[Eclug] OT: What is up with the span tag

At 09:27 PM 8/16/2006, you wrote:
>On Wed, 2006-08-16 at 20:51 -0400, David Krings wrote:
> > p.centertitle {
> >    font-family: times;
> >    font-size: medium;
> >    font-style: normal;
> >    font-weight:normal;
> >    font-variant: normal;
> >    text-align: center;
> >    text-decoration: none;
> >    text-transform: none;
> > }
>
>AIEEEEEE!

LOL! Did I mention that I'm new to this?


Based on what you and Jason suggest (and assuming that I am not totally 
dense) this:

CSS A:
p.centertitle {
         font: normal times, serif;
         text-align: center;
         text-decoration: none;
}

XHTML A:
..........
<p class="centertitle">This is centered text. </p>
..........



gives the same result as this:

CSS B:
span.centertitle {
         font: normal times, serif;
         text-align: center;
         text-decoration: none;
}

XHTML B:
..........
<p><span class="centertitle">This is centered text. </span></p>
..........

I tried both and case A works beautifully, whereas case B is like not 
applying any styling at all. Although you really tried hard, I still don't 
get the point of the span tag. Not only doesn't applying styles with span 
work, but also it seems not to do anything at all. The several dozen span 
tag descriptions on the web all go off into some mumbojumbo about it all 
being the same / totally different than the div tag and that it really is 
all for inline styling. Inline styling ?? I though that is when I use the 
<b> or <i> tags and such and set the font attribute of the p tag directly 
rather than using a style reference.
I know now at least how to get the styles from the style sheet implanted 
into a page. I just wonder why a W3C editor is then so hellbent on using 
the span tag.

         Ahm, does any of this make sense?


                         David K.