Let's say that I have a website with a header, two columns under it (one as a wrapper for articles and the other as a sidebar). Now, can I use main as a wrapper for those articles:
<main>
(articles here)
</main>
<aside class="sidebar">
(sidebar here)
</aside>
Or should I wrap this <main> with <div>?
<div id="left-column">
<main>
(articles here)
</main>
</div>
<aside class="sidebar">
(sidebar here)
</aside>
In general: can we use semantic tags also for styling/display purposes with CSS (which is normally the domain of div elements)?
You should not add those semantic elements just because you need CSS hooks, but if your use of the elements is appropriate, it is perfectly fine, and a good practice, to use them also as hooks for CSS.
If you need more than your existing elements for styling reasons, add span/div elements (as they are the only "non-semantic"/meaningless elements).
Adding span/div around every semantic element you want to style would bloat your markup, and make it harder to understand/maintain. There can be one reason for doing it for the elements introduced with HTML5 (like main), though: If you need to achieve a certain styling in old browsers which don’t support these new elements.
"New" HTML5 elements are elements like any other (OK not input[type="hidden"] or head ^^ but div or span or p or h6). They bring semantics but when it comes to styling, in browsers supporting them which is IE9+ (except maybe for main), you can display: flex them or float or position: relative or even display: inline.
IE8 needed a polyfill named htmlshiv but that's oooold. Don't support IE8 (because MS doesn't even support the OS where it could run!)
I'd include aside as an aside to main and preceding sibling could be an article or section.
<main role="main">
<article><!-- or section? -->
(articles here)
</article>
<aside class="sidebar">
(sidebar here)
</aside>
</main>
Related
https://interactjs.io/docs/action-options/#ignorefrom shows how to use ignoreFrom to disable dragging from certain elements. My movable element look something like:
<article>
<div>
<h1>My Article</h1>
<p>Hello World</p>
</div>
</article>
It could contain any HTML tags within the <div>, not just <h1> and <p>
I want to ignore dragging from any child element except the <div>. I've tried using ignoreFrom: ':not(div)', but that does not work (I'm guessing that the :not pseudo-selector is not supported). The only option I can get to work is to provide a list of all possible HTML tags as the value for the ignoreFrom. So, for this specific example, setting ignoreFrom: 'h1,p' works, but this approach will become unmanageable in the general case. Is there an easier way?
My question is probably based on a bad design. However, I can't change that and need to work with it. This is the visual draft I'm talking about, it's just a part of a full website:
As you can see there's a title of an article with a background image, then a breadcrumb toolbar and finally, the articles content. Now, usually, if there wouldn't be the breadcrumb toolbar you could simply wrap it into an <article>. But the breadcrumb divides the article in a "pre" article and a main article part. The only "clean" HTML5 way would be to wrap the article including the header with background image into an <article> and position the breadcrumb into the target visual position. However, I'm classifying this as "hack" and I'm searching a better way.
What would be the preferred markup for this scenario?
There won't be any perfect the solution for the current requirement.
As pointed out by comments to the previous answer, the nav is not related to the article.
Also, WCAG instructs that :
1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence: When the sequence in which content is presented affects its meaning, a correct reading sequence can be programmatically determined. (Level A)
EDIT : If changing the order of the element can preserve a meaningful sequence (G57), when the elements does not match visually the DOM order (see C27) the visual focus indicator of the screen reader will not match the standard reading order which will result in bad UX for people with low vision using a screenreader.
So it's impossible to try a CSS visual hack to invert the order between the elements visually without breaking another rule.
You may think of a third technique :
set aria-hidden on the visible title,
use aria-labelledby on the article tag to point to the h1 outside the article element :
For instance:
<header>
<h1 aria-hidden="true" id="title">Your title</h1>
<nav><!-- nav here --></nav>
</header>
<article aria-labelledby="title">
// article here
</article>
Another way to do is to duplicate the title element, one visible, one for assistive technology
<header>
<div aria-hidden="true">Your title</div>
<nav><!-- nav here --></nav>
</header>
<article>
<h1 class="sr-only">Your title</h1>
// article here
</article>
It could be something like this -
<article>
<header>
//APPLY BACKGROUND IMAGE
<h1>YOUR TITLE</h1>
</header>
<nav>
//USE BREADCRUMBS HERE
</nav>
<section>
//USE THIS FOR CONTENT
</section>
</article>
I have a simple page template that has a sidebar on the left and main content area on the right. Is this the correct use of the article, aside, and header tags? Also, are you suppose to attach classes/ids to html5 elements (ie. article class="example" ) or is that specifically for divs only?
Thanks
<article class="page">
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<aside>
<div class="col-md-3">
<div class="sidebar">
<h3>Sidebar Widget</h3>
<ul>
<li>Related Content</li>
<li>Related Content</li>
<li>Related Content</li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- /.sidebar-->
</div> <!-- /.col-med-3 -->
<aside>
<div class="col-md-9">
<header>
<h1 class="page-title">Page Title</h1>
</header>
<p>Some Content</p>
</div> <!-- /.col-med-9 -->
</div><!-- /.row -->
</div><!-- /.container-->
</article><!-- /.page -->
You can certainly apply a class and/or an id to HTML5 tags. Think of each tag like a <div>. In fact, in your CSS you should have this block, so that all HTML5 tags will behave like a <div>. This will help in non-HTML5 compliant browsers:
header, section, footer, aside, nav, article, figure {
display: block;
}
I can't really comment on if you are using all of the HTML5 tags in the "correct" way since I don't know the larger scope of your project. However, it looks like you are using the <aside> correctly. I would use <section> instead of <article> where you used it. Here are some explanations in plain English to help you:
<article> - Independent, self-contained content. It should be able to stand on it's own and make sense if separated from the rest of the HTML document. The most notable potential uses are for forum/blog posts, user comments, etc.
<aside> - Supporting information about the larger picture of your HTML. These are mostly used in sidebars, to the left or right of the main content as part of the "supporting cast".
<header> - As the name suggests, this is where your heading information should go. Multiple <header> tags can be used throughout your HTML page (i.e. for blog post headings), but they cannot be added in <footer>, <address> or another <header> tag.
<section> - More of a "general purpose" tag, but it's used for containing large blocks of grouped content. Multiple HTML5 tags can reside inside of a <section> tag.
It is totally normal to put ids and classes on any/all html elements.
Your usage of <article> and '' are probably too widely scoped.
The <article> element represents a component of a page that consists of a self-contained composition in a document, page, application, or site and that is intended to be independently distributable or reusable, e.g. in syndication. Source
The <aside> element represents a section of a page that consists of content that is tangentially related to the content around the aside element, and which could be considered separate from that content. Source
I read about semantic HTML online...
Semantic HTML means using HTML tags for their implied meaning, rather than just using (meaningless) div and span tags for absolutely everything.
If you use <h1> instead of <div class="header">, and <h2> instead of , et cetera, Google and other search engines will interpret your headers as being important titles in your page. This way, when people search on the words in your headers and sub-headers, your page will be considered more relevant (and rank higher). Plus, it's much shorter and cleaner.
So, below is semantic,
<h1>My Website Name</h1>
<h2>My Website Tagline </h2>
What about this below?
<div id="header">
<h1><span class="hide">My Website Name</span></h1>
<h2><span class="hide">My Website Tagline</span></h2>
</div>
I tend to combine h tags with div and span tags like above - is this practised considered as the lack of semantic?
The reason why I have the span with the hide class is that I want to display the site logo instead of text. So use CSS to set the background of h1 as image and then hide the text. is this incorrect practise?
Then, if I don't use div, what can I use to make a box around the h1 and h2?
As far as I know, html 5 is not fully ready yet, we must not use <header> yet, must we??
Thanks.
I would do something like the following if I was going to use HTML5:
<header>
<hgroup>
<h1>My Website Name</h1>
<h2>My Website Tagline</h2>
</hgroup>
</header>
Remember to add display: block; to the HTML5 elements and createElement for IE in the CSS though. The header element shows the block is a header and the hgroup element is there to show that the second h* element is a sub heading, so shouldn't be taken into account when calculating the header levels in the document.
If you don't want to use HTML5 yet then you could use divs instead of the new elements, and use the HTML5 element names as the class value. This will make it easier to switch over when you feel comfortable using HMTL5 on a live site.
You don't really need to use the span elements. You can use tricks such as using a large negative text-indent in the CSS to hide the text off the screen.
If you want to display a logo instead of text, use an image. Google say so (even if they don't know the difference between a tag and an attribute). Taglines, BTW, are not subheadings (and the site name (and thus logo) is usually only a heading on the homepage).
<div id="header">
<h1><img src="foo.png" alt="My Website Name"></h1>
<p><img src="foo.png" alt="My Website Tagline"></p>
</div>
Unfortunately, Internet Explorer 8 does not recognize many HTML5 tags, and when I've tested it, I was unable to set CSS values for the <header> tag, for example. So for now I would recommend that you continue to use div tags to group your semantic meaning.
As a sidenote, Google does not like hidden text, and if you have a lot of it, it will consider it deceptive coding. One is probably fine, but you'd be better off using the alt attribute on the image tag.
Nobody suggested that you should not use DIVs at all... semantic HTML does not mean there cannot be div or span tags in your code. It just only means that whenever possible (there is a specific tag available for a specific semantic meaning) you should try to give semantic meaning.
h2 is not to be used for taglines, as somebody else already suggested.
Also, in my interpretation (some will argue), h1 is not for the name of your website. It is the title for the content on a specific page.
I agree with #David Dorward, the tag line should be in a p tag.
Your example (wrapping the header elements with a div) is perfectly acceptable, though I would like to raise a small caution: Be careful that you do not get in the habit of wrapping everything in div tags. For example:
<div class="content">
<div class="list">
<ul>
<li>something</li>
<li>something</li>
<li>something</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
Since a ul tag is already a block element, the above markup would be better off like this:
<div class="content">
<ul class="list">
<li>something</li>
<li>something</li>
<li>something</li>
</ul>
</div>
And then just style the ul to look like the div.
On the matter of displaying the logo as an image:
If your logo is text-based, or has text in it, you would be better off doing the following:
HTML
<div id="header">
<h1 class="logo">My Logo Text - My Website Tagline</h1>
</div>
CSS
.logo { text-indent:-9999px;background-image:url(thelogo.jpg) no-repeat;}
/* Also add height and width based on your logo height and width */
I know that it's incorrect to style a <section> tag but how about the <header> and <footer> tags. If using these tags provides a more semantic markup then they should be used, however, if they can't be styled then a <div> would still need to be inserted inside the tag to wrap the content and style it.
I know that <header> can be styled but I'm not sure if it's correct to do so.
So the question is: Should html5 tags be styled or should a <div> be placed inside to take care of the styling?
Nothing in the spec says you can't or shouldn't style HTML5 elements such as <section> or <article>. It only says that you shouldn't place a semantic HTML5 element somewhere 'for the sake of' styling something. Use a <div> instead.
So if you have a semantic reason to add the <section> or <article> somewhere, then by all means add it AND also feel free to style it as well. But if you have to wrap a section of your mark-up for styling purposes (eg. to add a border, or float left etc.), but that section does not have any semantic meaning in your mark-up, then use a <div>.
For instance:
<div class="mainBox">
<nav class="breadcrumbs">
<ol>
<li>...list of links (snip)....</li>
</ol>
</nav>
<section>
<h1>Latest Tweets From Twitter</h1>
<article>
//... a Tweet (snip)... //
</article>
<article>
//... a Tweet (snip)... //
</article>
//... lots more Twitter posts (snip)... //
</section>
</div>
The <section> element is the main part of your page (ie. your list of tweets) and also has a heading at the start which is required. But it's wrapped in a div.mainBox element because maybe you want to wrap a border around the both the breadcrumbs and section parts, ie. it's purely for styling. But there's nothing to stop you styling the <section> and <article> elements also.
It's is not incorrect to style these tags, but they are not solely for styling purposes as they serve a semantic function. By all means style the elements that you need to use, but don't add them to achieve styles thereby ruining the semantics.
Having said that you must also beware of styling them as they are not recognised by all browsers. For example IE6 and 7 will not apply the styles as they won't recognise the element names. You can get around this in IE7 using ARIA tags which will allow you some styling control.