[thelist] marking up an address

Alastair Campbell ac at alastc.com
Wed Aug 9 17:21:08 CDT 2006


Phil Pickering wrote:
> Interesting conversation... :)

Definitely, I'd forgotten about some of the details and got it mixed up 
in my memory!

I tend to take a less strict view on Def lists than some, thinking of it 
more as an associative list. After all, it's key difference is that you 
can have multiple 'descriptions' per 'term'. Does that really make sense 
for pure definitions?

 From the example given from Simplebits, I'd probably have gone for this 
(assuming it's ok to use <address> for a physical address?):

<dl>
   <dt>ABC Widgets, Inc.</dt>
   <dd><address>100 - 1234 West Main Street<br />
       Anytown, State<br />
       Zip</address></dd>
   <dt title="phone">Ph:</dt>
   <dd>555-555-1234</dd>
   <dt title="facsimile">Fax:</dt>
   <dd>555-555-1234</dd>
</dl>

But, I'm not aware of *anything* that actually uses the address element 
- it's probably the confusion over it's use has meant it hasn't been used :/

Microformats examples carefully steer clear of using the address element:
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-examples#Organizations_and_Departments

For practical use I'd be more inclined to follow the hCard markup:
<div class="vcard">
  <div class="adr">
   <div class="org fn">
    <div class="organization-name">Sprinkler Fitters U.A. Local 483</div>
    <div class="organization-unit extended-address">Apprenticeship 
Training Center</div>
   </div>
   <div class="street-address">2531 Barrington Court</div>
   <span class="locality">Hayward</span>,
   <abbr title="California" class="region">CA</abbr>
   <span class="postal-code">94545</span>
  </div>
</div>

However, that doesn't feel quite 'right', as it's just div & span tags. 
I though something like this would work:

<div class="vcard">
  <dl class="adr">
   <dt class="organization-name">ABC Widgets, Inc.</dt>
   <dd>
       <span class="street-address">100 - 1234 West Main Street</span>
       <span class="locality">Anytown</span>, <span 
class="region">State</span>
       <span class="postal-code">Zip</span>
   </dd>
  </dl>
</div>

However, the 'associative' nature of dt/dd pairs doesn't allow the 
proper nesting of the microformat (i.e. the type and value should be 
inside the 'tel' part).

Hmmm, back to the divs...

-Alastair




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