotes-blockquotes-and-asides-in-html5/

    And similarly, this one: http://htmldog.com/techniques/pullquotes/

    In the second case, the author uses a blockquote tag inside of an aside tag, which doesn’t seem ideal to me, but it would be acceptable.

    Will you consider updating your plugin to reflect these semantic distinctions?

    Thanks!

    – Matthew

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Author Adam DeHaven

    (@adamdehaven)

    7 years, 11 months ago

    Hey, thanks for your feedback.

    I see where you’re coming from, however, according the specs:

    The HTML <aside> element represents a portion of a document whose content is only indirectly related to the document’s main content.
    […]
    Usage notes: Do not use the <aside> element to tag parenthesized text, as this kind of text is considered part of the main flow.

    (emphasis added)

    Since the quote is directly (not indirectly) related to the document’s main content, the <blockquote> element is acceptable.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Adam DeHaven.
    Thread Starter jmatthewgore

    (@jmatthewgore)

    7 years, 11 months ago

    I think you’d be well served by taking a closer look into the subject, but I won’t waste time arguing and I’ll leave it at this. If you look at the official W3C documentation, they specifically mention pull quotes (emphasis mine):

    The element can be used for typographical effects like pull quotes or sidebars, for advertising…

    Whereas “blockquotes” are reserved for references to “quoted from another source”. Pullquotes are pulled from within the body next, generally, not an outside source.

    Anyways…

    For those of you reading this who want to use the “aside” tag, you can easily open the php file in this plugin, and replace the outer “div” tags (on line 122) with “aside”, and you’re all set.

    Plugin Author Adam DeHaven

    (@adamdehaven)

    7 years, 11 months ago

    I think you’d be well served by learning how to code rather than shit-posting on WordPress plugins.

    The purpose of the plug-in is to give users that typically use the blockquote element from the default editor an alternative that outputs the same HTML element as the editor, albeit with other valid attributes, tags, options, and even the convienece of changing colors, without having to know/code HTML.

    If you want to jump off your “smartest guy in the room” train for a second, you’d realize that modifying the plugin files is a no-no as whenever an update to the plugin is released, those changes would be reverted.

    Let me know when you modify your version of the plug-in. I’ll push out an update just for you 😉

    Thread Starter jmatthewgore

    (@jmatthewgore)

    7 years, 11 months ago

    LOL, fair enough.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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