<div dir="ltr">Wow, love the vitriol!<div><br></div><div>My question was mainly academic in nature, and I was hoping to hear some opinions about a matter that has had me curious. I tend to agree with you in practice, as I have been inclined not to wedge in unnecessary or inappropriate semantics, and (as you said so colorfully) wouldn't even bother with a microdata schema in such an obvious page structure. Perhaps "page" was the wrong word to use anyway, as my question applies equally to index-like element of a document at any depth. </div><div><br></div><div>To restate the question in a different way: since we have semantics for an article, and break that into headings and sections, etc., why wouldn't it be appropriate to have a higher level element that describes a meaningful grouping of articles? I realize you could make an argument asking where it ends: do we also want elements for museums and kitchen utensils? But I think an index is a broad enough concept with both structural and semantic implications, that it might deserve (at least hypothetical) consideration as an HTML element. After all, isn't the default page that a server serves called "index"?</div><div><br></div><div>Thank you all for listening, and sharing your comments.</div><div><br></div><div>Andrew</div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 4:21 PM, Brian Tremblay <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:webmaster@tsmchughs.com" target="_blank">webmaster@tsmchughs.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">On 12/23/14 8:14 AM, Andrew Croce wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
It seems to me that there is a gap in the semantic options for marking<br>
up index, or list, pages. Now, to be clear I realize there are list<br>
elements, but these are strictly for marking up the specific set of<br>
listed items. However, a list may have a larger context, which I am<br>
calling an index.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
I'm not sure what you want. There is no specific element for different kinds of pages; since there are virtually unlimited kinds of pages, html would need unlimited different elements to contain them. There is microdata, which is perhaps what you want:<br>
<br>
<a href="https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/microdata.html" target="_blank">https://html.spec.whatwg.org/<u></u>multipage/microdata.html</a><br>
<br>
There is a collection of schema:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://schema.org/" target="_blank">http://schema.org/</a><br>
<br>
All of them are supposedly used by Google et. al., but on most types there seems to be no difference in how clients treat them.<br>
<br>
The specific schema you want is probably<br>
<br>
<a href="http://schema.org/CollectionPage" target="_blank">http://schema.org/<u></u>CollectionPage</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[rant:]<br>
<br>
But I honestly don't see the point. It's parent type is<br>
<br>
<a href="http://schema.org/WebPage" target="_blank">http://schema.org/WebPage</a><br>
<br>
and what on earth is the point of that? Are we supposed to use microdata to tell search engines that our webpage is a webpage? What the #$@# else would it be?<br>
<br>
If you feel the need to add pointless semantics, than use the CollectionPage schema. But I wouldn't bother.<br>
<br>
[rant over]<span class=""><br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Like an article, an index might have a header and footer, and should<br>
probably contain a <ul> or <ol> where the items are listed. What comes<br>
to mind is something like a catalog, where the list itself has some meta<br>
information, and could itself contain sections or navigation. An<br>
<article> seems inappropriate since that should, I believe, be a single<br>
piece of content. A <section> also seems inappropriate in itself, unless<br>
its part of an even larger context.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
I don't see why you discount section and article. They are perfectly good elements. You can put a nav element if it's appropriate, or break it up into sections if that's appropriate.<br>
<br>
<body><br>
<br>
<p>other content</p><br>
<br>
<section><br>
<br>
<nav> (what would a nav element do here?) </nav><br>
<br>
<h1>list of foo bar pages</h1><br>
<br>
<section><br>
<h1>foo</h1><br>
<ul><br>
<li><a href="foo1">foo 1</a></li><br>
<li><a href="foo2">foo 2</a></li><br>
<li>etc.</li><br>
</ul><br>
</section><br>
<br>
<section><br>
<h1>bar</h1><br>
<ul><br>
<li><a href="bar1">bar 1</a></li><br>
<li><a href="bar2">bar 2</a></li><br>
<li>etc.</li><br>
</ul><br>
</section><br>
<br>
</section><br>
<br>
</body><br>
<br>
<br>
If your list, the index of pages, is the sole piece of content on a page, than you don't need a container element.<br>
<br>
<body><br>
<br>
<h1>list of foo bar pages</h1><br>
<ul><br>
<li><a href="foo1">foo 1</a></li><br>
<li><a href="foo2">foo 2</a></li><br>
<li><a href="bar1">bar 1</a></li><br>
<li><a href="bar2">bar 2</a></li><br>
<li>etc.</li><br>
</ul><br>
<br>
</body><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
-- <br>
Brian Tremblay</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">Andrew Croce<br><a href="mailto:andrew.croce@gmail.com">andrew.croce@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://andrewcroce.com">andrewcroce.com</a><br>732.995.0590</div>
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