[whatwg] Have tabstrip / tab elements been discussed?

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 9:54 PM, E.J. Zufelt <lists at zufelt.ca> wrote:
> Good evening,
> I am rather new to this list and am curious if anytime recently there has
> been discussion about adding tabstrip and tab elements to the html5 spec?
>  The concept of a tabstrip is a rather commonly used UI component on the web
> (web-applications, content management systems, facetted searches) and it
> would be particularly useful for accessibility if we could communicate the
> semantics of the tabstrip through markup.
> My definition for a tabstrip is a collection of items (tabs) of which one is
> "active" or "selected", each tab usually will perform an action when
> activated.
> Possible markup for tabs with no function (informational only).
> <tabstrip>
>   <tab>Apple</tab>
>   <tab selected>Orange</tab>
>   <tab>Peach</tab>
> </tabstrip>
> For active elements like links anchor or buttons could be used within each
> tab.

This is a CSS issue, not an HTML one.  Hiding temporarily-inactive
panes is just a matter of display:none'ing some of them.  There is
additional plumbing you have to hook up so that clicking on a tab sets
the active one appropriately, but that should be pursued as a new
ability in CSS.  I know it's been discussed in the group a few times,
though no draft has come out of it yet.

~TJ