<b></b> vs. <strong></strong>

[ched]

I've seen bold text done both ways. Is there an advantage to one over the other?

[Capital Web Design]

The advantage to the "strong" tag is that the "b" tag is now deprecated. While it still works, at any time it could be phased out by a new revision of html. I recommend using the strong tag to keep your pages up to date.

[carju1]

Thats progress for you, we change an easy to type 3 letter tag to a 8 letter tag to do the same job. Oh yes I forgot no one codes by hand nowadays and adding 10 chars of text to each bold on a page thereby increasing download time doesn't matter as all the W3 lot have broadband connections.

The official definition from W3 is
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.

So don't use B use STRONG or suffer the wrath of W3 and in a few years new browser won't see you B's

Julian

[SyrenSong]

Actually, if you use css (cascading style sheets), you don't have to use the [b] or [b] code in your html file at all. Then you don't have to worry about whether the tag is deprecated or not.

Using css will also help to decrease your page size overall by removing many of your font, b, center, etc. tags, so it's a plus in many ways. Especially for dialup surfers!

As for the reason it's being deprecated, that has a lot to do with programming standards for the disabled.

Speech browsers interpret [b] in the verbal presentation of a webpage and use that as an indication to add emphasis to a word. Since [b] is often used only as a attention-getter for headers, etc., speech browsers tend to ignore the tag. They identify headers in other ways, so to them, the [b] tag is redundant.

HTH!
Syren

[ched]

ty for the info all. I know it's not terribly important in the whole scheme of things, but it's always nice to be armed with as much info as possible. I never had a clue about the speach end of it.

I'm putting more of the basic stuff into css now-a-days, but will move more there as I become better with it.

Just a heads up ... my next few questions are gonna be directed at the validation threads/topics. See ya there soon ;)

and thanks again.

[SyrenSong]

Ah. Validation. That can be loads of fun!

I'll keep my eyes open. ;)

Syren

[Paulo]

Oh yes I forgot no one codes by hand nowadays

Ouch. You know fine well that we still do code by hand. :-)

We may use an HTML editor to save time & knock-up the initial pages but it very often throws up a lot of extraneous code that needs to be dealt with.

[SyrenSong]

Good catch, Paulo!

I love Dreamweaver, but if I didn't get in do some hand-teaking here and there, I wouldn't get everything done that needed doing to make the site look and work properly!

Syren

[carju1]

Syren & Paulo,

Exactly we do still code by hande. SO why change our 3 char tag to 8 chars to meet speech browers why not change speech browser to meet our <"b"> tag.

There are millions of pages of HTML out there which theoretically need changing but how many different speech browsers are there? If one of the independent invalid car manufactures came out with a fantastic new design which was wider than a standard road lane width do you think the governments in every country would widen every road? NO they woulded say make it narrower to fit existing roads.

Julian

[SyrenSong]

There are millions of pages of HTML out there which theoretically need changing but how many different speech browsers are there? If one of the independent invalid car manufactures came out with a fantastic new design which was wider than a standard road lane width do you think the governments in every country would widen every road? NO they woulded say make it narrower to fit existing roads.

Those millions of HTML pages are soon to be out of date anyway with upcoming changes to HTML and XHTML standards. Many pages designed in older versions of HTML are using deprecated and obsolete tags can't be viewed properly today in some of the newer browsers.

Standards change. It's a way of life.

Using an analogy similar to your own, the reason trains tracks are spaced the distance apart they are is because of the width of ruts in the road caused by wagon wheels. Yes, the old standard width remains, but modern trains have very little to do with wagons and old-style wagons certainly can't run on modern train tracks.

Older browsers can't handle newer codes and newer html codes can do a heck of a lot more than older browsers can handle. In spite of the coding similarities, there are a lot of advances and advantages to using the newer versions of html. It's a fact of web life.

So they're going to remove the [b] tag in favor of something else that's more powerful and versatile. I can't see that as a bad thing in the long run. Particularly when you look at the accessibility advantage. It makes creating an accessible site that much easier for the "common man".

I'm all in favor of that!

As for changing speech browser to read the [b] tag, I'm sure there's some obscure reason for that unknown to us mere mortals. My first guess would be confusion with access keys, but I can't say for certain.

I'll admit that you could have a good point there, though!

Syren

[ched]

I can tell you two have been exchanging comments for quite some time.

They almost sound like a comfortable married couple don't they folks?

LOL ... good points all the way around, and thanks again.
;)

[ched]

by the way,
is the same true with the center tags?
<center></center> is becoming obsolete and
<p align=center></p> has become the standard?

I know I have to keep up and all, it's just that when I do go in and tweak a page, it seems all the quick old stuff is becoming obsolete (to the point where is soon won't be usable by the next version of browsers)
the
, <center>, [b], [i] stuff was all quick (well not being a great typist, the brackets and slashes slow me down a bit), and now it just seems to be getting more and more to the point where you have to cut the chord somewhere.

Almost to the point where cross-platform / cross-browser compatability won't be possible. Seems as if we're getting very close to the point where you pick either the new or the old, but you can't have both .... just my waundering thoughts for this evening.

[SyrenSong]

I can tell you two have been exchanging comments for quite some time.

They almost sound like a comfortable married couple don't they folks?

I think my husband would take exception to that.

But carju1 argues well and a good argument is always fun! Particularly with a knowledgeable opponent. :)

***********

As for the center tag and others, here's a link to W3C's Index of the HTML 4 Elements (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/index/elements.html). This has a list of all elements and their current status.

I'm not 100% sure about the center tag, though. I believe most things of that sort are being shunted to cascading style sheets.

I believe in the long run style sheets will make for smaller html documents, because you could define a specific class as centered, bolded and in a different font face and style in your style sheet. Then all you'd have for that paragraph in your html file would be:

<p class="TheWorks">Fancy text goes here.</p>

Infinitely less typing for hand-coders, like carju1! ;p

Syren

[carju1]

Syren,

Yep my wife would join your husband in taking exception there.

As you say its always fun to debate with someone who know what they are talking about, can put there argument across and doesn't take offense when you tell them that (in your opinion) they are wrong :)

Julian

[carbonize]

I write all of my pages by hand thank you very much :|

And in regards to "future" browsers not recognising the and [i] tags, it will never happen. Any browser needs to be able to view [b]ANY page avalable on the web otherwise who would use it? If you check the error pages you get in Internet Explorer you will see that they are HTML 2.0! I personally use because thats how I learnt.

Syrensong, yes css makes pages smaller. But I personally, and I'm sure others as well, like to occassionaly make a word, letter, or string bold and to do that in css would require making them a span or div, both of which would use up far more space than a good old [b] , not to mention the space in the CSS it's self.

[SyrenSong]

Don't get me wrong, guys. I have nothing against the [b] tag, or any other tags. It's simply that I understand the need for other ways of doing things and I try to keep that in mind when programming.

Yes, there are times when just a simple little "b" is more expedient, but I also think it's more user-friendly to use the "strong" tag when you're trying to emphasize a point, rather than just trying to make the text look better on a slightly heavy background.

Know what I mean?

As for newer browsers recognizing deprecated tags, well, I would imagine that's on of the reasons browsers keep getting larger over the years, instead of smaller.

Eventually, one of the major companies is going to start cutting back and support for deprecated tags will begin disappearing. At that point, there are going to be an awful lot of websites that'll need to be redesigned.

I intend to be ready and waiting to get the job done - without the "b" tag! ;)

Syren

[carbonize]

And what about those people out there using browsers that don't support css?
Just cast them aside as you feel it's to much hard word making the site work for their browsers?
You going to tell your server not to serve pages to browsers that do not suport css to prevent your work looking bad?
That would put you in the same league as all the web site designers that code there page to look good in IE and totally ignore every other browser. Now I know you're not like that from reading some of your other posts but your last comment is very much that sort of mentality. Going by your train of thought I suggest you start learning XHTML as HTML is set to be deprecated at some point in the future along with the [b] and [i] tags.

[SyrenSong]

And what about those people out there using browsers that don't support css?
Just cast them aside as you feel it's to much hard word making the site work for their browsers?
You going to tell your server not to serve pages to browsers that do not suport css to prevent your work looking bad?

Absolutely not!

When I code in css, I also take the time to look at the page with css disabled and see what it looks like from there. I try to make sure folks that don't have css ability will at least have a viewable site. It may not be as pretty as more advanced browsers, but at least I know they'll get the important information.

BTW, it's very easy to to preview the site without css using "@ import" to call the style sheet and viewing the site in Netscape 4.x. Or using a favelet (http://tantek.com/favelets/) in IE to disable css. I know there's another way, but I can't think of it off the top of my head. I think you can also disable css from the menu in Opera, but I'm not 100% sure of that.


That would put you in the same league as all the web site designers that code there page to look good in IE and totally ignore every other browser. Now I know you're not like that from reading some of your other posts but your last comment is very much that sort of mentality.

You're right. I'm not like that. And thanks for noticing. ;)

Like I said, I always try to take the time to view the site without css, to make sure it's still usable, viewable, readable, etc. I've come to understand how important it is to make a site compatible with multiple browsers.

That's another reason I believe in validation! :)


Going by your train of thought I suggest you start learning XHTML as HTML is set to be deprecated at some point in the future along with the [b] and [i] tags.

I'm working on it, even as I type this post. You can't let grass grow under your feet in this business! ;)

Syren

[ched]

[quote="SyrenSong
I'm working on it, even as I type this post. You can't let grass grow under your feet in this business! ;)

Syren[/quote]

I'd be happy if I could just stop running long enough to take a breath. I've pretty much given up on keeping up on all the new hardware things (other than knowing what I can use to replace what) ... then there's the OS stuff - I haven't gotten back to the Linux I was learning in over 2 YEARS (guess I'm a little behind on that one now huh?), and just when I get a good handle on XP (on the heels of Win2k), they throw Server 2003 at us ... Was just getting UNIX/Apache figured out, and got hit with IRIX/Zeus, so now that's on the back burner; I think I've forgotten everything I ever knew in VB, C, Basic, and we can toss Delphi, Fortran, and Assembler right out the window cause I never got beyond the basics with them ..............

OHHH .... wait, you were just talking "webmaster stuff?" ...
kk, I kinda get a handle on javascripting, just jump into a little java with SDK/JDK, and we get a new round of stuff from asp, jsp, php and cfm..... oh wait again, I'm supposed to be learning xml huh? .........or should I be digging into the "validation" things?. Geesh, I didn't even really look at SEO until this past April ........ let's see, where was I? Grass growing, yeppers Syren, not in the computer world!

[SyrenSong]

While you're tossing out Fortran and Assembler, does anyone still use Cobol anymore? And how about Pascal? I can't remember anymore.

A friend of mine once described it as "penguins on an iceflow". Ever watch 'em? There's only so many that'll fit. When one too many climbs on, another one jumps off.

That reminds me, I used to know JCL pretty well. "Used to" being the optimal phrase here. Then there was all that stuff about T1/DS1 and T3/DS3 circuits, and fiber optics, protected circuits, repeaters, etc.

BTW, did you mean to leave off Accessibility? Oops! There goes another penguin! ;)

Syren

[Webnauts]

For Web sites accessibility, you should use the [b] tag instead of the deprecated tag [b].

[ched]

ty webnauts.
I've taken to heart this "change of practice", and any new or edited pages will have the [b] tag instead of the (sigh... easier) [b].

By the way, I love your quote - it's great.

Nice to meet ya,
Ched

[Webnauts]

ty webnauts.
I've taken to heart this "change of practice", and any new or edited pages will have the [b] tag instead of the (sigh... easier) [b].

By the way, I love your quote - it's great.

Nice to meet ya,
Ched

I am glad that you will support the web accessibility in your future projects!

And ... thanks for the compliment!

[carbonize]

While you're tossing out Fortran and Assembler, does anyone still use Cobol anymore? And how about Pascal? I can't remember anymore.

Syren


Pascal, or rather Turbo Pascal, is still used but it has also spawned a child. the child goes by the name of Delphi. Delphi is a visual based language like Visual basic but, unlike Visual Basic, doesn't require the user to install runtimes.

Now you're asking why is he talking programming in web design forum? Well the anser is that Delphi is preferable to Visual Basic as the user is not required to install anything extra just to use it. This philosophy should also be applied to your website.

This is one of the reasons I loath flash. You can't use flash and have valid HTML, a lot of flash will put dial up users off your site as it will take to long to download, and mainly because it's a pain in the posterior to make lol. That and it makes updating your site take about 10 times as long as if it was just HTML and you can only update it from the machine that has flash (or swish or firestarter) installed and has the sites files there.

[Steven Glover]

If one of the independent invalid car manufactures came out with a fantastic new design which was wider than a standard road lane width do you think the governments in every country would widen every road? NO they woulded say make it narrower to fit existing roads.

Julian


Yes I think that changes will and have been made to accomadate new trends in technology. Think about your own statement regarding widening roads? In the horse and buggy days werent roads typically just dirt? They didn't start using bricks until cars came out and later they began paving them.

I believe if the benefits of a technology are strong enough we will certainly take what ever directional steps are needed!

[mpnev]

Y'all are making my head spin!

Ummm this topic?... Oh yeah - almost forgot! [b] vs. [b]

I use both, but good to know for accessibility that [b] would be best... Thanks Webnauts!

[Silene]

Thanks for the info concerning screen readers. I'd been wondering about purpose behind [b] vs. [b] too. I consider accessibility an extremely important factor when building.
Only one thing worries me - all those sites I built over the years for small companies, using older tags. They can't afford a rebuild every 2-3 years, and I doubt most will understand the reason for it.

[SyrenSong]

I was just making a few changes to a website and it occured to me I had a perfect example of when it's inappropriate to use "strong".

I've got a list of faculty members where each member's name is in "bold". It's strictly for visual purposes, so the names stand out. I wouldn't want to use "strong" in this situation, because there's really no reason for the names to be pronounced in any special way.

On the other hand, I've got several spots where visitors need to be aware of important information. That's highlighted using "strong" because I want to make sure speech readers add extra emphasis to the information being presented, so it stands out.

Bold isn't always bad, but it also isn't always the best tag to use.

Syren

I have Love-Hate Relationship w/ Dreamweaver
love it for churning out html skeletons like crazy
w/ default settings that don't totally suck---

but I hate having ot weed through it all the time and pick out all the
dandelions growing everywhere...but at least the color-coding helps me pick out unnecessary html & script & redundant tags

I learned to code by hand like many of you...I have seen this to be a great
help as designers who learn drweaver before learning code seem to not grasp certain concepts (things we can do with tables, nests, cells...etc) as fast

My hat is off though to the coldwriters of the program Dreamweaver----
it truly is an amazing program & I'd be lost w/out it
DAREN*&

[carbonize]

I have a question. How many of the people that have posted in this thread actually always use the correct tags?
How many of you have actually used <acronym title="blah"> when there is an acronym in the text?
or <DL><DT><DD> nest when showing a definition?
How about THEAD, TBODT, and TFOOT?

<abbr>? <cite>? <q>?

While many of you have commented about being deprecated do you use the correct tags as described by the W3C ? This is the downside of wysiwyg editors as they don't know what the text is meant to represent.

Admit it, none of us actually writes HTML as it should be written. We all use shortcuts. And in my opinion [b] is just a shortcut.

You want to use [b] then use [b]. I guarantee that your page will still be viewable on browser for years to come. The comment was made that eventually browsers will stop supporting [b] (doubt it myself) but ask yourself this, [b]How many sites will actually be the same in a year let alone three years?. Sites change to keep up with both fashion, owners tastes, trends, and of course products. So use [b] now, you can always replace it with [b] as you update your site.

[kender]

good point carbonize..
and personally.. i dont use the proper coding in most situations..

though i do use css, i do also use it in a manner that the formatting goes through (basically) for those who dont have css enabled

if my css [b] has formatting for changing size, and font as well.. non css will just see the boldness

[carol]

I'm certainly all for "accessibility" of the web, whether an individual is sight/hearing/motion/financially etc. impaired or not. However, some of the issues we are discussing ([b] vs. [b], etc.) are unfortunately inherently visual issues. They represent ways that an individual author chooses to emphasize or enhance the written word. It's as difficult to standardize expression(what about using italics, or all caps - of course, we can't use underline anymore, either) as it would be if we told Nathaniel Hawthorne that he had to write in the style of Stephen King or T.S.Eliot. IMO, the artificial intelligence engine which powers the accessible browsers of the future must be able to interpret all forms of visual expression.

[weegillis]

I have a question. How many of the people that have posted in this thread actually always use the correct tags?
How many of you have actually used <acronym title="blah"> when there is an acronym in the text?
or <DL><DT><DD> nest when showing a definition?
How about THEAD, TBODT, and TFOOT?

<abbr>? <cite>? <q>?

While many of you have commented about [b] being deprecated do you use the correct tags as described by the W3C ? This is the downside of wysiwyg editors as they don't know what the text is meant to represent.
There's a tip off the ol' noggin...

I've been researching the web accessibility guidelines, and there is an awful lot we're not doing. All along, I thought that by having fairly detailed alt and title attributes, and easy to find anchored details we were creating an accessible web site. Bobby says different, though happily we didn't stink up the place.

Rethinking our approach is the best I can offer. When I look at how much fixing is required to be completely accessible, and how much code and description, my only conclusion can be summed up in two words--text version.

The overhead for full-scale accessibility is far too great for sites with limited bandwidth availability.

However, Priority 1 accessibility is a must at all counts, I'll go along with that.

This is the focus of our attention, presently. Now we seek a decent model to select our tags from so that we would know the acceptable coding practice, whether hand coding (as I do 100%) or wysi-something-something-something-ing.

Then there are the additional style issues that come with tags such as <.address>. Another fix.

Confused? I am. The objective is clear, and owed full respect. Achieving it, well...

<.btw> [b] is not deprecated as far as the table at W3C shows; but it is clearly understood that readers and other parsing devices may ignore it. I'm glad I got that question answered today, 'cause that's all I wanted to know.<./btw>

[Narasinha]

I have a question. How many of the people that have posted in this thread actually always use the correct tags?
How many of you have actually used <acronym title="blah"> when there is an acronym in the text?
or <DL><DT><DD> nest when showing a definition?
How about THEAD, TBODT, and TFOOT?

<abbr>? <cite>? <q>?

Very good points. I've used the acronym, abbr, cite, q, and dl/dt/dd tags properly in my personal web page. Now I'm trying to make a forum template conversion to make it accessible.

One of the major problems regarding this is that the forum software itself (phpBB2 is quite popular and falls into this category. It's what we're using right now.) does not create HTML that meets standards. That's regular 4.01 transitional/strict standards or WAI accessibility standards.

I've recently started taking apart a template for phpBB2 with the intention of rebuilding it so that the forum itself will meet accessibility guidelines. Then there are the problems with the posts themselves. Do you disable bbCode and HTML in the posts? What about acronyms and abbreviations and quotes and citations?

Perhaps the body of the posted message is too much to worry about right now. First I would like to get the forum software itself to meet the standards. I'll cross the other bridges when I get to them.

If you look at the source code of the posts here on the forum you'll notice that the styles like bold, underline, and italic are rendered using a <span style="font-style: italic"> or similar tag within the HTML. Also notice that the "list" bbCode tag creates a "UL" container, but does not provide any "LI" tag to indicate items of the list.

Those particular items are within the core of the phpBB2 software itself rather than being part of the templates. Disabling BBCode and HTML within the posts may be the best short-term solution.

[ranjan]

In todays world browsers are not the only user interfaces. Web interfaces comprise of browsers, screen readers, hand held interfaces (like palm pilot and cell phones), etc. Most of the new devices use browsing mediums that are built recently and hence ignore deprecated elements (tags and attributes). As the number of such modern devices grow, you website becomes more and more obsolete.

Understanding deprecated tags is simple.

(X)HTML is about content. It is a structured way of writing content sans style. CSS takes care of styling. So any tag/attribute that styles content is deprecated.

[b], [i] style the content to be bold or italics, [b] and [i] merely say that the content is strong and emphasized, most browsers just happen to display them as bold and italicized.

align="center" also styles the content and hence deprecated.

p { text-align: center; }

is what is right

[Webnauts]

Weegillis I use the <acronym> tag on my new under construction web site: http://www.webnauts.net/css_final/index.shtml

Example of using <acronym> tags in XHTML 1.0 Strict:


<acronym title="World Wide Web" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><span title="World Wide Web" lang="en" xml:lang="en">WWW</span></acronym>

[weegillis]

Meant to thank you for that example, Webnauts. Now all I need to do is find all the acronyms in our site and write that code into the pages. Does it ever end? :-)) Thanks.

[Webnauts]

If not mentioned here:

I and B are presentational tags. Strong and Emphasis are semantic markup tags.

Screen readers treat Strong and Em differently that B and I, because Strong and Em actually mean something, whereas B and I are just B and I.

[Webnauts]

If not mentioned here:

I and B are presentational tags. Strong and Emphasis are semantic markup tags.

Screen readers treat Strong and Em differently that B and I, because Strong and Em actually mean something, whereas B and I are just B and I.

[davebarnes]

The advantage to the "strong" tag is that the "b" tag is now deprecated. While it still works, at any time it could be phased out by a new revision of html. I recommend using the strong tag to keep your pages up to date.

Four years on and my b tags are still working quite nicely.

Of course I use CSS most of the time, but those b tags don't seem broken to me.