Re: [Docutils-users] purpose of brackets class?

[Guenter M. <mi...@us...>]

On 2021-07-06, Alan G. Isaac wrote:
> Low priority inquiry: in the HTML writer,
> why does an ``aside`` for a footnote have a ``brackets`` class?

To distinguish it from footnotes using superscript.
https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/user/config.html#footnote-references

See also the provided stylesheets how this is handled.

> Wdt it make more sense to add this to the span.label and the
> use CSS to provide the actual brackets?

No. It is actually a recent change to the HTML5 writer (r8734) that the
brackets are written into the source: This way they are present when
copying text from the browser (also with superscript labels, as the
superscript feature is lost).

Günter