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

Tue Mar 1 15:32:12 PST 2011

>
> I neither write nor speak English natively, but I believe that the
> body element has to
> be preserved all but as it is, if only for compatibility. Instead, you
> should propose
> putting the main content inside another element inside the body element,
> say
> <content>.
>
I agree, <body> must remain for compatibility, perhaps also able a new tag
for its task, and deprecate its current meaning in future versions.
<content> may be a good option as a <header> and <footer> sibling. And say
"not required, but if implemented, do it the right way".

2011/3/1 Bjartur Thorlacius <svartman95 at gmail.com>

> On 3/1/11, usuario <soyhobo at gmail.com> 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).
> >
> I neither write nor speak English natively, but I believe that the
> body element has to
> be preserved all but as it is, if only for compatibility. Instead, you
> should propose
> putting the main content inside another element inside the body element,
> say
> <content>. Alternatively, you could try using <article>, but <article>
> has further
> semantics, and is thus unsuitable for wrapping the main content of an
> index (that is
> an index). IMO, HTML isn't a good format for indexes, but that's
> probably only IMO.
>
> > In HTML, as you say, everything by default is body (about the same a a
> word
> > document). 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?
> >
> > 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>
> >
> > 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.
> >
> As previously stated, we can't change the semantics an content model of
> <body>.
> OTOH, it may be possible to put information that may be presented as a
> footer in
> <head>. <Head> poses strict constraints on both descendant nodes and
> position
> in the document (it must come first).
>  It may thus be more suitable to specify a new element positioned
> _after_ </body>
> containing information that belongs neither to head nor body. This
> would probably
> replace <aside>, which IMO has no place in body which is intended to be
> loosely
> linear. Also, I think that most information that's rendered in a
> footer should be
> marked up in the head, or as more general metadata fields such as RFC 2822
> headers or file xattrs. Headers seem to consist mostly of navigational
> links, more
> appropriately marked up with <link>s.
>

Again, The inconvenient "buddy" element strikes back.