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<TITLE>additional empty elements</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I would like to know what other people think about creating more empty elements in HTML5.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Say, for example, you have a website which has sections of content that are indented variously. It would be easy to accomplish the different styles using classes:</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div class="firstgroup">This text isn't indented at all!</div></FONT>
<BR> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div class="secondgroup">This text is indented a little.</div></FONT>
<BR> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div class="thirdgroup">Lots of indentation.</div></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div class="firstgroup">No indentation here!</div></FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">However, if I then wanted to add additional special styling to the first and third div, (e.g.. a border and background color) it is less graceful. I could add style attributes, but that would be wasteful if I want to do this on a large scale. Multiple classes would be confusing. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">A nice solution would be the addition of a few div tags. (e.g. <div2>, <div3>, <div4> and <div5>.) Then you could do something like this:</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><style></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">div1 {text-indent:0px;}</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">div2 {text-indent:10px;}</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">div3 {text-indent:20px;}</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"></style></FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Then:</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div1>This text isn't indented at all!</div1></FONT>
<BR> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div2>This text is indented a little.</div2></FONT>
<BR> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div3>Lots of indentation.</div3></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div1>No indentation here!</div1></FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">This is much more human-readable, and the addition of additional styles is now elegant and easy with the use of classes.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div1 class="bluestyle">This text isn't indented at all!</div1></FONT>
<BR> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div2>This text is indented a little.</div2></FONT>
<BR> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div3 class="redstyle">Lots of indentation.</div3></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"><div1>No indentation here!</div1></FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> I also think that it would simply be easier to write code if there were a few extra non-semantic empty tags. HTML5 needs improvements that will make people want to use it. Making it easier to code than HTML 4 will ensure a quicker and wider acceptance.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I am okay with the unimaginative numbering of the extra elements, as it would make it easy to have a lot of new elements. However, there are countless possibilities: <section>, <chunk>, <partition>, <block>, <enclosure>, <zone>, <figure>, <sector>, <quadrant> etc...</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Are there other people who have found themselves wishing for another <span> or <div>-like tag?</FONT>
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<P><B><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Trebuchet MS">Brenton Strine</FONT></B>
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