[whatwg] <link>/<meta> and microdata
Philip Jägenstedt
philipj at opera.com
Thu Nov 19 14:51:59 PST 2009
In a (slightly edited) Jack Bauer example [1], Chrome, Firefox and
presumably Safari has the meta elements moved to head. This will severely
break script-based implementation of microdata, which are likely to be
used for the time being until the DOM API is implemented natively. I can't
see any workaround for this, so I suggest that <meta> simply not be used
for microdata, preferably by making it non-conforming and removing it from
the definitions/algorithms.
For <link>, the rel attribute issue [2] needs to be settled. It seems to
me that sometimes requiring rel and sometimes not makes for a less
consistent language with more room for error.
I hesitate to make an argument based on aesthetics, but I think
repurposing either <link> or <meta> for use in microdata is decidedly
ugly, mostly because my legacy understanding of them is as "<head> only
elements". In the usability study [3] there was only one example which
used <link> and <meta> [4]. Was there any indication then that any of the
test subjects were put off by either <link> or <meta>? Is my concern
exaggerated? (It often is.)
Both <item> and <link> are used only to include non-visible metadata in
the item. Philip Taylor points out in IRC that these work equally well:
<span hidden itemprop=foo>bar</span> (instead of meta)
<a itemprop=foo href=bar></a> (instead of link)
Of course this is just as ugly. It's good enough perhaps, but if someone
has an aesthetically pleasing solution for these cases, I'd like to hear
about it. New void elements are a no-go, just like <itemref> didn't work
out.
[1] http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/js/live-dom-viewer/saved/312
[2] http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8340
[3] http://blog.whatwg.org/usability-testing-html5
[4] http://damowmow.com/playground/microdata/001/yelp-annotated.html
--
Philip Jägenstedt
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