Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Smylers wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Done. On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is in fact the same as being disciplined about nav, footer, header, etc, because the main content is anything not in those elements. On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Daniel Persson wrote: Some websites are very crowded. I have no particular example. Blogs and easily accessible CMS's, people trying to make a buck from excessive advertising on their site, people cramming a lot of info/screen unit. Companies too, old media: http://www.aftonbladet.se/ (major Swedish paper, watch your eyes) . body will hold a lot of stuff that is not main content, other content will spill over into body (unless there is a conscious author, and vast use of aside). It should be easy for authors to define main content. It s a pedagogical issue, where authors not too concerned with standards compliance, should have an easy escape of at least defining the most important on the site. We could either mark up what's the main content, implying that everything else is not the main content, or mark up what's not the main content, implying that everything else is the main content. We've gone with the latter, because it turns out that the main content's presentation is usually just the default, whereas everything else needs to be styled specially, so people usually want to wrap the non-main-content. However, there are cases where you also want to wrap the main content. For those cases, we have article, section, and div (in increasing order of vagueness). On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote: Authors can either use aside to mark up all the irrelevant stuff on their page that isn't main content, or they can wrap the main content in an article (not ideal, but workable). Actually it's pretty much what article was meant for. On Mon, 7 Jun 2010, Daniel Persson wrote: What I am taking about is that it is upside down to expect honest people to define everything except the main content. Pedagogically and methodologically. Main content is main content, the most important to define. That should be the starting point for the structure. I don't understand why. Think of a sentence: I like kittens (and cats). The important content is I like kittens. The less important content is and cats. We mark up the less important content. The simplest tutorial on html5 authoring should be: Getting doctype and charset right, html, head, body. Then define main content. Finished. Ready to be indexed. I don't see why the define main content step is useful. What problem does it solve? ...bu at least the main content (as defined by the author) can be reached, indexed, sorted or stacked by machines. This seems to be a solved problem today, without any markup. On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Aryeh Gregor wrote: It's unwise to omit body unless you can guarantee that the first element in the body will actually trigger the end of the head. In your case, I believe that at least IE will put aside and article in the head, because it doesn't recognize them as only belonging in the body. (It seems like the HTML5 parser does put it in the body -- although as far as I can tell, this means we can never introduce new elements that can go in the head.) We just add them to the list of elements that go in head, and wait a few years. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
But wouldn't we create a situation where the main content tag is misused and essentially then we'd recreate the situation with body? IMHO you can't stop tags from being misused, and that goes for any tag. What I am taking about is that it is upside down to expect honest people to define everything except the main content. Pedagogically and methodologically. Main content is main content, the most important to define. That should be the starting point for the structure. Not all html-developing pros have a consciousness when it comes to writing correct mark-up and the non-pros just want to publish their content. One of the points of html5 is to make it easier to do the right thing mark-up-wise, to be structured and in standards compliance. The simplest tutorial on html5 authoring should be: Getting doctype and charset right, html, head, body. Then define main content. Finished. Ready to be indexed. For the following tutorials, mark up the rest of the structure (if you can be bothered/have the time/stamina/lust) learning all of the structural tags. Then add all the bits and bobs that are not necessarily part of any definable structure, finding some suitable tag for that gallery of lolcats that is popping up when you hover a link. Many people interested in just publishing their content will have dropped off by now, not really paying attention to the correct tags as long as it works on the screen... ...bu at least the main content (as defined by the author) can be reached, indexed, sorted or stacked by machines. All the best /Daniel
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
For the record, I don't disagree with any of what you said below. On Jun 7, 2010, at 5:13 AM, Daniel Persson wrote: But wouldn't we create a situation where the main content tag is misused and essentially then we'd recreate the situation with body? IMHO you can't stop tags from being misused, and that goes for any tag. What I am taking about is that it is upside down to expect honest people to define everything except the main content. Pedagogically and methodologically. Main content is main content, the most important to define. That should be the starting point for the structure. Not all html-developing pros have a consciousness when it comes to writing correct mark-up and the non-pros just want to publish their content. One of the points of html5 is to make it easier to do the right thing mark-up-wise, to be structured and in standards compliance. The simplest tutorial on html5 authoring should be: Getting doctype and charset right, html, head, body. Then define main content. Finished. Ready to be indexed. For the following tutorials, mark up the rest of the structure (if you can be bothered/have the time/stamina/lust) learning all of the structural tags. Then add all the bits and bobs that are not necessarily part of any definable structure, finding some suitable tag for that gallery of lolcats that is popping up when you hover a link. Many people interested in just publishing their content will have dropped off by now, not really paying attention to the correct tags as long as it works on the screen... ...bu at least the main content (as defined by the author) can be reached, indexed, sorted or stacked by machines. All the best /Daniel
[whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2 It's my understanding that everything within the body tag is considered body content, and the new header and footer tags, etc, are just there to give more meaning about the type of body content. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
If i view the html-web as it is now, inside body there are so much irrelevant content (where else to put it?). In order for body to be the main content, there has to be tags for everything else. This will be very hard for authors to implement (I am talking real world, amateur, do-it-yourself, stressed professionals). It is IMHO very beautiful code-wise, and organisationally, to state that everything in body is main content, but it will not benefit a structurally marked-up web. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.ukwrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2 It's my understanding that everything within the body tag is considered body content, and the new header and footer tags, etc, are just there to give more meaning about the type of body content. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 17:05 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: If i view the html-web as it is now, inside body there are so much irrelevant content (where else to put it?). In order for body to be the main content, there has to be tags for everything else. This will be very hard for authors to implement (I am talking real world, amateur, do-it-yourself, stressed professionals). It is IMHO very beautiful code-wise, and organisationally, to state that everything in body is main content, but it will not benefit a structurally marked-up web. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2 It's my understanding that everything within the body tag is considered body content, and the new header and footer tags, etc, are just there to give more meaning about the type of body content. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk The fact that there is so much irrelevant content inside the body tag is because some people consider that body content. Do you have a more specific example of this? Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
Some websites are very crowded. I have no particular example. Blogs and easily accessible CMS's, people trying to make a buck from excessive advertising on their site, people cramming a lot of info/screen unit. Companies too, old media: http://www.aftonbladet.se/ (major Swedish paper, watch your eyes) . body will hold a lot of stuff that is not main content, other content will spill over into body (unless there is a conscious author, and vast use of aside). It should be easy for authors to define main content. It s a pedagogical issue, where authors not too concerned with standards compliance, should have an easy escape of at least defining the most important on the site. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.ukwrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 17:05 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: If i view the html-web as it is now, inside body there are so much irrelevant content (where else to put it?). In order for body to be the main content, there has to be tags for everything else. This will be very hard for authors to implement (I am talking real world, amateur, do-it-yourself, stressed professionals). It is IMHO very beautiful code-wise, and organisationally, to state that everything in body is main content, but it will not benefit a structurally marked-up web. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2 It's my understanding that everything within the body tag is considered body content, and the new header and footer tags, etc, are just there to give more meaning about the type of body content. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk The fact that there is so much irrelevant content inside the body tag is because some people consider that body content. Do you have a more specific example of this? Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 18:03 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: Some websites are very crowded. I have no particular example. Blogs and easily accessible CMS's, people trying to make a buck from excessive advertising on their site, people cramming a lot of info/screen unit. Companies too, old media: http://www.aftonbladet.se/ (major Swedish paper, watch your eyes) . body will hold a lot of stuff that is not main content, other content will spill over into body (unless there is a conscious author, and vast use of aside). It should be easy for authors to define main content. It s a pedagogical issue, where authors not too concerned with standards compliance, should have an easy escape of at least defining the most important on the site. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 17:05 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: If i view the html-web as it is now, inside body there are so much irrelevant content (where else to put it?). In order for body to be the main content, there has to be tags for everything else. This will be very hard for authors to implement (I am talking real world, amateur, do-it-yourself, stressed professionals). It is IMHO very beautiful code-wise, and organisationally, to state that everything in body is main content, but it will not benefit a structurally marked-up web. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2 It's my understanding that everything within the body tag is considered body content, and the new header and footer tags, etc, are just there to give more meaning about the type of body content. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk The fact that there is so much irrelevant content inside the body tag is because some people consider that body content. Do you have a more specific example of this? Thanks, Ash
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
I am not advocating ad-tags. The idea of globally structuring content on the web is very appealing, it would make it easier for a lot of things and a lot of people. Let's do it! ...but I can't see it happening where body would be main content + ads + anything there is not a sensible tag for + anything a lazy/stressed/unconscious author didn't tag otherwise. Let's just have a main content tag or a strong main content strategy. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.ukwrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 18:03 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: Some websites are very crowded. I have no particular example. Blogs and easily accessible CMS's, people trying to make a buck from excessive advertising on their site, people cramming a lot of info/screen unit. Companies too, old media: http://www.aftonbladet.se/ (major Swedish paper, watch your eyes) . body will hold a lot of stuff that is not main content, other content will spill over into body (unless there is a conscious author, and vast use of aside). It should be easy for authors to define main content. It s a pedagogical issue, where authors not too concerned with standards compliance, should have an easy escape of at least defining the most important on the site. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 17:05 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: If i view the html-web as it is now, inside body there are so much irrelevant content (where else to put it?). In order for body to be the main content, there has to be tags for everything else. This will be very hard for authors to implement (I am talking real world, amateur, do-it-yourself, stressed professionals). It is IMHO very beautiful code-wise, and organisationally, to state that everything in body is main content, but it will not benefit a structurally marked-up web. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2 It's my understanding that everything within the body tag is considered body content, and the new header and footer tags, etc, are just there to give more meaning about the type of body content. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk The fact that there is so much irrelevant content inside the body tag is because some people consider that body content. Do you have a more specific example of this? Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk I believe there was a proposal for an advert tag purely for adverts (I don't remember where I heard it) but it wasn't a realistic idea. If we could easily identify content we didn't want to see, and could strip it out before it even got to our browser, what incentive would people have to use it if the adverts are their only source of revenue? As such, it's not very feasible to distinguish between different types of content, and even if there were tags, a lot of people wouldn't use them because it would have a negative impact. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
The purpose of all the new tags, is so the machine can figure out what is NOT main content, and assume everything else is. With proper use of sectioning and aside as well as header and footers this can be mostly achieved today. On 4/06/2010, at 5:39 PM, Daniel Persson wrote: I am not advocating ad-tags. The idea of globally structuring content on the web is very appealing, it would make it easier for a lot of things and a lot of people. Let's do it! ...but I can't see it happening where body would be main content + ads + anything there is not a sensible tag for + anything a lazy/stressed/unconscious author didn't tag otherwise. Let's just have a main content tag or a strong main content strategy. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 18:03 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: Some websites are very crowded. I have no particular example. Blogs and easily accessible CMS's, people trying to make a buck from excessive advertising on their site, people cramming a lot of info/screen unit. Companies too, old media: http://www.aftonbladet.se/ (major Swedish paper, watch your eyes) . body will hold a lot of stuff that is not main content, other content will spill over into body (unless there is a conscious author, and vast use of aside). It should be easy for authors to define main content. It s a pedagogical issue, where authors not too concerned with standards compliance, should have an easy escape of at least defining the most important on the site. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 17:05 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: If i view the html-web as it is now, inside body there are so much irrelevant content (where else to put it?). In order for body to be the main content, there has to be tags for everything else. This will be very hard for authors to implement (I am talking real world, amateur, do-it-yourself, stressed professionals). It is IMHO very beautiful code-wise, and organisationally, to state that everything in body is main content, but it will not benefit a structurally marked-up web. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2 It's my understanding that everything within the body tag is considered body content, and the new header and footer tags, etc, are just there to give more meaning about the type of body content. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk The fact that there is so much irrelevant content inside the body tag is because some people consider that body content. Do you have a more specific example of this? Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk I believe there was a proposal for an advert tag purely for adverts (I don't remember where I heard it) but it wasn't a realistic idea. If we could easily identify content we didn't want to see, and could strip it out before it even got to our browser, what incentive would people have to use it if the adverts are their only source of revenue? As such, it's not very feasible to distinguish between different types of content, and even if there were tags, a lot of people wouldn't use them because it would have a negative impact. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Daniel Persson danielperssondel...@gmail.com wrote: I am not advocating ad-tags. The idea of globally structuring content on the web is very appealing, it would make it easier for a lot of things and a lot of people. Let's do it! ...but I can't see it happening where body would be main content + ads + anything there is not a sensible tag for + anything a lazy/stressed/unconscious author didn't tag otherwise. Let's just have a main content tag or a strong main content strategy. Authors can either use aside to mark up all the irrelevant stuff on their page that isn't main content, or they can wrap the main content in an article (not ideal, but workable). ~TJ
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
But wouldn't we create a situation where the main content tag is misused and essentially then we'd recreate the situation with body? Best, Grant On Jun 4, 2010, at 12:39 PM, Daniel Persson wrote: I am not advocating ad-tags. The idea of globally structuring content on the web is very appealing, it would make it easier for a lot of things and a lot of people. Let's do it! ...but I can't see it happening where body would be main content + ads + anything there is not a sensible tag for + anything a lazy/stressed/unconscious author didn't tag otherwise. Let's just have a main content tag or a strong main content strategy. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.ukmailto:a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 18:03 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: Some websites are very crowded. I have no particular example. Blogs and easily accessible CMS's, people trying to make a buck from excessive advertising on their site, people cramming a lot of info/screen unit. Companies too, old media: http://www.aftonbladet.se/ (major Swedish paper, watch your eyes) . body will hold a lot of stuff that is not main content, other content will spill over into body (unless there is a conscious author, and vast use of aside). It should be easy for authors to define main content. It s a pedagogical issue, where authors not too concerned with standards compliance, should have an easy escape of at least defining the most important on the site. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.ukmailto:a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 17:05 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: If i view the html-web as it is now, inside body there are so much irrelevant content (where else to put it?). In order for body to be the main content, there has to be tags for everything else. This will be very hard for authors to implement (I am talking real world, amateur, do-it-yourself, stressed professionals). It is IMHO very beautiful code-wise, and organisationally, to state that everything in body is main content, but it will not benefit a structurally marked-up web. Thanks /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.ukmailto:a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote: I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where everything else includes a lot of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be disciplined about defining main content is more important than being disciplined about nav, footer, header, section etc, in order not to negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up. Suggestion bodycopy... or, preferred, bread. /Daniel On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers smyl...@stripey.commailto:smyl...@stripey.com wrote: The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page (even if the answer is by omission). This is something that many authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving examples of when article or section might be appropriate as well as one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in header, aside, etc. Thanks. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2 It's my understanding that everything within the body tag is considered body content, and the new header and footer tags, etc, are just there to give more meaning about the type of body content. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.ukhttp://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk/ The fact that there is so much irrelevant content inside the body tag is because some people consider that body content. Do you have a more specific example of this? Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.ukhttp://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk/ I believe there was a proposal for an advert tag purely for adverts (I don't remember where I heard it) but it wasn't a realistic idea. If we could easily identify content we didn't want to see, and could strip it out before it even got to our browser, what incentive would people have to use it if the adverts are their only source of revenue? As such, it's not very feasible to distinguish between different types of content, and even if there were tags, a lot of people wouldn't use them because it would have a negative impact. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.ukhttp://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk/
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On 2010-06-04 18:39, Daniel Persson wrote:
I am not advocating ad-tags. The idea of globally structuring content
on the web is very appealing, it would make it easier for a lot of
things and a lot of people. Let's do it!
...but I can't see it happening where body would be main content +
ads + anything there is not a sensible tag for + anything a
lazy/stressed/unconscious author didn't tag otherwise. Let's just have
a main content tag or a strong main content strategy.
Hmm! It is a valid point actually.
Oh and here is some food for though. This works in all latest browsers.
Opera and Firefox have same behavior, while Chrome is a tad different,
and as IE is unable to style unknown tags sadly.
!doctype html
html
head
titleTest/title
style
aside {border:1px solid #bf;white-space:nowrap;}
/style
/head
aside
Just testing aside outside body!
/aside
body
article
Main part of article.
/article
/body
/html
As you can see the aside is outside the body, all latest browsers seem
to handle this pretty fine.
http://validator.w3.org/ on the other hand gives the error /Line 12,
Column 6/: body start tag found but the body element is already open.|
body**|
Now, either that is a bug in the validator, or the body is automatic.
And sure enough, removing the body and /body tags the document
validates, and none of the browsers behave differently at all.
Is the body tag optional or could even be redundant in HTML5 ?
I don't mind really, as currently I only use body to put all the other
tags inside, so not having to use the body tag at all would be welcome,
though I suspect a lot of legacy things rely on the body tag.
--
Roger Rescator Hågensen.
Freelancer - http://EmSai.net/
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Roger Hågensen resca...@emsai.net wrote:
On 2010-06-04 18:39, Daniel Persson wrote:
I am not advocating ad-tags. The idea of globally structuring content on the
web is very appealing, it would make it easier for a lot of things and a lot
of people. Let's do it!
...but I can't see it happening where body would be main content + ads +
anything there is not a sensible tag for + anything a
lazy/stressed/unconscious author didn't tag otherwise. Let's just have a
main content tag or a strong main content strategy.
Hmm! It is a valid point actually.
Oh and here is some food for though. This works in all latest browsers.
Opera and Firefox have same behavior, while Chrome is a tad different, and
as IE is unable to style unknown tags sadly.
!doctype html
html
head
titleTest/title
style
aside {border:1px solid #bf;white-space:nowrap;}
/style
/head
aside
Just testing aside outside body!
/aside
body
article
Main part of article.
/article
/body
/html
As you can see the aside is outside the body, all latest browsers seem to
handle this pretty fine.
http://validator.w3.org/ on the other hand gives the error Line 12, Column
6: body start tag found but the body element is already open. body
Now, either that is a bug in the validator, or the body is automatic.
And sure enough, removing the body and /body tags the document
validates, and none of the browsers behave differently at all.
Is the body tag optional or could even be redundant in HTML5 ?
body is optional. It automatically gets added as soon as the parser
sees an element that doesn't belong in the head. (The head is
optional too, as is the html.) So the aside triggers a body
element to be created and opened, and then later explicit body tags
get dropped.
I don't mind really, as currently I only use body to put all the other
tags inside, so not having to use the body tag at all would be welcome,
though I suspect a lot of legacy things rely on the body tag.
No browser depends on you using the body element explicitly. It's
perfectly fine to write your document like this:
!doctype html
titleTest/title
style
aside {border:1px solid #bf;white-space:nowrap;}
/style
aside
Just testing aside outside body!
/aside
article
Main part of article.
/article
The title and style get auto-wrapped in a head, the aside and
article get auto-wrapped in a body, and the whole thing below the
doctype gets auto-wrapped in an html.
~TJ
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On 2010-06-04 22:03, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Roger Hågensenresca...@emsai.net wrote:
...
As you can see the aside is outside the body, all latest browsers seem to
handle this pretty fine.
http://validator.w3.org/ on the other hand gives the error Line 12, Column
6: body start tag found but the body element is already open.body
Now, either that is a bug in the validator, or the body is automatic.
And sure enough, removing thebody and/body tags the document
validates, and none of the browsers behave differently at all.
Is the body tag optional or could even be redundant in HTML5 ?
body is optional. It automatically gets added as soon as the parser
sees an element that doesn't belong in thehead. (Thehead is
optional too, as is thehtml.) So theaside triggers abody
element to be created and opened, and then later explicitbody tags
get dropped.
I don't mind really, as currently I only use body to put all the other
tags inside, so not having to use the body tag at all would be welcome,
though I suspect a lot of legacy things rely on the body tag.
No browser depends on you using thebody element explicitly. It's
perfectly fine to write your document like this:
!doctype html
titleTest/title
style
aside {border:1px solid #bf;white-space:nowrap;}
/style
aside
Just testing aside outside body!
/aside
article
Main part of article.
/article
Thetitle andstyle get auto-wrapped in ahead, theaside and
article get auto-wrapped in abody, and the whole thing below the
doctype gets auto-wrapped in anhtml.
Hmm! Intriguing. That is way cleaner than the container wrappers.
What browsers/engines behaves like that?
Does all HTML 4.01+ compliant browsers behave like this?
Roger.
--
Roger Rescator Hågensen.
Freelancer - http://EmSai.net/
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Roger Hågensen resca...@emsai.net wrote:
On 2010-06-04 22:03, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Roger Hågensenresca...@emsai.net
wrote:
...
As you can see the aside is outside the body, all latest browsers seem to
handle this pretty fine.
http://validator.w3.org/ on the other hand gives the error Line 12,
Column
6: body start tag found but the body element is already open.body
Now, either that is a bug in the validator, or the body is automatic.
And sure enough, removing thebody and/body tags the document
validates, and none of the browsers behave differently at all.
Is the body tag optional or could even be redundant in HTML5 ?
body is optional. It automatically gets added as soon as the parser
sees an element that doesn't belong in thehead. (Thehead is
optional too, as is thehtml.) So theaside triggers abody
element to be created and opened, and then later explicitbody tags
get dropped.
I don't mind really, as currently I only use body to put all the other
tags inside, so not having to use the body tag at all would be welcome,
though I suspect a lot of legacy things rely on the body tag.
No browser depends on you using thebody element explicitly. It's
perfectly fine to write your document like this:
!doctype html
titleTest/title
style
aside {border:1px solid #bf;white-space:nowrap;}
/style
aside
Just testing aside outside body!
/aside
article
Main part of article.
/article
Thetitle andstyle get auto-wrapped in ahead, theaside and
article get auto-wrapped in abody, and the whole thing below the
doctype gets auto-wrapped in anhtml.
Hmm! Intriguing. That is way cleaner than the container wrappers.
What browsers/engines behaves like that?
Does all HTML 4.01+ compliant browsers behave like this?
All browsers that you could possibly care about (any FF, Safari,
Chrome, Opera, or IE produced in the last decade) should act like
that. That's why it got specified - when everyone agrees on behavior,
it's a good thing to figure that out and standardize it. ^_^
~TJ
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 13:28 -0700, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Roger Hågensen resca...@emsai.net wrote:
On 2010-06-04 22:03, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Roger Hågensenresca...@emsai.net
wrote:
...
As you can see the aside is outside the body, all latest browsers seem to
handle this pretty fine.
http://validator.w3.org/ on the other hand gives the error Line 12,
Column
6: body start tag found but the body element is already open.body
Now, either that is a bug in the validator, or the body is automatic.
And sure enough, removing thebody and/body tags the document
validates, and none of the browsers behave differently at all.
Is the body tag optional or could even be redundant in HTML5 ?
body is optional. It automatically gets added as soon as the parser
sees an element that doesn't belong in thehead. (Thehead is
optional too, as is thehtml.) So theaside triggers abody
element to be created and opened, and then later explicitbody tags
get dropped.
I don't mind really, as currently I only use body to put all the other
tags inside, so not having to use the body tag at all would be welcome,
though I suspect a lot of legacy things rely on the body tag.
No browser depends on you using thebody element explicitly. It's
perfectly fine to write your document like this:
!doctype html
titleTest/title
style
aside {border:1px solid #bf;white-space:nowrap;}
/style
aside
Just testing aside outside body!
/aside
article
Main part of article.
/article
Thetitle andstyle get auto-wrapped in ahead, theaside and
article get auto-wrapped in abody, and the whole thing below the
doctype gets auto-wrapped in anhtml.
Hmm! Intriguing. That is way cleaner than the container wrappers.
What browsers/engines behaves like that?
Does all HTML 4.01+ compliant browsers behave like this?
All browsers that you could possibly care about (any FF, Safari,
Chrome, Opera, or IE produced in the last decade) should act like
that. That's why it got specified - when everyone agrees on behavior,
it's a good thing to figure that out and standardize it. ^_^
~TJ
And I'm guessing Fx too?
Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On 2010-06-04 resca...@emsai.net wrote:
On 2010-06-04 22:03, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
No browser depends on you using thebody element explicitly. It's
perfectly fine to write your document like this:
!doctype html
titleTest/title
style
aside {border:1px solid #bf;white-space:nowrap;}
/style
aside
Just testing aside outside body!
/aside
article
Main part of article.
/article
Thetitle andstyle get auto-wrapped in ahead, theaside and
article get auto-wrapped in abody, and the whole thing below the
doctype gets auto-wrapped in anhtml.
Hmm! Intriguing. That is way cleaner than the container wrappers.
What browsers/engines behaves like that?
Does all HTML 4.01+ compliant browsers behave like this?
As I understand it the opening and closing tags of the html, head and
body elements are optional so that whenever content that belongs in
one of those elements (such as text) is encountered it's automatically
opened. Same as p elements get closed when block content is encountered
(in HTML 4 that is). This is fully specified and documented and is in the
DTD.
This is valid HTML 4.
is in fact a valid HTML file with an empty head.
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:03 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. jackalm...@gmail.com wrote:
No browser depends on you using the body element explicitly. It's
perfectly fine to write your document like this:
!doctype html
titleTest/title
style
aside {border:1px solid #bf;white-space:nowrap;}
/style
aside
Just testing aside outside body!
/aside
article
Main part of article.
/article
It's unwise to omit body unless you can guarantee that the first
element in the body will actually trigger the end of the head. In
your case, I believe that at least IE will put aside and article
in the head, because it doesn't recognize them as only belonging in
the body. (It seems like the HTML5 parser does put it in the body --
although as far as I can tell, this means we can never introduce new
elements that can go in the head.)
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:36 PM, bjartur svartma...@gmail.com wrote:
As I understand it the opening and closing tags of the html, head and
body elements are optional so that whenever content that belongs in
one of those elements (such as text) is encountered it's automatically
opened. Same as p elements get closed when block content is encountered
(in HTML 4 that is). This is fully specified and documented and is in the
DTD.
This is valid HTML 4.
is in fact a valid HTML file with an empty head.
Something seems to have been left out of your e-mail, but anyway, a
valid HTML file cannot have an empty head. All HTML documents must
have a title element, which must be contained in a head. This was
true in HTML 4.01 just as it is in HTML5.
Re: [whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom
On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 14:47 -0700, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote: On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Ashley Sheridan a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 13:28 -0700, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote: All browsers that you could possibly care about (any FF, Safari, Chrome, Opera, or IE produced in the last decade) should act like that. That's why it got specified - when everyone agrees on behavior, it's a good thing to figure that out and standardize it. ^_^ ~TJ And I'm guessing Fx too? That would be the FF I referred to. Firefox lost the battle to be abbreviated as Fx a *long* time ago. ^_^ ~TJ Someone should tell Mozilla about it then, because they still prefer Fx ;) http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/releases/1.5.html Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
