There are some commands in HTML that are confusing me. For example, what do the <nav> element and the <article> element do? There's a lot like this. <nav> <article> <section> <aside> <div> What are the purpose of these? I know what they do, what I'm confused about is why you'd want to use them. These elements create semantic sections, what I'm asking is, why is this needed? What does it change?
One important reason is accessibility of websites: If a screenreader (for blind people) knows (from recognizing these tags) which element contains the navigation (nav, which otherwise would just be a div), which elements are seperate, more or less independent blocks (articles and sections), it can guide the user much easier throught he structure of the page and help him/her to find the essential parts of the page quicker.
Another reason is that search engines can find the essential parts of a website, since the structure is much clearer.
It is the new Html5 standard. They can be easily used in semantic way and they have more meaning for example than a classic div
This is probably a good place to start HTML Tags If you're not sure what a div is I'm going to assume you're reasonably new to HTML?
You don't have to use tags like but it just makes it easier for someone reading your code to know exactly where the navigation is. Otherwise it might just look like a list.
I'd suggest you read that list though.
Let's say I want to have a title block, and for styling considerations I need to nest it inside a div with some special CSS styling (e.g. I want specific border and spacing styling). Let's call this one box. The box just serves the style the title inside it.
The fact I need to have box at all just has to do with the limitations of CSS, so it doesn't make sense for the box to be considered a block in BEM terminology. It doesn't even make sense as a DOM element. But title is located inside box.
It makes sense to me to give box the class title__box because it doesn't make sense without title. However, all examples of BEM seem to assume the element is always a DOM child of the block it's in.
To answer your question plainly without investigating further into this, no.
You would have to have something like the following
<div class="decorator">
<h1 class="title">blah blah</h1>
</div>
or
<div class="title">
<h1 class="title__heading">blah blah</h1>
</div>
When using BEM you have to think in terms of "blocks", "elements" and their reusability. In particular, consider this from a developer perspective: you don't want to end up in a particular scenario where the developer will build the title in question and forget an element or an attribute and get mad trying to figure out why it doesn't work. This gives you consistency and replicability of your markup.
I have no specific insight on why you need the <div> and what are the CSS limitations that you're talking about, but I will take your word for it.
So I'm going to ask: have you thought of cleaning up the markup using pseudo selectors, or using the heading as the aforementioned container and using inline anonymous elements (i.e. <span>s)?
I hope this helps solving your problems.
I'm trying to make a sample web page to get acquainted with HTML5, and I'd like to try replicating Facebook's page layout; that is, the header that spans the entire width of the screen, a small footer at the bottom, and a three-column main body, consisting of a list of links on the left, the main content in the middle, and an optional section on the right (for ads, frames, etc.). It's neat and displays well in multiple window sizes.
So far, I've tried to accomplish this with a <header>, <footer> and a <nav> and <section> block, respectively. There's a few anomalies with the page, however. The footer (which contains a simple text block with copyright info) appears at the top-right of the page below the header when the window is maximized. On the other hand, when there isn't enough space to display everything in the window, it places the main body text below the section. In other words, it keeps moving elements around to fit the window.
Could someone please tell me how I'd achieve the look I'm going for? I've tried playing around with a few CSS attributes I read about through Google, but I'm pretty sure I don't know what I'm doing, and could really use some guidance.
Thank you!
This isn't an HTML5 question as much as it is a basic understanding of HTML and CSS. If you're going to jump in to web dev you're going to need to understand basic CSS like floating etc. I would recommend some tutorials on YouTube or NetTuts. Just play around with a few divs, move them around the page, manipulate them with CSS and it will start to come together. Then making a three column layout with fixed header and footer will seem like a piece of cake.
Floating Divs w/ CSS
I find CSS to be super hard. It is quite difficult to make a page that looks good and works on lots of different platforms and browsers. You may find it easiest to use a css framework, such as Bootstrap.
Drop that into your website, and use it to make your layout. Use the dev tools for your browser (Firebug for firefox) to examine the styles that are being applied to the various elements. Modify the styles to suit your needs.
HTML5 doesn't really give you a page layout for free. The elements you mention (header, section,etc) are used to create semantic pages, rather than to specify how they should be displayed.
Can't help much without your code. But I am sure it is because of float issue. add this CSS property to your footer clear: both
Hope it might help.
I'm not sure if you're trying to make yourself a little hack, or if you're looking for a complete library that will do all this for you, but if you're looking for the latter, I recommend Twitter Bootstrap, which is a cross-platform solution for implementing many HTML5 features, and even resorts to fallbacks for non-modern browsers. The only drawback is the requirement of jQuery in order to initialize the components that are responsive*. However, this is optional if you are not looking to implement these features. The responsive design, amazingly, does not require javascript since it is pure CSS. Hope this helps!
*Edit: meant "interactive" there, not "responsive."
I stumbled upon this article
http://www.thefloatingfrog.co.uk/css/my-hatred-of-br-clearall/
When would one need to use that ?
Why is it evil ?
I don't understand the substitute syntax can you explain ?
Setting clear to both with not allow other elements to float on either the left or right side of the element. The class below is an easy way to add this anywhere.
.clear {
clear:both;
}
So when you want to clear something (that is, if you were to float the next element to the left, it would be below the current element and to the left, instead of left of it) you'd simply add the .clear class.
The problem with the following code is that if later on you decide that you don't want to clear everything after the 'something' class, then you have to go through your HTML and remove the br clear="all" wherever you have that 'something' class.
<div class="something">Cool content.</div>
<br clear="all">
<div class="other">Cool content again.</div>
Instead you could do something like this:
.something {
float: left;
}
.other {
clear :both;
float: left;
}
<div class="something">Hi!</div>
<div class="other">Hi again from below!</div>
That way if later on you decide to float all blocks with the 'other' class then you can just remove the 'clear:both;' from the CSS once.
I was about to post something snarky about you not reading the article, but when I saw that it was just a page of vitriolic rage with no explanation, I figured I'd answer.
It's because there are better ways of doing what you want to do -- namely, by using CSS in the way he does in the article, he has separated the semantics of the elements he's displaying from how he's displaying them. Why is this a big deal? Well, for one, he can more easily transform how his page looks when it's shown on different platforms (mobile, desktop) and media (screen, print, a screen reader for the blind), simply by editing CSS and not having to touch the document itself. This feature of CSS is pure gold.
On the other hand, if you use a construct such as this, you put in a hard constraint about your document's presentation that sticks around no matter what media or platform you're dealing with. What makes him so mad? Because once a developer has come in before him and used <br clear="all">, he has to take it out in order to get the benefits I just mentioned. That's why it's so frustrating. One bad developer can disable a whole host of development scenarios for every other developer who comes after.
As far as CSS goes, I have to say that it's a very difficult subject to just pick up without reading all about how it works. It's hard to explain how the clear attribute works if you don't understand floats. I had quite a hard time myself until I bought a great book on the subject.
When you have floated elements, the parent element can't calculate it's dimensions effectively and sizes incorrectly. Other items that follow floated items may also sit out of position. By clearing an element at the end of your floats, you correct alter this behaviour.
EDIT
Actually correct is probably the wrong word to use as this is what is supposed to happen and using the word correct suggests it is broken.
The author is just going off on a crazy rant about how the same thing can be accomplished using CSS on the DIV elements themselves. He's saying that br class="clear" is unnecessary.
It's also not a good practice because it mixes content with presentation. If a web designer wanted to re-theme the web application, he or she would need to modify the HTML to pull out all of the br clear elements, whereas if this was done as the author suggested, then the CSS files could be swapped out independently of the HTML, making their jobs easier and giving them one less thing to rant and rave about.
The rant is of course justified, as these simple, silly lines of code can actually cause a lot of headaches.
The idea is that your markup describes the information, and the CSS formats that information.
A dummy tag to clear floats isnt semantic, as it's only purpose is for layout reasons. There are other semantic ways of clearing floats that keep this separation. As commented below but here for clarity this is a good resource for semantically clearing floats http://css-tricks.com/the-how-and-why-of-clearing-floats/
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I am a programmer doing web development for over two years now. Even though I’ve been doing front end engineering for the past two years I don’t think I have done it the right way
For instance:
I still do layout with tables and not with just CSS. I haven’t still found out a way to correctly present data aligned and tabular.
I don’t know the difference between display: none and visibility: hidden (well, I know it now. but there are many cases like- padding, margins, overflows etc)
I haven’t really followed the inheritance way to writing CSS. Almost every style starts with a # and not a class.
Whenever a page loads slowly the html elements are out of place and fall into order only when it’s completely loaded.
I don’t know what this picture in firebug is conveying (by the way, firebug is my savior. Life would have been impossible without Firebug)
Whenever layout’s in a mess I am tempted to use position:absolute. Invariably it ends up in a bigger mess.
I know I am doing a lot of things wrong(and I need to get it right) here but I manage to get things into place and somehow show it up, only to see it messed up in a different browser.
I don’t want do a primer on CSS or CSS for dummies. I know more than that. I want to learn CSS the right way. Focusing on problems like the examples I showed above and rectifying them.
Can you point me to resources or add common suggestions and tips used by CSS developers to get it right.
Check out Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman.
Here are some general rules to live by:
Tables are good for tabular data. If the data you're presenting belongs in a table, don't go out of your way trying to make a grid out of <div>s. Doesn't make sense.
As far as layout is concerned, use <div> tags, stay away from tables. Get to know the float property well. With CSS3, there are going to be new, improve standards to the display property. Learn them.
display: none completely removes the element from the viewport. Conversely, visibility: hidden retains the whitespace that the element would have otherwise taken up. In both cases, the element remains in the DOM.
General rule of classes and IDs. Page elements and IDs should have a one-to-one relationship per page. For example, #Column1, #Column2, #Footer, #Header. Page elements and classes, on the other hand, should be a many-to-one relationship, like: .container or .navLink. Use classes when you know you're going to be using a particular element quite a bit.
Think in terms of efficiency. The less style rules you have, the more quickly your page will load and the easier style issues will be to debug.
I have about a million other things to say but that should get you started.
For layout-driven CSS, be sure to check out Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong. It's a bit cutting edge, since IE 7 doesn't support display: table (pity, I know), but it does cover traditional layout CSS techniques like floating and absolute positioning, and provides a good transition from table-based layouts to CSS ones. I highly recommend it.
I don't know if you're building off of any dynamic language or if you're just coding raw HTML, but you should also look at using SASS in your projects, as I think it helps force you to pay more attention to inheritance. Otherwise, reviewing more "rudimentary" tutorials (like CSS for Dummies) might actually be helpful, as they go over a lot of CSS's fundamental principals in detail.
Lastly, CSS works best when you have semantically correct (x)html underneath the hood. In my opinion, it's easiest to see and learn "good" CSS when you have great, semantically correct html underneath. Here's a good overview of when to use what tags. Generally, I find it best to write my content with no regard what-so-ever to how it will look later, then use CSS later to make it gorgeous.
As always, you can pick up lots of neat tips and tricks at CSS Tricks, which have always helped me learn more about the correct usage of the language (like when I learned about overflow: auto for contained floating elements! Genius!).
Hope that helps!
Visit CSS Zen Garden to see what you can do only with CSS.
Visit W3 schools and follow the tutorial. It might seem simple for you, but you will learn the basic stuff.
Visit some sites, such as A list Apart to see how to do things and learn tricks.
See if a CSS framework suits your needs (such as 960 Grid).
I'm assuming you've installed Firebug?
Also, http://www.doctype.com might get more relevant results.
Practice, practice, practice. You know what you don't know, and that is the key to success in my mind. Every project you do, try to improve your skills, and eventually it will become second nature to do it the right way.
Eric Meyer's Cascading Style Sheets 2.0 Programmer's Reference is a great resource to understand exactly how selectors and rules work, and serves as a great reference as well.
Some thoughts on what you posted.
A Master Reset style sheet will
help with browser differences.
And Tabular data should use tables.
It's layouts that should avoid table
tags in favor of css.
Plenty of people here give good advices. I'll just add two more:
First, try to write valid (X)HTML. You can easily test your HTML code using W3C's HTML validator. Focus mainly on content, not on style.
Second, try to write valid CSS, preferably in a separate .css file. Avoid using the style attribute. (This part can be hard, if you want to support certain old browsers from Redmond). You can test your CSS using W3C's CSS validator.
Read CSS: The Definitive Guide by Eric Meyer. He explains why CSS was created, how it works (according to the standards), and will give you the background to understand the finer points. It also makes a good reference.
Experiment in Firebug
I don’t know what this picture in
firebug is conveying
Firebug itself can help you there. Do this:
Create a div with some text in it.
Use CSS to give it padding: 5px; margin: 5px; border: 1px solid black;
Examine it in Firebug, as you show in your question.
Click on any one of those numbers in the box model it's showing you, and start pressing the up and down arrows (or type a different number).
See how it changes in real time? This is one of the best things about Firebug: it lets you tweak without reloading, then modify your stylesheet when it looks right.
Keep doing this until you understand how padding, margins, and border work.
I think you should use, for your layout needs, one of the so called "css frameworks" (960.gs for example).
They are fast and reliable enough to build cross-browser layouts and also easy to read and understand as well, so you can learn all the good practices while you are coding.
CSS are easy and aren't a real programming language: don't be afraid of the word "framework" ;)
You could start by reading some good books on the matter. The ones of Eric Meyer are hands on and of very high quality. The other book that of which I learned a lot was the Zen of CSS design book.
And the rest is effort and practice. Be sure that you understand why something works the way it does, don't be satisfied with 'trial-and-error' css development.
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-CSS-Design-Visual-Enlightenment/dp/0321303474/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255629419&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/More-Eric-Meyer-Voices-Matter/dp/0735714258/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255629449&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Eric-Meyer-CSS-Mastering-Language/dp/073571245X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255629462&sr=8-1
Well, I will address some of these issues as best I can.
The difference between display:none and visibility:hidden is when the display is set the space for that item is not reserved. So imagine it as when the display is set the item is 'gone' off the page. Whereas if you are using the visibility option, the elements are on the page, in their place just invisible. Did I explain that clearly? Hopefully, that makes sense for you.
As far as the padding, border and margins, this is all referred to as the CSS Box Model. The information is contained as the element, its padding, border, then its margins. So padding is the distance between the element's content and its border whereas the margin is the distance between the border and the neighboring element. Again, I hope this helps clear this up for you a little bit.
Transitioning to CSS is sometimes tricky but well worth it.
Well the basics are quite simple, you should really get a hang of the quite easy if you've already don't some css coding.
The best practices, browser quirks, hacks and other sketchy stuff concerning crossbrowser layout is something else.
Here is my suggested reading list, all of them are on my bookshelf and certainly worth reading! If you ask me i'd say these are the book you should have read if you are a webdesigner.
Designing with webstandards
CSS Mastery
Bulletproof webdesign
for me, Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns by Michael Bowers changed it all. no more endless trial-and-error, but problem - pattern - solution. indispensable.
Whenever a page loads slowly the html elements are out of place and fall into order only when it’s completely loaded.
Are you putting your stylesheets at the top, in the <head> section?
Are you declaring explicit sizes for images, or does the browser have to guess, then rearrange things when the image shows up?
Depending on your learning style, I might recommend going straight to the source: the definition of CSS. You can find each of the various specs here: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/. While the specification doesn't really cover specific browser quirks (if it did, they wouldn't be quirks, would they?), it does a really good job (for me) of explaining how each piece works.
I will tell you my secret: follow this two classic tutorials
Listutorial
Floatutorial
And you'll know 80% of what you need to know about CSS.
30 Websites to follow if you’re into Web Development
http://htmldog.com/ is, in my opinion, one of the definitive resources to learning front-end web development the proper way.