A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML
body
elementhtml
element.onafterprint
onbeforeprint
onbeforeunload
onhashchange
onmessage
onoffline
ononline
onpagehide
onpageshow
onpopstate
onstorage
onunload
body
element's start tag may be omitted if
the element is empty, or if the first thing inside the body
element is not a
space character or a comment, except if the
first thing inside the body
element is a meta
, link
, script
, style
, or template
element. body
element's end tag may be omitted if the
body
element is not immediately followed by a comment.document
role (default - do not set), application
.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.interface HTMLBodyElement : HTMLElement { }; HTMLBodyElement implements WindowEventHandlers;
The body
element represents the
content of the document.
In conforming documents, there is only one body
element. The document.body
IDL attribute provides scripts with easy access to a document's
body
element.
Some DOM operations (for example, parts of the
drag and drop model) are defined in terms of "the
body element". This refers to a particular element in the
DOM, as per the definition of the term, and not any arbitrary
body
element.
The body
element exposes as event handler
content attributes a number of the event
handlers of the Window
object. It also mirrors
their event handler IDL attributes.
The onblur
, onerror
,
onfocus
, onload
, onresize
, and
onscroll
event handlers of the
Window
object, exposed on the body
element, replace the generic
event handlers with the same names normally supported by HTML elements.
Thus, for example, a bubbling error
event dispatched on a child of
the body element of a Document
would first
trigger the onerror
event
handler content attributes of that element, then that of the
root html
element, and only then would it
trigger the onerror
event handler content
attribute on the body
element. This is because
the event would bubble from the target, to the body
, to
the html
, to the Document
, to the
Window
, and the event
handler on the body
is watching the
Window
not the body
. A regular event
listener attached to the body
using addEventListener()
, however, would be run when the
event bubbled through the body
and not when it reaches
the Window
object.
This page updates an indicator to show whether or not the user is online:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head> <title>Online or offline?</title> <script> function update(online) { document.getElementById('status').textContent = online ? 'Online' : 'Offline'; } </script> </head> <body ononline="update(true)" onoffline="update(false)" onload="update(navigator.onLine)"> <p>You are: <span id="status">(Unknown)</span></p> </body> </html>
article
elementmain
element descendants.article
(default - do not set), application
, document
or main
.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.HTMLElement
.The article
element represents a complete, or self-contained,
composition in a document, page, application, or site and that is, in principle, independently
distributable or reusable, e.g. in syndication. This could be a forum post, a magazine or
newspaper article, a blog entry, a user-submitted comment, an interactive widget or gadget, or any
other independent item of content.
When article
elements are nested, the inner article
elements
represent articles that are in principle related to the contents of the outer article. For
instance, a blog entry on a site that accepts user-submitted comments could represent the comments
as article
elements nested within the article
element for the blog
entry.
Author information associated with an article
element (q.v. the
address
element) does not apply to nested article
elements.
When used specifically with content to be redistributed in syndication, the
article
element is similar in purpose to the entry
element in
Atom. [ATOM]
The schema.org microdata vocabulary can be used to provide the publication date
for an article
element, using one of the CreativeWork subtypes.
When the main content of the page (i.e. excluding footers, headers, navigation blocks, and
sidebars) is all one single self-contained composition, the content should be marked up with a
main
element and the content may also be marked with an article
, but
it is technically redundant in this case (since it's self-evident that the page is a single
composition, as it is a single document).
This example shows a blog post using the article
element, with some schema.org
annotations:
<article itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"> <header> <h1 itemprop="headline">The Very First Rule of Life</h1> <p><time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2009-10-09">3 days ago</time></p> <link itemprop="url" href="?comments=0"> </header> <p>If there's a microphone anywhere near you, assume it's hot and sending whatever you're saying to the world. Seriously.</p> <p>...</p> <footer> <a itemprop="discussionUrl" href="?comments=1">Show comments...</a> </footer> </article>
Here is that same blog post, but showing some of the comments:
<article itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"> <header> <h1 itemprop="headline">The Very First Rule of Life</h1> <p><time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2009-10-09">3 days ago</time></p> <link itemprop="url" href="?comments=0"> </header> <p>If there's a microphone anywhere near you, assume it's hot and sending whatever you're saying to the world. Seriously.</p> <p>...</p> <section> <h1>Comments</h1> <article itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments" id="c1"> <link itemprop="url" href="#c1"> <footer> <p>Posted by: <span itemprop="creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"> <span itemprop="name">George Washington</span> </span></p> <p><time itemprop="commentTime" datetime="2009-10-10">15 minutes ago</time></p> </footer> <p>Yeah! Especially when talking about your lobbyist friends!</p> </article> <article itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments" id="c2"> <link itemprop="url" href="#c2"> <footer> <p>Posted by: <span itemprop="creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"> <span itemprop="name">George Hammond</span> </span></p> <p><time itemprop="commentTime" datetime="2009-10-10">5 minutes ago</time></p> </footer> <p>Hey, you have the same first name as me.</p> </article> </section> </article>
Notice the use of footer
to give the information for each comment (such as who
wrote it and when): the footer
element can appear at the start of its
section when appropriate, such as in this case. (Using header
in this case wouldn't
be wrong either; it's mostly a matter of authoring preference.)
section
elementregion
role (default - do not set), alert
, alertdialog
, application
, contentinfo
, dialog
, document
, log
, main
, marquee
, presentation
, search
or status
.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.HTMLElement
.The section
element represents a generic section of a document or
application. A section, in this context, is a thematic grouping of content. The theme of each section
should be identified, typically by including a heading (h1
-h6
element) as
a child of the section
element.
Examples of sections would be chapters, the various tabbed pages in a tabbed dialog box, or the numbered sections of a thesis. A Web site's home page could be split into sections for an introduction, news items, and contact information.
Authors are encouraged to use the article
element instead of the
section
element when it would make sense to syndicate the contents of the
element.
The section
element is not a generic
container element. When an element is needed only for styling purposes or as a convenience for
scripting, authors are encouraged to use the div
element instead. A general rule is
that the section
element is appropriate only if the element's contents would be
listed explicitly in the document's outline.
In the following example, we see an article (part of a larger Web page) about apples, containing two short sections.
<article> <header> <h2>Apples</h2> <p>Tasty, delicious fruit!</p> </header> <p>The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree.</p> <section> <h3>Red Delicious</h3> <p>These bright red apples are the most common found in many supermarkets.</p> </section> <section> <h3>Granny Smith</h3> <p>These juicy, green apples make a great filling for apple pies.</p> </section> </article>
Here is a graduation programme with two sections, one for the list of people graduating, and one for the description of the ceremony. (The markup in this example features an uncommon style sometimes used to minimize the amount of inter-element whitespace.)
<!DOCTYPE Html> <Html ><Head ><Title >Graduation Ceremony Summer 2022</Title ></Head ><Body ><H1 >Graduation</H1 ><Section ><H2 >Ceremony</H2 ><P >Opening Procession</P ><P >Speech by Validactorian</P ><P >Speech by Class President</P ><P >Presentation of Diplomas</P ><P >Closing Speech by Headmaster</P ></Section ><Section ><H2 >Graduates</H2 ><Ul ><Li >Molly Carpenter</Li ><Li >Anastasia Luccio</Li ><Li >Ebenezar McCoy</Li ><Li >Karrin Murphy</Li ><Li >Thomas Raith</Li ><Li >Susan Rodriguez</Li ></Ul ></Section ></Body ></Html>
In this example, a book author has marked up some sections as chapters and some as appendices,
and uses CSS to style the headers in these two classes of section differently. The whole book is
wrapped in an article
element as part of an even larger document containing other
books.
<article class="book"> <style> section { border: double medium; margin: 2em; } section.chapter h1 { font: 2em Roboto, Helvetica Neue, sans-serif; } section.appendix h1 { font: small-caps 2em Roboto, Helvetica Neue, sans-serif; } </style> <header> <h2>My Book</h2> <p>A sample with not much content</p> <p><small>Published by Dummy Publicorp Ltd.</small></p> </header> <section class="chapter"> <h3>My First Chapter</h3> <p>This is the first of my chapters. It doesn't say much.</p> <p>But it has two paragraphs!</p> </section> <section class="chapter"> <h3>It Continutes: The Second Chapter</h3> <p>Bla dee bla, dee bla dee bla. Boom.</p> </section> <section class="chapter"> <h3>Chapter Three: A Further Example</h3> <p>It's not like a battle between brightness and earthtones would go unnoticed.</p> <p>But it might ruin my story.</p> </section> <section class="appendix"> <h3>Appendix A: Overview of Examples</h3> <p>These are demonstrations.</p> </section> <section class="appendix"> <h3>Appendix B: Some Closing Remarks</h3> <p>Hopefully this long example shows that you <em>can</em> style sections, so long as they are used to indicate actual sections.</p> </section> </article>
nav
elementmain
element descendants.navigation
role (default - do not set) or presentation
.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.HTMLElement
.The nav
element represents a section of a page that links to other
pages or to parts within the page: a section with navigation links.
In cases where the content of a nav
element represents a list of items,
use list markup to aid understanding and navigation.
Not all groups of links on a page need to be in a nav
element —
the element is primarily intended for sections that consist of major navigation blocks. In
particular, it is common for footers to have a short list of links to various pages of a site,
such as the terms of service, the home page, and a copyright page. The footer
element
alone is sufficient for such cases; while a nav
element can be used in such cases, it
is usually unnecessary.
User agents (such as screen readers) that are targeted at users who can benefit from navigation information being omitted in the initial rendering, or who can benefit from navigation information being immediately available, can use this element as a way to determine what content on the page to initially skip or provide on request (or both).
In the following example, the page has several places where links are present, but only one of those places is considered a navigation section.
<body itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Blog"> <header> <h1>Wake up sheeple!</h1> <p><a href="news.html">News</a> - <a href="blog.html">Blog</a> - <a href="forums.html">Forums</a></p> <p>Last Modified: <span itemprop="dateModified">2009-04-01</span></p> <nav> <h1>Navigation</h1> <ul> <li><a href="articles.html">Index of all articles</a></li> <li><a href="today.html">Things sheeple need to wake up for today</a></li> <li><a href="successes.html">Sheeple we have managed to wake</a></li> </ul> </nav> </header> <main> <article itemprop="blogPosts" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"> <header> <h1 itemprop="headline">My Day at the Beach</h1> </header> <div itemprop="articleBody"> <p>Today I went to the beach and had a lot of fun.</p> ...more content... </div> <footer> <p>Posted <time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2009-10-10">Thursday</time>.</p> </footer> </article> ...more blog posts... </main> <footer> <p>Copyright © <span itemprop="copyrightYear">2010</span> <span itemprop="copyrightHolder">The Example Company</span> </p> <p><a href="about.html">About</a> - <a href="policy.html">Privacy Policy</a> - <a href="contact.html">Contact Us</a></p> </footer> </body>
Notice the main
element being used to wrap the
main content of the page. In this case, all content other than
the page header and footer.
You can also see microdata annotations in the above example that use the schema.org vocabulary to provide the publication date and other metadata about the blog post.
In the following example, there are two nav
elements, one for primary navigation
around the site, and one for secondary navigation around the page itself.
<body> <h1>The Wiki Center Of Exampland</h1> <nav> <ul> <li><a href="/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="/events">Current Events</a></li> ...more... </ul> </nav> <main> <header> <h1>Demos in Exampland</h1> <p>Written by A. N. Other.</p> </header> <nav> <ul> <li><a href="#public">Public demonstrations</a></li> <li><a href="#destroy">Demolitions</a></li> ...more... </ul> </nav> <div> <section id="public"> <h1>Public demonstrations</h1> <p>...more...</p> </section> <section id="destroy"> <h1>Demolitions</h1> <p>...more...</p> </section> ...more... </div> <footer> <p><a href="?edit">Edit</a> | <a href="?delete">Delete</a> | <a href="?Rename">Rename</a></p> </footer> </main> <footer> <p><small>© copyright 1998 Exampland Emperor</small></p> </footer> </body>
A nav
element doesn't have to contain a list, it can contain other kinds of
content as well. In this navigation block, links are provided in prose:
<nav> <h1>Navigation</h1> <p>You are on my home page. To the north lies <a href="/blog">my blog</a>, from whence the sounds of battle can be heard. To the east you can see a large mountain, upon which many <a href="/school">school papers</a> are littered. Far up thus mountain you can spy a little figure who appears to be me, desperately scribbling a <a href="/school/thesis">thesis</a>.</p> <p>To the west are several exits. One fun-looking exit is labeled <a href="http://games.example.com/">"games"</a>. Another more boring-looking exit is labeled <a href="http://isp.example.net/">ISP™</a>.</p> <p>To the south lies a dark and dank <a href="/about">contacts page</a>. Cobwebs cover its disused entrance, and at one point you see a rat run quickly out of the page.</p> </nav>
aside
elementmain
element descendants.complementary
role (default - do not set), note
, search
or presentation
.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.HTMLElement
.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. Such sections are often represented as
sidebars in printed typography.
The element can be used for typographical effects like pull quotes or sidebars, for
advertising, for groups of nav
elements, and for other content that is considered
separate from the main content of the page.
It's not appropriate to use the aside
element just for
parentheticals, since those are part of the main flow of the document.
The following example shows how an aside is used to mark up background material on Switzerland in a much longer news story on Europe.
<aside> <h1>Switzerland</h1> <p>Switzerland, a land-locked country in the middle of geographic Europe, has not joined the geopolitical European Union, though it is a signatory to a number of European treaties.</p> </aside>
The following example shows how an aside is used to mark up a pull quote in a longer article.
... <p>He later joined a large company, continuing on the same work. <q>I love my job. People ask me what I do for fun when I'm not at work. But I'm paid to do my hobby, so I never know what to answer. Some people wonder what they would do if they didn't have to work... but I know what I would do, because I was unemployed for a year, and I filled that time doing exactly what I do now.</q></p> <aside> <q> People ask me what I do for fun when I'm not at work. But I'm paid to do my hobby, so I never know what to answer. </q> </aside> <p>Of course his work — or should that be hobby? — isn't his only passion. He also enjoys other pleasures.</p> ...
The following extract shows how aside
can be used for blogrolls and other side
content on a blog:
<body> <header> <h1>My wonderful blog</h1> <p>My tagline</p> </header> <aside> <!-- this aside contains two sections that are tangentially related to the page, namely, links to other blogs, and links to blog posts from this blog --> <nav> <h1>My blogroll</h1> <ul> <li><a href="http://blog.example.com/">Example Blog</a> </ul> </nav> <nav> <h1>Archives</h1> <ol reversed> <li><a href="/last-post">My last post</a> <li><a href="/first-post">My first post</a> </ol> </nav> </aside> <aside> <!-- this aside is tangentially related to the page also, it contains twitter messages from the blog author --> <h1>Twitter Feed</h1> <blockquote cite="http://twitter.example.net/t31351234"> I'm on vacation, writing my blog. </blockquote> <blockquote cite="http://twitter.example.net/t31219752"> I'm going to go on vacation soon. </blockquote> </aside> <article> <!-- this is a blog post --> <h1>My last post</h1> <p>This is my last post.</p> <footer> <p><a href="/last-post" rel=bookmark>Permalink</a> </footer> </article> <article> <!-- this is also a blog post --> <h1>My first post</h1> <p>This is my first post.</p> <aside> <!-- this aside is about the blog post, since it's inside the <article> element; it would be wrong, for instance, to put the blogroll here, since the blogroll isn't really related to this post specifically, only to the page as a whole --> <h1>Posting</h1> <p>While I'm thinking about it, I wanted to say something about posting. Posting is fun!</p> </aside> <footer> <p><a href="/first-post" rel=bookmark>Permalink</a> </footer> </article> <footer> <nav> <a href="/archives">Archives</a> — <a href="/about">About me</a> — <a href="/copyright">Copyright</a> </nav> </footer> </body>
h1
, h2
, h3
, h4
, h5
, and
h6
elementsheading
role (default - do not set), tab
or presentation
.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.interface HTMLHeadingElement : HTMLElement {};
These elements represent headings for their sections.
The semantics and meaning of these elements are defined in the section on headings and sections.
These elements have a rank given by the number in their name. The h1
element is said to have the highest rank, the h6
element has the lowest rank, and two
elements with the same name have equal rank.
h1
–h6
elements must not be used to markup subheadings, subtitles, alternative titles and taglines unless intended to be the heading for a new section or subsection. Instead use the markup patterns in the Common idioms without dedicated elements section of the specification.
As far as their respective document outlines (their heading and section structures) are concerned, these two snippets are semantically equivalent:
<body> <h1>Let's call it a draw(ing surface)</h1> <h2>Diving in</h2> <h2>Simple shapes</h2> <h2>Canvas coordinates</h2> <h3>Canvas coordinates diagram</h3> <h2>Paths</h2> </body>
<body> <h1>Let's call it a draw(ing surface)</h1> <section> <h1>Diving in</h1> </section> <section> <h1>Simple shapes</h1> </section> <section> <h1>Canvas coordinates</h1> <section> <h1>Canvas coordinates diagram</h1> </section> </section> <section> <h1>Paths</h1> </section> </body>
Authors might prefer the former style for its terseness, or the latter style for its convenience in the face of heavy editing; which is best is purely an issue of preferred authoring style.
header
elementheader
, footer
, or main
element descendants.banner
role (default - do not set) or presentation
.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.HTMLElement
.The header
element represents introductory content
for its nearest ancestor sectioning content or
sectioning root element. A header
typically contains a group of introductory or navigational
aids.
When the nearest ancestor sectioning content or sectioning root element is the body element, then it applies to the whole page.
A header
element is intended to usually contain the section's heading
(an h1
–h6
element), but this is
not required. The header
element can also be used to wrap a section's table of
contents, a search form, or any relevant logos.
Here are some sample headers. This first one is for a game:
<header> <p>Welcome to...</p> <h1>Voidwars!</h1> </header>
The following snippet shows how the element can be used to mark up a specification's header:
<header> <h1>Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.2</h1> <p>W3C Working Draft 27 October 2004</p> <dl> <dt>This version:</dt> <dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20041027/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20041027/</a></dd> <dt>Previous version:</dt> <dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20040510/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20040510/</a></dd> <dt>Latest version of SVG 1.2:</dt> <dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/">http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/</a></dd> <dt>Latest SVG Recommendation:</dt> <dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/">http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/</a></dd> <dt>Editor:</dt> <dd>Dean Jackson, W3C, <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></dd> <dt>Authors:</dt> <dd>See <a href="#authors">Author List</a></dd> </dl> <p class="copyright"><a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notic ... </header>
The header
element is not sectioning content; it doesn't
introduce a new section.
In this example, the page has a page heading given by the h1
element, and two
subsections whose headings are given by h2
elements. The content after the
header
element is still part of the last subsection started in the
header
element, because the header
element doesn't take part in the
outline algorithm.
<body> <header> <h1>Little Green Guys With Guns</h1> <nav> <ul> <li><a href="/games">Games</a> <li><a href="/forum">Forum</a> <li><a href="/download">Download</a> </ul> </nav> <h2>Important News</h2> <!-- this starts a second subsection --> <!-- this is part of the subsection entitled "Important News" --> <p>To play today's games you will need to update your client.</p> <h2>Games</h2> <!-- this starts a third subsection --> </header> <p>You have three active games:</p> <!-- this is still part of the subsection entitled "Games" --> ...
footer
elementheader
, footer
, or main
element descendants.contentinfo
role (default - do not set) or presentation
.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.HTMLElement
.The footer
element represents a footer
for its nearest ancestor sectioning content or
sectioning root element. A footer typically contains
information about its section such as who wrote it, links to related
documents, copyright data, and the like.
When the footer
element contains entire sections,
they represent appendices, indexes,
long colophons, verbose license agreements, and other such
content.
Contact information for the author or editor of a
section belongs in an address
element, possibly itself
inside a footer
. Bylines and other information that
could be suitable for both a header
or a
footer
can be placed in either (or neither). The
primary purpose of these elements is merely to help the author write
self-explanatory markup that is easy to maintain and style; they are
not intended to impose specific structures on authors.
Footers don't necessarily have to appear at the end of a section, though they usually do.
When the nearest ancestor sectioning content or sectioning root element is the body element, then it applies to the whole page.
The footer
element is not
sectioning content; it doesn't introduce a new
section.
Here is a page with two footers, one at the top and one at the bottom, with the same content:
<body> <footer><a href="../">Back to index...</a></footer> <div> <h1>Lorem ipsum</h1> <p>The ipsum of all lorems</p> </div> <p>A dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p> <footer><a href="../">Back to index...</a></footer> </body>
Here is an example which shows the footer
element
being used both for a site-wide footer and for a section
footer.
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <HTML><HEAD> <TITLE>The Ramblings of a Scientist</TITLE> <BODY> <H1>The Ramblings of a Scientist</H1> <MAIN> <ARTICLE> <H1>Episode 15</H1> <VIDEO SRC="/fm/015.ogv" CONTROLS PRELOAD> <P><A HREF="/fm/015.ogv">Download video</A>.</P> </VIDEO> <FOOTER> <!-- footer for article --> <P>Published <TIME DATETIME="2009-10-21T18:26-07:00">on 2009/10/21 at 6:26pm</TIME></P> </FOOTER> </ARTICLE> <ARTICLE> <H1>My Favorite Trains</H1> <P>I love my trains. My favorite train of all time is a Köf.</P> <P>It is fun to see them pull some coal cars because they look so dwarfed in comparison.</P> <FOOTER> <!-- footer for article --> <P>Published <TIME DATETIME="2009-09-15T14:54-07:00">on 2009/09/15 at 2:54pm</TIME></P> </FOOTER> </ARTICLE> </MAIN> <FOOTER> <!-- site wide footer --> <NAV> <P><A HREF="/credits.html">Credits</A> — <A HREF="/tos.html">Terms of Service</A> — <A HREF="/index.html">Blog Index</A></P> </NAV> <P>Copyright © 2009 Gordon Freeman</P> </FOOTER> </BODY> </HTML>
Some site designs have what is sometimes referred to as "fat footers" — footers that contain a lot of material, including images, links to other articles, links to pages for sending feedback, special offers... in some ways, a whole "front page" in the footer.
This fragment shows the bottom of a page on a site with a "fat footer":
... <footer> <nav> <section> <h1>Articles</h1> <p><img src="images/somersaults.jpeg" alt=""> Go to the gym with our somersaults class! Our teacher Jim takes you through the paces in this two-part article. <a href="articles/somersaults/1">Part 1</a> · <a href="articles/somersaults/2">Part 2</a></p> <p><img src="images/kindplus.jpeg"> Tired of walking on the edge of a clif<!-- sic -->? Our guest writer Lara shows you how to bumble your way through the bars. <a href="articles/kindplus/1">Read more...</a></p> <p><img src="images/crisps.jpeg"> The chips are down, now all that's left is a potato. What can you do with it? <a href="articles/crisps/1">Read more...</a></p> </section> <ul> <li> <a href="/about">About us...</a> <li> <a href="/feedback">Send feedback!</a> <li> <a href="/sitemap">Sitemap</a> </ul> </nav> <p><small>Copyright © 2015 The Snacker — <a href="/tos">Terms of Service</a></small></p> </footer> </body>
address
elementheader
, footer
, or
address
element descendants.contentinfo
role.aria-*
attributes applicable to the allowed roles.HTMLElement
.The address
element represents the
contact information for its nearest article
or
body
element ancestor. If that is the body
element, then the contact information applies to the document
as a whole.
For example, a page at the W3C Web site related to HTML might include the following contact information:
<ADDRESS> <A href="../People/Raggett/">Dave Raggett</A>, <A href="../People/Arnaud/">Arnaud Le Hors</A>, contact persons for the <A href="Activity">W3C HTML Activity</A> </ADDRESS>
The address
element must not be used to represent
arbitrary addresses (e.g. postal addresses), unless those addresses
are in fact the relevant contact information. (The p
element is the appropriate element for marking up postal addresses
in general.)
The address
element must not contain information
other than contact information.
For example, the following is non-conforming use of the
address
element:
<ADDRESS>Last Modified: 1999/12/24 23:37:50</ADDRESS>
Typically, the address
element would be included
along with other information in a footer
element.
The contact information for a node node is a
collection of address
elements defined by the first
applicable entry from the following list:
article
elementbody
elementThe contact information consists of all the
address
elements that have node
as an ancestor and do not have another body
or
article
element ancestor that is a descendant of node.
article
elementbody
elementThe contact information of node is the same
as the contact information of the nearest article
or
body
element ancestor, whichever is nearest.
Document
has a body elementThe contact information of node is the same
as the contact information of the body element of the
Document
.
There is no contact information for node.
User agents may expose the contact information of a node to the user, or use it for other purposes, such as indexing sections based on the sections' contact information.
In this example the footer contains contact information and a copyright notice.
<footer> <address> For more details, contact <a href="mailto:[email protected]">John Smith</a>. </address> <p><small>© copyright 2038 Example Corp.</small></p> </footer>
The h1
–h6
elements are headings.
The first element of heading content in an element of sectioning content represents the heading for that section. Subsequent headings of equal or higher rank start new (implied) sections, headings of lower rank start implied subsections that are part of the previous one. In both cases, the element represents the heading of the implied section.
h1
–h6
elements must not be used to markup subheadings, subtitles, alternative titles and taglines unless intended to be the heading for a new section or subsection. Instead use the markup patterns in the Common idioms without dedicated elements section of the specification.
Certain elements are said to be sectioning roots, including blockquote
and
td
elements. These elements can have their own
outlines, but the sections and headings inside these elements do not
contribute to the outlines of their ancestors.
Sectioning content elements are always considered subsections of their nearest ancestor sectioning root or their nearest ancestor element of sectioning content, whichever is nearest, regardless of what implied sections other headings may have created.
For the following fragment:
<body> <h1>Foo</h1> <h2>Bar</h2> <blockquote> <h3>Bla</h3> </blockquote> <p>Baz</p> <h2>Quux</h2> <section> <h3>Thud</h3> </section> <p>Grunt</p> </body>
...the structure would be:
body
section, containing the "Grunt" paragraph)
section
section)
Notice how the section
ends the earlier implicit
section so that a later paragraph ("Grunt") is back at the top
level.
Sections may contain headings of any rank, and authors are strongly encouraged to use headings of the appropriate rank for the section's nesting level.
Authors are also encouraged to explicitly wrap sections in elements of sectioning content, instead of relying on the implicit sections generated by having multiple headings in one element of sectioning content.
For example, the following is correct:
<body> <h4>Apples</h4> <p>Apples are fruit.</p> <section> <h2>Taste</h2> <p>They taste lovely.</p> <h6>Sweet</h6> <p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p> <h1>Color</h1> <p>Apples come in various colors.</p> </section> </body>
However, the same document would be more clearly expressed as:
<body> <h1>Apples</h1> <p>Apples are fruit.</p> <section> <h2>Taste</h2> <p>They taste lovely.</p> <section> <h3>Sweet</h3> <p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p> </section> </section> <section> <h2>Color</h2> <p>Apples come in various colors.</p> </section> </body>
Both of the documents above are semantically identical and would produce the same outline in compliant user agents.
This third example is also semantically identical, and might be easier to maintain (e.g. if sections are often moved around in editing):
<body> <h1>Apples</h1> <p>Apples are fruit.</p> <section> <h1>Taste</h1> <p>They taste lovely.</p> <section> <h1>Sweet</h1> <p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p> </section> </section> <section> <h1>Color</h1> <p>Apples come in various colors.</p> </section> </body>
This final example would need explicit style rules to be rendered well in legacy browsers. Legacy browsers without CSS support would render all the headings as top-level headings.
This section defines an algorithm for creating an outline for a sectioning content element or a sectioning root element. It is defined in terms of a walk over the nodes of a DOM tree, in tree order, with each node being visited when it is entered and when it is exited during the walk.
The outline for a sectioning content element or a sectioning
root element consists of a list of one or more potentially nested sections. A section is a
container that corresponds to some nodes in the original DOM tree. Each section can have one
heading associated with it, and can contain any number of further nested sections. The algorithm for the outline also associates each node in the DOM tree with a
particular section and potentially a heading. (The sections in the outline aren't
section
elements, though some may correspond to such elements — they are merely
conceptual sections.)
The following markup fragment:
<body> <h1>A</h1> <p>B</p> <h2>C</h2> <p>D</p> <h2>E</h2> <p>F</p> </body>
...results in the following outline being created for the body
node (and thus the
entire document):
Section created for body
node.
Associated with heading "A".
Also associated with paragraph "B".
Nested sections:
The algorithm that must be followed during a walk of a DOM subtree rooted at a sectioning content element or a sectioning root element to determine that element's outline is as follows:
Let current outline target be null. (It holds the element whose outline is being created.)
Let current section be null. (It holds a pointer to a section, so that elements in the DOM can all be associated with a section.)
Create a stack to hold elements, which is used to handle nesting. Initialize this stack to empty.
Walk over the DOM in tree order, starting with the sectioning content element or sectioning root element at the root of the subtree for which an outline is to be created, and trigger the first relevant step below for each element as the walk enters and exits it.
The element being exited is a heading content element or an
element with a hidden
attribute.
Pop that element from the stack.
hidden
attributeDo nothing.
hidden
attributePush the element being entered onto the stack. (This causes the algorithm to skip that element and any descendants of the element.)
Run these steps:
If current outline target is not null, run these substeps:
If the current section has no heading, create an implied heading and let that be the heading for the current section.
Push current outline target onto the stack.
Let current outline target be the element that is being entered.
Let current section be a newly created section for the current outline target element.
Associate current outline target with current section.
Let there be a new outline for the new current outline target, initialized with just the new current section as the only section in the outline.
Run these steps:
If the current section has no heading, create an implied heading and let that be the heading for the current section.
Pop the top element from the stack, and let the current outline target be that element.
Let current section be the last section in the outline of the current outline target element.
Append the outline of the sectioning content element being exited to the current section. (This does not change which section is the last section in the outline.)
Run these steps:
If current outline target is not null, push current outline target onto the stack.
Let current outline target be the element that is being entered.
Let current outline target's parent section be current section.
Let current section be a newly created section for the current outline target element.
Let there be a new outline for the new current outline target, initialized with just the new current section as the only section in the outline.
Run these steps:
If the current section has no heading, create an implied heading and let that be the heading for the current section.
Let current section be current outline target's parent section.
Pop the top element from the stack, and let the current outline target be that element.
The current outline target is the element being exited, and it is the sectioning content element or a sectioning root element at the root of the subtree for which an outline is being generated.
If the current section has no heading, create an implied heading and let that be the heading for the current section.
Skip to the next step in the overall set of steps. (The walk is over.)
If the current section has no heading, let the element being entered be the heading for the current section.
Otherwise, if the element being entered has a rank equal to or higher than the heading of the last section of the outline of the current outline target, or if the heading of the last section of the outline of the current outline target is an implied heading, then create a new section and append it to the outline of the current outline target element, so that this new section is the new last section of that outline. Let current section be that new section. Let the element being entered be the new heading for the current section.
Otherwise, run these substeps:
Let candidate section be current section.
Heading loop: If the element being entered has a rank lower than the rank of the heading of the candidate section, then create a new section, and append it to candidate section. (This does not change which section is the last section in the outline.) Let current section be this new section. Let the element being entered be the new heading for the current section. Abort these substeps.
Let new candidate section be the section that contains candidate section in the outline of current outline target.
Let candidate section be new candidate section.
Return to the step labeled heading loop.
Push the element being entered onto the stack. (This causes the algorithm to skip any descendants of the element.)
Recall that h1
has the highest rank, and h6
has the lowest rank.
Do nothing.
In addition, whenever the walk exits a node, after doing the steps above, if the node is not associated with a section yet, associate the node with the section current section.
Associate all nodes with the heading of the section with which they are associated, if any.
The tree of sections created by the algorithm above, or a proper subset thereof, must be used when generating document outlines, for example when generating tables of contents.
The outline created for the body element of a Document
is the
outline of the entire document.
When creating an interactive table of contents, entries should jump the user to the relevant sectioning content element, if the section was created for a real element in the original document, or to the relevant heading content element, if the section in the tree was generated for a heading in the above process.
Selecting the first section of the document
therefore always takes the user to the top of the document, regardless of where the first heading
in the body
is to be found.
The outline depth of a heading content element associated with a section section is the number of sections that are ancestors of section in the
outermost outline that section finds itself in when the outlines of its Document
's elements are created, plus 1. The
outline depth of a heading content element not associated with a section is 1.
User agents should provide default headings for sections that do not have explicit section headings.
Consider the following snippet:
<body> <nav> <p><a href="/">Home</a></p> </nav> <p>Hello world.</p> <aside> <p>My cat is cute.</p> </aside> </body>
Although it contains no headings, this snippet has three sections: a document (the
body
) with two subsections (a nav
and an aside
). A user
agent could present the outline as follows:
These default headings ("Untitled document", "Navigation", "Sidebar") are not specified by this specification, and might vary with the user's language, the page's language, the user's preferences, the user agent implementor's preferences, etc.
The following JavaScript function shows how the tree walk could be implemented. The root argument is the root of the tree to walk (either a sectioning content element or a sectioning root element), and the enter and exit arguments are callbacks that are called with the nodes as they are entered and exited. [ECMA262]
function (root, enter, exit) { var node = root; start: while (node) { enter(node); if (node.firstChild) { node = node.firstChild; continue start; } while (node) { exit(node); if (node == root) { node = null; } else if (node.nextSibling) { node = node.nextSibling; continue start; } else { node = node.parentNode; } } } }
This section is non-normative.
The following document shows a straight-forward application of the outline algorithm. First, here is the document, which is a book with very short chapters and subsections:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <title>The Tax Book (all in one page)</title> <h1>The Tax Book</h1> <h2>Earning money</h2> <p>Earning money is good.</p> <h3>Getting a job</h3> <p>To earn money you typically need a job.</p> <h2>Spending money</h2> <p>Spending is what money is mainly used for.</p> <h3>Cheap things</h3> <p>Buying cheap things often not cost-effective.</p> <h3>Expensive things</h3> <p>The most expensive thing is often not the most cost-effective either.</p> <h2>Investing money</h2> <p>You can lend your money to other people.</p> <h2>Losing money</h2> <p>If you spend money or invest money, sooner or later you will lose money. <h3>Poor judgement</h3> <p>Usually if you lose money it's because you made a mistake.</p>
This book would form the following outline:
Notice that the title
element does not participate in the outline.
Here is a similar document, but this time using section
elements to get the same
effect:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <title>The Tax Book (all in one page)</title> <h1>The Tax Book</h1> <section> <h1>Earning money</h1> <p>Earning money is good.</p> <section> <h1>Getting a job</h1> <p>To earn money you typically need a job.</p> </section> </section> <section> <h1>Spending money</h1> <p>Spending is what money is mainly used for.</p> <section> <h1>Cheap things</h1> <p>Buying cheap things often not cost-effective.</p> </section> <section> <h1>Expensive things</h1> <p>The most expensive thing is often not the most cost-effective either.</p> </section> </section> <section> <h1>Investing money</h1> <p>You can lend your money to other people.</p> </section> <section> <h1>Losing money</h1> <p>If you spend money or invest money, sooner or later you will lose money. <section> <h1>Poor judgement</h1> <p>Usually if you lose money it's because you made a mistake.</p> </section> </section>
This book would form the same outline:
A document can contain multiple top-level headings:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <title>Alphabetic Fruit</title> <h1>Apples</h1> <p>Pomaceous.</p> <h1>Bananas</h1> <p>Edible.</p> <h1>Carambola</h1> <p>Star.</p>
This would form the following simple outline consisting of three top-level sections:
Effectively, the body
element is split into three.
Mixing both the h1
–h6
model and the
section
/h1
model can lead to some unintuitive results.
Consider for example the following, which is just the previous example but with the contents
of the (implied) body
wrapped in a section
:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <title>Alphabetic Fruit</title> <section> <h1>Apples</h1> <p>Pomaceous.</p> <h1>Bananas</h1> <p>Edible.</p> <h1>Carambola</h1> <p>Star.</p> </section>
The resulting outline would be:
This result is described as unintuitive because it results in three subsections even
though there's only one section
element. Effectively, the section
is
split into three, just like the implied body
element in the previous example.
(In this example, "(untitled page)" is the implied heading for the body
element, since it has no explicit heading.)
Headings never rise above other sections. Thus, in the following example, the first
h1
does not actually describe the page header; it describes the header for the
second half of the page:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <title>Feathers on The Site of Encyclopedic Knowledge</title> <section> <h1>A plea from our caretakers</h1> <p>Please, we beg of you, send help! We're stuck in the server room!</p> </section> <h1>Feathers</h1> <p>Epidermal growths.</p>
The resulting outline would be:
Thus, when an article
element starts with a nav
block and only later
has its heading, the result is that the nav
block is not part of the same section as
the rest of the article
in the outline. For instance, take this document:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <title>We're adopting a child! — Ray's blog</title> ... <h1>Ray's blog</h1> <main> <article> <header> <nav> <a href="?t=-1d">Yesterday</a>; <a href="?t=-7d">Last week</a>; <a href="?t=-1m">Last month</a> </nav> </header> <h2>We're adopting a child!</h2> <p>As of today, Janine and I have signed the papers to become the proud parents of baby Diane! We've been looking forward to this day for weeks.</p> </article> </main> ...
The resulting outline would be:
Also worthy of note in this example is that the header
and main
elements have no effect whatsoever on the document outline.
This section is non-normative.
Element | Purpose |
---|---|
Example | |
body
| |
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head> <title>Steve Hill's Home Page</title> </head> <body> <p>Hard Trance is My Life.</p> </body> </html> | |
article
| |
<article> <img src="/tumblr_masqy2s5yn1rzfqbpo1_500.jpg" alt="Yellow smiley face with the caption 'masif'"> <p>My fave Masif tee so far!</p> <footer>Posted 2 days ago</footer> </article> <article> <img src="/tumblr_m9tf6wSr6W1rzfqbpo1_500.jpg" alt=""> <p>Happy 2nd birthday Masif Saturdays!!!</p> <footer>Posted 3 weeks ago</footer> </article> | |
section
| |
<h1>Biography</h1> <section> <h1>The facts</h1> <p>1500+ shows, 14+ countries</p> </section> <section> <h1>2010/2011 figures per year</h1> <p>100+ shows, 8+ countries</p> </section> | |
nav
| |
<nav> <ul> <li><a href="/">Home</a> <li><a href="/biog.html">Bio</a> <li><a href="/discog.html">Discog</a> </ul> </nav> | |
aside
| |
<h1>Music</h1> <p>As any burner can tell you, the event has a lot of trance.</p> <aside>You can buy the music we played at our <a href="buy.html">playlist page</a>.</aside> <p>This year we played a kind of trance that originated in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands in the mid 90s.</p> | |
h1 –h6
| A section heading |
<h1>The Guide To Music On The Playa</h1> <h2>The Main Stage</h2> <p>If you want to play on a stage, you should bring one.</p> <h2>Amplified Music</h2> <p>Amplifiers up to 300W or 90dB are welcome.</p> | |
header
| |
<article> <header> <h1>Hard Trance is My Life</h1> <p>By DJ Steve Hill and Technikal</p> </header> <p>The album with the amusing punctuation has red artwork.</p> </article> | |
footer
| |
<article> <h1>Hard Trance is My Life</h1> <p>The album with the amusing punctuation has red artwork.</p> <footer> <p>Artists: DJ Steve Hill and Technikal</p> </footer> </article> |
This section is non-normative.
A section
forms part of something else. An article
is its own thing.
But how does one know which is which? Mostly the real answer is "it depends on author intent".
For example, one could imagine a book with a "Granny Smith" chapter that just said "These
juicy, green apples make a great filling for apple pies."; that would be a section
because there'd be lots of other chapters on (maybe) other kinds of apples.
On the other hand, one could imagine a tweet or reddit comment or tumblr post or newspaper
classified ad that just said "Granny Smith. These juicy, green apples make a great filling for
apple pies."; it would then be article
s because that was the whole thing.
A comment on an article is not part of the article
on which it is commenting,
therefore it is its own article
.