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The Future of the Web: My Vision (May 23, 2012)

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

I apologize for the longer than expected wait for this article, but now, we may continue.

The article below will pick up where Part 1 left off.



Article 1: Websites and Sectioning
Part 2: Styling


<warning>Warning: This article discusses the topic of <semantics>semantics</semantics></warning>

As we began with previously, we now have the basics down as to how to properly divide information into sections. This time, we will be looking into the second aspect of sectioning: Styling.

When a search engine or screen reader scans a website, it does so by evaluating the markup of the page. Humans however, view by way of sight. If we were to use absolutely no form of styling, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to logically divide an article into sections.

When we read through a webpage, several common features are used to guide us in logically separating it out:

  • Bolded text defining headings.
  • Heading text larger than the content below it.
  • Logical heading levels which decrease in size as it gets deeper.
  • Ocasionally indenting subsections and subheadings within their parents.

Web browsers of today will often do much of this work for you, but this is not always enough. Below, I will show you at most basic, the heading layout I choose to use when building a website.


<article>
<header><h1>Main Heading</h1></header>
<section class="topsection">
<h1>Top Heading</h1>
<p>Section Content</p>
<section class="subsection">
<h1>Heading</h1>
<p>Section Content</p>
<section class="subsection">
<h1>Heading</h1>
<p>Section Content</p>
<section class="subsection">
<h1>Heading</h1>
<p>Section Content</p>
<section class="subsection">
<h1>Heading</h1>
<p>Section Content</p>
<section class="subsection">
<h1>Heading</h1>
<p>Section Content</p>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</article>

Now obviously, this is more compact than any site would naturally be, and wouldn't use such simplified text. However, this perfectly demonstrates the decreasing levels of the font size of the heading. With each level, it gradually scales downward, starting from nearly 3 times larger than the content at highest, to the same size as the content at lowest.

To achieve this, we use the following CSS Code.


header > h1 { font-size: 2.75em; }
section.topsection { font-size: 2em; }
section > section { font-size: 75%; }
section h1 { font-size: inherit; }
section * { font-size: 16px; }
section h1, section p { margin: 0; }

As you can see, the above code generates a much more aethetically pleasing, and far more understandable result than one without styling.

At this point, you are probably asking: How can this actually apply to real life?

Well, below this I will explain.


Use in Practical Design

As mentioned above, the true power of this method is revealed when used in practical application.

In the figure below, I will demonstrate said power by use of the first chapter of the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

404
Styling used in Practical Application
Click Here for Citation

In the above sample, you can easily see the logically broken down structure of the chapter. You have the main article with its heading, the major logical division (the chapter), and two minor logical divisions (the sections). Although the subsections lack heading text, you can still tell that they are seperated. Even if you were to remove the row of stars, the spacing alone would be able to divide them.

And now, to show the code that makes it work:

HTML:
<article>
<header>
<hgroup>
<h1>ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND</h1>
<h2>By Lewis Carroll</h2>
<h3>THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 3.0</h3>
</hgroup>
</header>
<section class="topsection">
<h1>CHAPTER I. Down the Rabbit-Hole</h1>
<section class="subsection">
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
</section>
<div class="sep">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *</div>
<section class="subsection">
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
</section>
</section>
</article>
Note: Text removed to prevent overcluttering.


CSS:
hgroup * { margin: 0; }
hgroup h1 { font-size: 2em; }
hgroup h2 { font-size: 1.5em; }
hgroup h3 { font-size: 1em; }
section { margin-bottom: 2em; }
section h1 { margin: 0.5em 0; }
p { text-indent: 1em; margin: 1em 0; }
p:first-of-type { margin-top: 0; }
.sep { font-weight: bold; margin: 0 1em 2em; }
Note: To show the full extent of the sample, this example uses a multi-tier heading for the article. This will be explained further in Part 3.

And here we have it. Together, the markup and the styling provides a neat, clean look which greatly improves readability. As well, it is written in semantic code which allows computers to properly understand its meaning.

In conclusion of this section, we have now learned the importance of sectioning, as well as how to properly style sections. These two concepts, when applied properly, could help create a much richer and more consistantly appealing world wide web in the coming future.

Next time, we will be discussing more advanced ascpets of this layout principle, such as multi-tiered headings and asides.

Until then, I hope that you have learned something new from this subject.

-Christopher Bright

Notes

  • Starting from now, if this article does not thoroughly desribe something for you, please leave a comment detailing your problem. I will do my best to update it.
  • I will soon be working out a method to rate the usefulness of this article, for future reference.
  • Any comments made will be taken into consideration for the future. I intend to make this beneficial for everyone, so all comments are accepted.
  • Examples will now be made within iframes, due to the possible large size of the content.

References

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Written by Lewis Carroll
Converted to ebook by David Widger of Project Gutenberg.
www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm#2HCH0001
All rights go to their respective owners.

Updates

  • I have made a fix to the specific coding of the CSS, condensing it as much as possible, I believe.
  • Although further feedback will be needed to make a final decision, this may be the final entry of this series at this time.

Posted in Elements, Syntax, Tutorials | 7 Comments »

The Future of the Web: My Vision (May 1, 2012)

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

Like probably many others who read this blog, I am a web design enthusiast, web standards advocate, and web designer by trade. I have been working with HTML since the early 2000s, and have enjoyed it ever since.

Over the years, the web has evolved around me. I have watched it grow and adapt. And now, as a newly started professional web designer, I wish to contribute.

From this week forward, I will be writing and sharing both opinions and tutorials on my opinions of the web, where it’s gone, and most importantly, where it’s going.



Article 1: Websites and Sectioning
Part 1: The Basics


<warning>Warning: This article discusses the topic of <semantics>semantics</semantics></warning>

As a researcher by hobby, I often find myself reading through various encyclopedic websites. Whether it be a wiki, or a single purpose website devoted specifically to that aim, I spend countless hours of my time using them.

With the new work on HTML to semantically markup a website, I am rather excited to see what the future may hold for such informational websites. The concepts written in the specifications and drafts are very intriguing, and will hopefully someday improve the semantic importance of the web. Combine this with the ability for future screen readers, search engines, etc. to extract such data, the possibilities are near endless.

However, as I have read around, I have noticed that not all things are as clear as they should be. Although it has been several years since the formerly labeled HTML5 specification has come into the light, I can still see these arguments floating about.

In this specific case, I am referring to the use of the semantic elements such as <article>, <section>, and so-forth, as well as their relationship to the <h1>-<h6> elements.

Because it seems that many are in disagreement about the matter, I felt I should share my opinions as to what they mean, and how they could be used.

Below, you will see the method I have devised for sectioning out content.


(Note: All information is of my personal opinion, and may not reflect the views of other web designers, the WHATWG, or the W3C.)


Firstly, let us imagine the idea of a web page, likely encyclopedic in content. This page has a single focus, a single section, and a single paragraph.

At the very basic, it would be marked up as follows:


<article>
<section>
<p>Hello, World!</p>
</section>
</article>

Figure 1
Output of Example 1

As we can see, this bare minimum design utilizes three elements: <article>, <section>, and <p>. These elements, as can be semantically understood, represent the start of the article, the internal section, and the paragraph within the section.

Fairly simple, right?

Well, let’s take this a step further. What if you were to want to add a title to the article?

This is how it would be done.


<article>
<header><h1>Hello, World!</h1></header>
<section>
<p>Hello, World!</p>
</section>
</article>

Figure 2
Output of Example 2

Now, we see the addition of two new elements: <header> and <h1>. The <header> element designates this region of the document as the header of the article. The <h1> element designates this line of text as the title, or heading of the article.

Still, this seems simple, doesn’t it?

For our next step, let’s say that we wish to increase the scope of this article, from Hello, World! to Hello, World! and Foobar.


<article>
<header><h1>Hello, World! and Foobar</h1></header>
<section>
<h1>Hello, World!</h1>
<p>Hello, World!</p>
</section>
<section>
<h1>Foobar</h1>
<p>Foo</p>
<p>Bar</p>
</section>
</article>

Figure 3
Output of Example 3

Now we have an article which is both titled, and has two titled sections, each containing a heading within an <h1> element. We also have the article itself, headed within both an <h1> and <header> element.

This concept, though simplistic, is easy to read by humans, and holds semantic value to machines and scripts.


In conclusion, this is the way that I view the new method of sectioning content in HTML. Using this method, we come up with a quick, easy method to divide a document, and even a website, into logical sections which can be easily read by both humans and machines.

Next time, we will be discussing part two of this topic: Styling.

Until then,

-Christopher Bright

Posted in Elements, Syntax, Tutorials | 8 Comments »

Validator.nu HTML Parser Version 1.3.1 Released

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

There is now a new release of the Validator.nu HTML Parser. The new release contains files that were missing from the previous release package by accident. It also contains one tree builder correctness fix and one error reporting improvement.

Posted in Syntax | Comments Off on Validator.nu HTML Parser Version 1.3.1 Released

Version 1.3 of the Validator.nu HTML Parser Released

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

After over a year without proper releases, there is now a new release of the Validator.nu HTML Parser. There have been numerous changes to the HTML5 spec and, consequently, to the parser since the previous release. All users of the parser should update to the latest release in order to run a version that corresponds to the current spec.

Posted in Syntax | Comments Off on Version 1.3 of the Validator.nu HTML Parser Released

XHTML5 in a nutshell

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

The WHATWG Wiki portal has a nice section describing HTML vs. XHTML differences, as well as specifics of a polyglot HTML document that also would be able to serve HTML5 document as valid XML document. I'd like to review what it takes to transform an HTML5 polyglot document into a valid XHTML5 document: it appears, finally the 'XHTML5' has become an official name.

The W3C first public working draft of "Polyglot Markup" recommendation describes polyglot HTML document as a document that conforms to both the HTML and XHTML syntax by using a common subset of both the HTML and XHTML and in a nutshell the HTML5 polyglot document is:

Polyglot document could serve as either HTML or XHTML, depending on browser support and MIME type. A polyglot HTML5 code essentially becomes XHTML5 document if it is served with the XML MIME type application/xhtml+xml . In a nutshell the XHTML5 document is: Finally, the basic XHTML5 document would look like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />

</head>

<body>
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<rect stroke="black" fill="blue" x="45px" y="45px" width="200px" height="100px" stroke-width="2" />
</svg>
</body>
</html>

The XML declaration <?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?> is not required if the default UTF-8 encoding is used: an XHTML5 validator would not mind if it is omitted. However it is strongly recommended to configure the encoding using server HTTP Content-Type header, otherwise this character encoding could be included in the document as part of a meta tag <meta charset="UTF-8" />. This encoding declaration would be needed for a polyglot document so that it will be treated as UTF-8 if served as either HTML or XHTML.

The Total Validator Tool - Firefox plugin/desktop app has now the user-selectable option for XHTML5-specific validation.

I would say that the main advantage of using XHTML5 would be the ability to extend HTML5 to XML-based technologies such as SVG and MathML. The disadvantage is the lack of Internet Explorer support, more verbose code, and error handling. Unless we need that extensibility, HTML5 is the way to go.

Posted in Syntax, What's Next, WHATWG | 26 Comments »