[whatwg] Question on (new) header and hgroup
Smylers
Smylers at stripey.com
Thu May 7 10:32:12 PDT 2009
James Graham writes:
> Bruce Lawson wrote:
>
> > I'm struggling to understand the reasons for <hgroup>: wouldn't one
> > or more h1..h6 elements wrapped in the same <header> imply just such
> > a grouping without the need for such an element?
>
> <hgroup> affects the document structure, <header> does not.
That explains _how_ they are different (as does the spec), but not _why_
it is like that.
More specifically:
* Are there significant cases where <header> needs _not_ to imply
<hgroup>? Consider wrapping an <hgroup> inside every <header>; how
many places has that broken the semantics? I could believe that most
of the cases where a pager header appropriately contains multiple
headings they are subtitles rather than subsections.
Anybody who specifically needs subsections in a <header> could still
have them by using <section> inside <header>. That wouldn't help for
the 'Little Green Guys with Guns' example (where a section is started
in a <header> then 'leaks out' into the following elements) -- but
would it be unacceptable to force authors to write that with </header>
before one of the <h2>-s?
* Given the newness and nuance of <header> and <hgroup> and the
distinction between them, it's likely that some authors will confuse
them. Given that <hgroup> doesn't appear to do anything on the page
(it's similar to invisible meta-data), it's likely that some authors
will omit it[*1] when it's needed to convey the semantics they intend.
Might actually the number of authors who mistakenly write <header>
instead of <header><hgroup> outnumber those who need to have
subsections in headers? That is, if <header> implied <hgroup>, might
it fix more cases than it breaks?
* Are there significant cases where <hgroup> will be useful outside of
<header>?
<hgroup> exists to allow for subtitles and the like. It's fairly
common for documents to have these -- where it's likely there's use
for a <header> element anyway.
It's much less common for a mere section of a document to warrant a
multi-part title; is that a case which is worth solving? If it is,
would it be problematic to force authors to use <header> there?
I think that would mean that a subsection like this:
<hgroup><h2>Kaboom!</h2> <h3>A Mysterious Loud Noise</h3></hgroup>
<p>Suddenly ...
Would instead have to be written as:
<section>
<header><h2>Kaboom!</h2> <h3>A Mysterious Loud Noise</h3></header>
<p>Suddenly ...
</section>
That doesn't seem too onerous for such a niche usage.
If <header> implied <hgroup> semantics (but only acted as a heading if
there actually is an <h1> somewhere inside it) and if all current uses
of <hgroup> could be put inside a <header> then we could avoid
introducing the <hgroup> element.
Smylers
[*1] <header> is less likely to suffer from this since it's often
replacing <div class="header"> or similar; authors want a block at that
point in the page anyway.
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