HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
unique, and the browser may or may not use it. The popular browsers,
for example, display the
title
attribute's text value whenever the user
passes the mouse pointer over the element's contents. [
The id attribute,
10.2.2.2. The dir and lang attributes
Although its contents are predominantly in English, the Web is world-
wide. The HTML 4 and XHTML standards take pains to extend the lan-
guage to all cultures. We support that effort wholeheartedly. The
dir
and
lang
attributes are just small parts of that process.
The
dir
attribute advises the browser in which direction the text of the
contents should flowfrom left to right (
dir=ltr
), as for common Western
languages like English and German, or right to left (
dir=rtl
), as for com-
mon Eastern languages like Hebrew and Chinese.
The
lang
attribute lets you explicitly indicate the language used in the
table or even individual cell contents. Its value should be an Internation-
al Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard two-letter primary
code followed by an optional dialect subcode, with a hyphen (
-
) between
the two.
All the latest versions of the popular browsers support the
dir
and
lang
attributes.[
The dir attribute, 3.6.1.1
]
[
The lang attribute, 3.6.1.2
]
10.2.2.3. The class and style attributes
The CSS standard is the sanctioned way to define display attributes for
HTML/XHTML elements, and it is rapidly becoming the only way. Use the
style
attribute to define display characteristics for the table and its ele-
ments that take immediate effect and override the display styles that
may be currently in effect for the whole document. Use the
class
attrib-
ute to reference a stylesheet that defines the unique display character-
istics for the table and its elements.
