Add option to limit field classes

Hm.

I've installed Fences and I'm looking at the markup it creates vs the markup I created in Views (by hiding all the fields but the last one, and then rewriting the output of the last field to contain all the markup) for the same content. Fences by default has lots and lots of classes. It's printing all the classes that Drupal knows about everything. I'm not sure this is necessary.

For example:

<blockquote class="field field-name-field-review-quote field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item even">
<p>Spare ribs bacon pancetta, ham tenderloin cow ground round shankle pastrami turkey jerky. Turducken meatball ground round, tail rump shank hamburger venison frankfurter fatback pig ribeye filet mignon strip steak ham hock.</p>
</blockquote>
Jack Smith
<cite class="field field-name-field-review-link field-type-link-field field-label-hidden field-item even">
<a href="http://example.com/79">That Awesome Blog Post</a>
</cite>
<time class="field field-name-field-review-date field-type-date field-label-hidden field-item even">
<span class="date-display-single">Thursday, November 24, 2011</span>
</time>

vs.

<blockquote cite="http://example.com/node/79">Spare ribs bacon pancetta, ham tenderloin cow ground round shankle pastrami turkey jerky. Turducken meatball ground round, tail rump shank hamburger venison frankfurter fatback pig ribeye filet mignon strip steak ham hock.</blockquote>
<footer>
Jack Smith
<cite><a href="http://example.com/79">That Awesome Blog Post</a></cite>
<time datetime="2010-03-23T04:00:00-04:00 2010-03-23T04:00:00-04:00">March 23, 2010</time>
</footer>

We've talked already about the need to be able to group fields and set an element on the group — like I used footer to wrap the source of the quote. That's one big difference between these two.

The other difference is that the second version doesn't have five or so classes on each element. Those classes can be helpful when you are first learning CSS. And having Fences pass all the classes along makes it go well with the Zen theme, since the Zen theme is in the same style. I'm not sure that's what everyone will want, however. Now that we have CSS 2.1 and 3 puedo-classes around, most CSS can be written without any extra classes on things. Nth-child replaces the need for zebra stripping classes. Using semantic elements instead of only divs means many things can be targeted without a class on the element. And anyone who wants to use object-oriented CSS (a la Nicole Sullivan) will want to be able to set custom classes on things, not be writing CSS to existing Drupal classes.

Also looking at the code above, it's frustrating to have [p] inside [blockquote], and [span] inside of [time]. It's like all this work to make this awesome Fences module, and we still have too much HTML markup.

These days, I'm wanting to strip out everything that's not being used. Or rather — I want to start with simple markup, and only add what's needed. Lean markup downloads faster and renders faster. It's easier to write and use.

So how could Fences handle classes?

1) Leave all the classes in, and say, "Hey that's Drupal!"

2) Remove all the print statements that put the classes into the markup, and give everyone lean markup all the time.

3) Give people an option to "print default classes" or not. Like Views does. A checkbox to toggle on and off.

4) Give people a way to add a custom class (or three). Perhaps alongside a 'default classes' toggle checkbox, so people can have all the Drupal classes and add more. Or have none of the Drupal verbiage, and simply add the ones they want or need as they go along.