[whatwg] Giving the <body> tag a new meaning.

Tue Mar 1 14:38:34 PST 2011

[issues again :(]

Here is a use case:
<html>
    <body>
        Hi, I'm the most important content of this page, I'm kind of an
article, and in HTML4 I can be considered the page's body, firstly because
I'm inside that tag, and lastly because there aren't any other tags (hello
header, hello footer) that could break my logic.
    </body>
</hmtl>

<html>
    <body>
        Hi, I'm the most important content of this page, I'm kind of an
article but strictly speaking I can't be considered the page's body, because
although I'm inside the body tag, I'm over the header tag. And a page body
can't be over the page footer, or isn't it? I'm confused.
        <header>Page title</header>
        <footer>diclamer, copyright</footer>
    </body>
</html>

How long ago was html created? at that time sites where not as complex as
now are, browsers were more like a mail-man that had a message that
contained a head (sender's name, adress ...) and a body (senders real
message). Now sites a more like electronic brochures, we want them to have
<header>s <footer>s, <nav>igational elements, <or>dered and <un>ordered
lists. And all those things are web content, not web <body>. That's my
point.

Making a decision like this, would bring legacy issues for sure, but there
will be solutions for that, and we'll found them. The thing is, we want to
face them, or stay in the comfortable zone?

2011/3/1 Ashley Sheridan <ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk>

> On Tue, 2011-03-01 at 21:59 +0000, usuario wrote:
> > Let me put it in others words. Following the last example.
> >
> > Here is the way i see it,
> > Everything inside a word document IS CONTENT (not body). In that document
> we
> > may have or not a header, or a footer, but we always "should" have a
> body,
> > in this word document, for convenience purposes text by default is
> intended
> > to be body (hence no need to mark it as that).
> > In HTML, as you say, everything by default is body (about the same a a
> word
> > document).
>
> In a word-processed document the header and footer are separate from the
> main content (what you keep erroneously calling the body), but are still
> part of the document content as a whole
>
> >  But the thing is that in HTML5, WE ARE making distinctions among
> > *header* and *footer* content. My only counter here is why aren't we
> making
> > distinctions of body content too?
>
> We are, by creating the header and footer. It's a bit like the way you
> style alternate table rows; you set the default style for the table and
> give a class only to the odd rows. The even ones just inherit the
> default, no need to explicitly give the even ones a class too. By not
> being part of the header or footer, the rest of the web page content is
> the regular main content of the page.
>
> >
> > Is this semantic to you?
> > <body>
> >     <header></header>
> >     <footer></footer>
> > </body>
> > There is an obvious (may be not dangerous) semantic issue there. Why in
> the
> > world a footer can be inside a body, aren't they siblings of a document?
> >
> > To me (but hope you too), something semantic would be this:
> > <content>
> >     <header></header>
> >     <body></body>
> >     <footer></footer>
> > </content>
>
> As explained, for legacy reasons <body> is what you're calling <content>
> there.
>
> >
> > I've been requested to solve a problem. Former has never been a problem,
> web
> > as worked well in that way. I just am setting out a new way of thinking
> > about html. Being more declarative.
> >
> > 2011/3/1 Ashley Sheridan <ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk>
> >
> > >  On Tue, 2011-03-01 at 12:32 -0800, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 12:09 PM, usuario <soyhobo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > The real issue is with change, never is too late.
> > > > Many of the new elements in html5 are for semantic purposes. Being
> now a
> > > > <header> and a <footer>, there is only one left thing that's pretty
> obvious.
> > > >
> > > > I am not proposing the body tag for disappear, but allow it for a new
> > > > implementation. And perhaps in say 10 years, discontinue it as
> document
> > > > start element, when the change be widely spread.
> > > >
> > > > The reason? a better semantics advantages.
> > >
> > > So, what is the problem you're trying to solve?  Semantics are useless
> > > on their own; we only care about semantics insofar as they help us to
> > > solve problems.  For example, the new sectioning elements help
> > > somewhat in styling and code readability, and make the page easier to
> > > automatically navigate, so things like screen-readers can consume the
> > > pages more easily.
> > >
> > > What problem is caused by the current <body> tag that you'd like to
> fix?
> > >
> > > It may be helpful to read
> > > <
> http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#Is_there_a_process_for_adding_new_features_to_a_specification.3F
> >,
> > > which explains the process by which we add new features to HTML.
> > >
> > > ~TJ
> > >
> > >
> > > I agree.
> > >
> > > Usuario, in the example you've given the newly proposed version of the
> > > <body> tag only encloses content that isn't otherwise encompassed by
> the
> > > <header> or <footer>, meaning it serves no purpose to distinguish it
> from
> > > the header and footer because those specific tags are already doing
> that.
> > >
> > > The body tag holds all the content that is presented to the user. After
> a
> > > long look at a wide variety of websites, the <header> and <footer>
> (among
> > > other) tags were added to mark those areas of a website out against the
> > > actual content. This basically means that anything that isn't a header
> or a
> > > footer is main content. Of course there are things like <article> and
> > > <section> to further break things down.
> > >
> > > Think about it a bit like a word-processed document for a moment. In
> that,
> > > all content is deemed to be main content apart from page headers and
> footers
> > > which can be added in. Within the content you can mark up various text
> as a
> > > header or otherwise. A web page isn't too dissimilar, although it
> allows for
> > > far more semantic meaning to be given to content. What you must
> remember is
> > > that the new HTML5 tags aren't just for easier styling but to allow
> better
> > > parsing by non-humans, be it a search engine, screen reader or some
> content
> > > archiver.
> > >
> > >   --
> > > Thanks,
> > > Ash
> > > http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Ash
> http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
>
>
>
>