Author: a.d.bergi

Description:
I propose to automatically add the scope-attribute to <th>-elements. This is usefull for non-graphical user clients, and also helps to a more semantic html. There was a request on de.wikipedia to add the attribute to infoboxes, which are often build like this:
<tr>
<th> Description </th>
<td> Value </td>
</tr>...
I guess an algorithm like this:
The scope-attribute is appended to <th> when

• there is no wikitext-defined attribute (allows overwriting)
• the <th> is the first element in its row and when its the single <th>
  • when it has a rowspan-attribute it gets "rowgroup"
  • else it gets "row"
• there are only <th>s in this row
  • when it has a colspan-attribute it gets "colgroup"
  • else it gets "col"
  • when its the first in its row we might check the row below? When there's also a <th> in the beginning we should set no scope-attribute. The best would be checking at which "coordinates" the first <td> appears, so everything left /or/ above could get a appropriate row/col-scope, everything left /and/ above should get nothing. This would work with headers grouped by cells a second row/column, too, but it's not easy to implement.

And we might have to watch for rtl-tables :-)

Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement
URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/struct/tables.html#adef-scope