[whatwg] wrapper element

[Ashley Sheridan]

On Mon, 2011-02-28 at 18:46 +0000, usuario wrote:

> [Had problems sending my mails to the list, resending message]
> 
> Some of you may be questioning why a wrapper element if it has not
> semantics, the thing is, It DO have semantics.
> 
> Wrapper:
> a container element whose solely purpose is to isolate flow content for
> visually appealing purposes. It it usually used for applying margin, padding
> to inner elements, and dimensionally separating them from its real parent.
> 
> *example, consider:*
> 
> <header>
>     <div class="wrapper">
>         <h1>Header 1</h1>
>         <p>this content is centered because margin: 0 auto is applied to
> parent of div.wraper element</p>
>         I have always worked, I'm almost standard, sometimes people don't
> call me wraper but 'container' or 'content' instead
>     </div>
> </header>
> 
> *Against:*
> 
> <header>
>     <wrapper>
>         <h1>Header 1</h1>
>         <p>this content is centered because margin: 0 auto is applied to
> parent of wrapper element</p>
>         I think I'm more semantic because I'm specifically designed for this
> task, and I do it very well. What do you think?
>     </wrapper>
> </header>
> 
> Moreover.
> 
> > Why not borrow the <g> from SVG (meaning "to group together" -- the
> > semantics may be a bit more accessible in some cross-linguistic sense than
> > <wrap>, particularly because of the silent "w" in "wrap" which throws a lot
> > of folks for a loop)?
> >
> 
> Don't know if that's the solution, i just don't discard it.
> 
> 
> > <div> carries no semantic meaning. * If you are using it for such, the
> > semantic is purely internal to your application*, and thus doesn't
> > carry the common meaning of "semantics" as used on the web.
> >
> 
> We have no problems with <div> definition. But i think you are not right in
> your statement.
> Answer this, Are wrappers purely internal to my(of mine) application? that's
> a capitalized lie, just think on it. Most applications use a wrapper-like
> div. You had, and i don't know you.
> 
> We have to start deciding what do we want from html5, at what degree do we
> want a more semantic web? why just <header>, why just <footer>.
> 
> I can assure you the world was fine with <div id="header">, but so, why
> <header> was created for? It was created because being so widely used,
> somebody believed it was *more semantic* to convert it into an element.
> 
> <div> is the wrapper element.  That's its entire purpose for living.  ^_^
> >
> 
> <div> was not creating for wrapping things, but for contain them. When you
> wrap something, you are giving it a different implicit meaning to that
> wrapper div.



By it's very nature a <div> tag is a wrapper already. Your above code
could be written as:

<header>
    <div>
        <h1>Header 1</h1>
        <p>this content is centered because margin: 0 auto is applied to
parent of div.wraper element</p>
        I have always worked, I'm almost standard, sometimes people
don't
call me wraper but 'container' or 'content' instead
    </div>
</header>

And the CSS used to reference the elements would be

header div{/* css here */}
header div h1{/* css here */}
header div p{/* css here */}

Your proposed wrapper serves no semantic purpose other than grouping the
H1 and p tags together, but if they are the only siblings of any element
that is already happening, there's no need to call the element a
wrapper, it is one anyway.

I don't understand the difference in your context of wrapper and
container, but it seems to me one is a synonym for the other.

-- 
Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk