[whatwg] A plea to Hixie to adopt <main>

[Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu]

(12/11/08 1:48), James Graham wrote:
> I think that finding the main content of a page has clear use cases. We
> can see examples of authors working around the lack of this feature in
> the platform every time they use a "skip to main" link, or (less
> commonly) aria role=main. I believe we also see browsers supporting
> role=main in their AT mapping, which suggests implementer interest in
> this approach since the solutions are functionally isomorphic (but with
> very different marketing and usability stories).
> 
> I think the argument that the Scooby Doo algorithm is deficient because
> it requires many elements of a page to be correctly marked up, compared
> to <main> which requires only a single element to get the same
> functional effect, has merit. 

Hixie's another argument, if I understand correctly, is to use <article>
in place of this role. I think the Web is probably full of mis-used
<article> already such that using the first <article> in document order
has no chance to work out, but it would nice if this can be verified,
even though I can already imagine that an author is unlikely to mark up
the main content with <article> when the main content isn't an article
in English sense.

> The observation that having one element on a page marked — via class
> or id —  "main" is already a clear cowpath enhances the credibility
> of the suggested solution. On the other hand, I agree that now
> everyone heading down the cowpath was aiming for the same place; a
> <div class=main> wrapping the whole page, headers, footers, and
> all is clearly not the same as one that identifies the extent of the
> primary content.

Right. So, assuming "skip to main" is the only use case for <main>,
which I am not sure if Steve agrees, I think the proposal should use
strong wording to prevent such misuse and the proposal should include
one example of such misuse and explains it.


Cheers,
Kenny
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Web Specialist, Oupeng Browser, Beijing
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