[html5] page element?

Fri Mar 19 02:41:23 PDT 2010

Hi Bob,

Can I clarify what you're suggesting, please? By <page> do you mean a wrapping element for content which isn't inside one of the other wrapping elements introduced by HTML5? For example:

<html>
<body>
  <header>
    Page title, navigation etc
  </header>
  <nav>
    Navigation
  </nav>
  <page>
    ** the actual content of the page **
  </page>
  <sidebar>
    Additional navigation (tag cloud, categories) etc
  </sidebar>
  <footer>
    Copyright, link to sitemap etc
  </footer>
</body>
</html>

Or is it an overall wrapping element around all "visible" parts of the page.

<html>
<body>
  <page>
    <header>
      Page titleetc
    </header>
    <nav>
      Navigation
    </nav>
    <article>
      ** the actual content of the page **
    </article>
    <sidebar>
      Additional navigation (tag cloud, categories) etc
    </sidebar>
    <footer>
      Copyright, link to sitemap etc
    </footer>
  </page>
</body>
</html>

If the former then I suggest the use of <article> (or even a new element of <content>, which may encompass one or more <articles>s).

If the latter then I agree with the general consensus that <body> is the overall wrapping element, and for styling a <div id="wrapper"> is best. Generally I use <div id="wrapper"> for setting width of the viewable area in a centred layout, so I don't see how a semantic element will help in that case.

Chris

> -----Original Message-----
> From: help-bounces at lists.whatwg.org [mailto:help-
> bounces at lists.whatwg.org] On Behalf Of Alastair Campbell
> Sent: 19 March 2010 09:12
> To: Mike Schinkel
> Cc: help at lists.whatwg.org
> Subject: Re: [html5] page element?
>
> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 12:59:02AM -0400, Mike Schinkel wrote:
> > > It would be used for the visible portions of a page (vs. the non-
> visible
> > > portions that are contained in the body like <script> tags and the
> CSS
> > > visibility:hidden and display:none.
> > >
> > > If they are hidden, does it matter if they are in the body/page?
> >
> > Yes.  Example: (a multi-page wizard that uses Javascript to move from
> page
> > to page):
>
> If I were implementing that, I'd look at either having a multipage
> wizard in the traditional sense, or an AJAX version that replaces the
> main content of the page. If the latter, it would probably be the
> central content area that's replaced, not the 'page'.
>
> > > > A screen reader would read what's inside this <page> element and
> typically
> > > > ignore what's outside.
> > >
> > > As they do for body.
> >
> > Are you making a counterpoint?
>
> Yes: body and page are interchangable in this case, therefore page is
> not needed.
>
> You'd said that the things not visible were the scripts and things
> hidden with display: none. Screen readers ignore those things as well.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> -Alastair
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