<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