Specify How to Handle Superscript and Subscript Characters
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Assessment
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100
- Issue type
- Documentation
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Stale
- Tech stack
- html
- Domain
- documentation, web-dev
Research direction
Begin with the linked WHATWG section on the sub and sup elements, then review its existing guidance and the examples in the issue. Done means the specification clearly states how naturally superscript or subscript characters should be handled and whether they are preferred over equivalent elements.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#the-sub-and-sup-elements
The spec should specify a view on whether or how to specify sub and sup elements for text components which are naturally subscript or superscript and not relevant to MathML. For example, these characters might include ¹²³ and ₁₂₃.
(It's arguable whether "[i]n general, authors should use these elements only if the absence of those elements would change the meaning of the content" applies especially in light of the first example, involving honorifics, where sub and sup appear to be being used purely for presentation purposes.)
The spec should either specify that, in cases of naturally raised or lowered script, these elements are (A) allowed, but not necessary in these instances or (B) should be avoided because they are redundant. I can't see them adding any semantic value for in the case of, say, footnote markers because the a[href] element will already be serving that purpose.
It also be nice to see some spec text mentioning whether these characters are preferred over using the elements in tandem with an ordinary character (e.g., 1 versus ¹).
- Dominant language
- HTML
- Stars
- 9.4k
- Forks
- 3.2k
- Avg merge
- 3d 9h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 38
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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