[html5] page element?

Fri Mar 19 05:27:34 PDT 2010

> in html5 we have <nav> now, which (nomatter
> how you dress it up and make it sound like a big step forward) is the same
> as <div id="nav"> (or it can be).

Using <NAV> is about having a consistent, semantic element to tell rendering agents that this is NOT part of the "content" of the page, but is navigation for the site. It allows Google to place more/less weight on those words and audio agents to offer navigation / content choices smartly.

> <page> vs. <div id="wrapper"> is another. [:-)]

<div id="wrapper"> has no semantic relevance. It used purely for centering and styling the text. There is no reason to create a new element to replace a standard practice if that practice has no meaning to the structure of the page.

I go back to the idea that HTML is a page-based language. Within that page are sections: <nav>, <article>, and, in case those don't quite fit, <section>. 

> 2. New elements which don't make it possible to do 'new' things, but make
> the doing of those things more structured, organised and semantic. 

<PAGE> does none of those things.

> N.B.  You don't HAVE to use <page>.  If you don't have a need to use <div
> id="wrapper">, you CAN use <body>. However there are a VERY large number of
> us (wish I had figures!) who prefer to wrap their visible content in a box,
> and it is for these people that <page> would be good.

I don't think the figures matter. I'm one of them. First thing I do on just about every site is add a <div id="wrapper">. The difference here is that I know that the only reason I'm doing it is to add width and margin:auto styling to center the visible content. That's not structural and has no reason to exist as an element.

Nate