Style Guide

[djbob2]

Just a small spot of feedback for the IPS Style Guide posted in the blog a few weeks ago...

Should <b> and <i> tags really be deprecated? I always saw them as distinct from <strong> and <em> tags. While <strong> and <em> tags suggest emphasis while reading a document, <b> and <i> are stylistic and have a effect similiar to making font larger. For instance, say I was writing a post or an article, and I was talking about something that was very, very important. Then, I would use the <strong> and <em> tags.

However, what if I was making a list, and bolding the first sentence in each item to help distinguish that line as more important? You must understand the true difference between <b> and <strong> - the only actual difference is that text-to-speech processors process <strong> as emphasized and completely ignore <b>. It would be quite weird for a whole sentence to be read like my "very"s above.

I still think <b> and <i> still have a distinct use. Maybe the CSS equivalents will deprecate them, but the <strong> and <em> properties seem to have different uses.

[Lewis P]

I thought <strong> and <em> are xHTML versions of <b> and <i> ?

[Mat Barrie]

I disagree there - if you're writing something in bold, it's very much usually because you wish to emphasise it. For example, if you read your post above in your mind, your mind likely automatically wanted to emphasise those "very"s in there. Even when a whole sentence is bolded, you still want to emphasise it. It's just what you do.

[Mert]

According to the W3C:

EM: Indicates emphasis.
STRONG: Indicates stronger emphasis.
I: Renders as italic text style.
B: Renders as bold text style.

So, for designing B and I tags should be used. EM and STRONG tags are for emphasising word(s). It really doesn't matter for browsers as they render all of them the same. However, for text reader programs, EM and STRONG might be used for changing the tone.

In that case, usage of EM and STRONG tags for <B> and <I> BBCodes are right.

[EliteKiller]

According to the W3C:

EM: Indicates emphasis.

STRONG: Indicates stronger emphasis.

I: Renders as italic text style.

B: Renders as bold text style.

So, for designing B and I tags should be used. EM and STRONG tags are for emphasising word(s). It really doesn't matter for browsers as they render all of them the same. However, for text reader programs, EM and STRONG might be used for changing the tone.

In that case, usage of EM and STRONG tags for <B> and <I> BBCodes are right.

You can also use <em> an <strong> as emphasising words and use CSS to replace <b> and <i> to render the design features.

[djbob2]

Perhaps... what is W3C's stance on this? Do they consider <b> and <i> deprecated in favor of CSS in any of their schemas?

I disagree there - if you're writing something in bold, it's very much usually because you wish to emphasise it. For example, if you read your post above in your mind, your mind likely automatically wanted to emphasise those "very"s in there. Even when a whole sentence is bolded, you still want to emphasise it. It's just what you do.

I am sure there are numerous instances where emphasizing something was not the point. What if you just bold a heading to make the font thicker? Sort of like Arial -> Arial Black.

In that case, usage of EM and STRONG tags for <B> and <I> BBCodes are right.

I am referring to the IPS Style Guide, which suggests that <b> and <i> be deprecated. I agree that [ b] and [ i] should map to <strong> and <em>.

[Mat Barrie]

I am sure there are numerous instances where emphasizing something was not the point. What if you just bold a heading to make the font thicker? Sort of like Arial -> Arial Black.

Then you use the <h1> through <h6> tags - which are for headings. Remember, screen readers treat headings differently too.

[Rikki]

If you want to make the text bold for visual purposes (e.g. as a lead paragraph, or make a header thicker), then CSS should be used to style the relevant tag.

There are actually valid uses for <b> and <i> though - for example, ship names are traditionally written in italics, in which case <i> would be the appropriate tag, because you aren't necessarily <em>phasizing the name, just following established convention. However, in the context of IPB, we can't know what a user means when they use the text formatting options, and so we're making the assumption that when they bold/italicize text, it's because they want to emphasize it, hence our decision to use <strong> and <em>. Of course, these will still be labeled as B and I in the text editor, since that's what users expect to see in their word processor.

Hope that helps explain it :)

[TrixieTang]

w3schools says both <b> and <i> are deprecated I think...

[atomicknight]

<b> and <i> aren't formally deprecated. It's just a recommendation to use <strong> and <em> when emphasis is intended (as mentioned above, this really only affects non-browser devices).