There is enough information about HTML5 on the web (and also on stackoverflow), but now I'm curious about the "best practices". Tags like section/headers/article are new, and everyone has different opinions about when/where you should use these tags. So what do you guys think of the following layout and code?
1 <!doctype html>
2 <head>
3 <title>Website</title>
4 </head>
5
6 <body>
7 <section>
8 <header>
9 <div id="logo"></div>
10 <div id="language"></div>
11 </header>
12
13 <nav>
14 <ul>
15 <li>menu 1</li>
16 <li>menu 2</li>
17 <li>menu 3</li>
18 <li>menu 4</li>
19 <li>menu 5</li>
20 </ul>
21 </nav>
22
23 <div id="main">
24 <div id="main-left">
25 <article>
26 <header><h1>This is a title</h1></header>
27
28 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur
29 adipiscing elit. Quisque semper, leo eget</p>
30
31 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur
32 adipiscing elit. Quisque semper, leo eget</p>
33
34 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur
35 adipiscing elit. Quisque semper, leo eget</p>
36
37 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur
38 adipiscing elit. Quisque semper, leo eget</p>
39 </article>
40 </div>
41
42 <div id="main-right">
43 <section id="main-right-hot">
44 <h2>Hot items</h2>
45 <ul>
46 <li>Lorem ipsum</li>
47 <li>dolor sit</li>
48 <li>...</li>
49 </ul>
50 </section>
51
52 <section id="main-right-new">
53 <h2>New items</h2>
54 <ul>
55 <li>Lorem ipsum</li>
56 <li>dolor sit</li>
57 <li>...</li>
58 </ul>
59 </section>
60 </div>
61 </div>
62
63 <div id="news-items">
64 <header><h2>The latest news</h2></header>
65
66 <div id="item_1">
67 <article>
68 <header>
69 <img src="#" title="titel artikel" />
70 <h3>Lorem ipsum .....</h3>
71 </header>
72 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
73 adipiscing elit. Quisque semper, </p>
74 <a href="#">Read more</a>
75 </article>
76 </div>
77
78
79 <div id="item_2">
80 <article>
81 <header>
82 <img src="#" title="titel artikel" />
83 <h3>Lorem ipsum .....</h3>
84 </header>
85 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
86 adipiscing elit. Quisque semper, </p>
87 <a href="#">Read more</a>
88 </article>
89 </div>
90
91
92 <div id="item_3">
93 <article>
94 <header>
95 <img src="#" title="titel artikel" />
96 <h3>Lorem ipsum .....</h3>
97 </header>
98 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
99 adipiscing elit. Quisque semper, </p>
100 <a href="#">Read more</a>
101 </article>
102 </div>
103 </div>
104
105 <footer>
106 <ul>
107 <li>menu 1</li>
108 <li>menu 2</li>
109 <li>menu 3</li>
110 <li>menu 4</li>
111 <li>menu 5</li>
112 </ul>
113 </footer>
114 </section>
115 </body>
116 </html>
line 7. section around the whole website? Or only a div?
line 8. Each section start with a header?
line 23. Is this div right? or must this be a section?
line 24. Split left/right column with a div.
line 25. Right place for the article tag?
line 26. Is it required to put your h1-tag in the header-tag?
line 43. The content is not related to the main article, so I decided this is a section and not a aside.
line 44. H2 without header
line 53. section without header
line 63. Div with all (non-related) news items
line 64. header with h2
line 65. Hmm, div or section? Or remove this div and only use the article-tag
line 105. Footer :-)
The answer is
According to Nathan's answer, this makes perfect sense (for red and orange parts, maybe you could use div's and/or header and footer respectively):
According to the explanation in my “main” answer the document in question should be marked up according to an outline.
In the following two tables I show:
- the original HTML and its outline
- a possible intended outline and the HTML doing that
original html (shortened)
<body>
<section>
<header>
<div id=logo></div>
<div id=language></div>
</header>
<nav>
...
</nav>
<div id=main>
<div id=main-left>
<article>
<header>
<h1>The real thing</h1>
</header>
</article>
</div>
<div id=main-right>
<section id=main-right-hot>
<h2>Hot items</h2>
</section>
<section id=main-right-new>
<h2>New items</h2>
</section>
</div>
</div>
<div id=news-items>
<header>
<h2>The latest news</h2>
</header>
<div id=item_1>
<article>
<header>
<h3>...</h3>
</header>
<a>read more</a>
</article>
</div>
<div id=item_2>
<article>
<header>
<h3>...</h3>
</header>
<a>read more</a>
</article>
</div>
<div id=item_3>
<article>
<header>
<h3>...</h3>
</header>
<a>read more</a>
</article>
</div>
</div>
<footer>
<ul><li>...</ul>
</footer>
</section>
original html relevant for outline
<body>
<section>
// logo and language
<nav>
...
</nav>
<article>
<h1>The real thing</h1>
</article>
<section>
<h2>Hot items</h2>
</section>
<section>
<h2>New items</h2>
</section>
<h2>The latest news</h2>
<article>
<h3>...</h3>
</article>
<article>
<h3>...</h3>
</article>
<article>
<h3>...</h3>
</article>
// footer links
</section>
resulting outline
1. (untitled document)
1.1. (untitled section)
1.1.1. (untitled navigation)
1.1.2. The real thing (h1)
1.1.3. Hot items (h2)
1.1.4. New items (h2)
1.1.5. The latest news (h2)
1.1.6. news item_1 (h3)
1.1.7. news item_2 (h3)
1.1.8. news item_3 (h3)
The outline of the original is
definitively not what was intended.
The following table shows my proposal for an improved version. I use the following markup:
<removed><NEW_OR_CHANGED_ELEMENT><element MOVED_ATTRIBUTE=1>
possible intended outline
1. (main)
1.1. The real thing
1.2. (hot&new)
1.2.1. Hot items
1.2.2. New items
2. The latest news
2.1. news item_1
2.2. news item_2
2.3. news item_3
modified html
<body>
<section>
<header>
<ASIDE>
<div id=logo></div>
<div id=language></div>
</ASIDE>
</header>
<nav>
...
</nav>
<ARTICLE id=main>
<div id=main-left>
<article ID=main-left>
<header>
<h1>The real thing</h1>
</header>
</article>
</div>
<ARTICLE id=main-right>
<ARTICLE id=main-right-hot>
<h2>Hot items</h2>
</ARTICLE>
<ARTICLE id=main-right-new>
<h2>New items</h2>
</ARTICLE>
</ARTICLE>
</ARTICE>
<ARTICLE id=news-items>
<header>
<h2>The latest news</h2>
</header>
<div id=item_1>
<article ID=item_1>
<header>
<h3>...</h3>
</header>
<a>read more</a>
</article>
</div>
<div id=item_2>
<article ID=item_2>
<header>
<h3>...</h3>
</header>
<a>read more</a>
</article>
</div>
<div id=item_3>
<article ID=item_3>
<header>
<h3>...</h3>
</header>
<a>read more</a>
</article>
</div>
</ARTICLE>
<footer>
<NAV>
<ul><li>...</ul>
</NAV>
</footer>
</section>
resulting outline
1. (untitled document)
1.1. (untitled logo and lang)
1.2. (untitled navigation)
1.3. (untitled main)
1.3.1 The real thing
1.3.2. (untitled hot&new)
1.3.2.1. Hot items
1.3.2.2. New items
1.4. The latest news
1.4.1. news item_1
1.4.2. news item_2
1.4.3. news item_3
1.5. (untitled footer nav)
The modified HTML reflects the
intended outline way better than
the original.
- Section should be used only to wrap a section inside a document (like chapters and similar)
- With header tag: NO. Header tag represents a wrapper for page header and is not to be confused with H1, H2, etc.
- Which div? :D
- Yes
- From W3C Schools:
The tag defines external content. The external content could be a news-article from an external provider, or a text from a web log (blog), or a text from a forum, or any other content from an external source.
- No, header tag has a different use. H1, H2, etc. represent document titles H1 being the most important
I didn't answer other ones because it's kind of hard to guess what you were referring to. If there are more questions, please let me know.
Unfortunately the answers given so far (including the most voted) are either "just" common sense, plain wrong or confusing at best. None of crucial keywords1 pop up!
I wrote 3 answers:
- This explanation (start here).
- Concrete answers to OP’s questions.
- Improved detailed HTML.
To understand the role of the html elements discussed here you have to know that some of them section the document. Each and every html document can be sectioned according to the HTML5 outline algorithm for the purpose of creating an outline—or—table of contents (TOC). The outline is not generally visible (these days), but authors should use html in such a way that the resulting outline reflects their intentions.
You can create sections with exactly these elements and nothing else:
- creating (explicit) subsections
<section>sections<article>sections<nav>sections<aside>sections
- creating sibling sections or subsections
- sections of unspecified type with
<h*>2 (not all do this, see below)
- sections of unspecified type with
- to level up close the current explicit (sub)section
Sections can be named:
<h*>created sections name themselves<section|article|nav|aside>sections will be named by the first<h*>if there is one- these
<h*>are the only ones which don’t create sections themselves
- these
There is one more thing to sections: the following contexts (i.e. elements) create "outline boundaries". Whatever sections they contain is private to them:
- the document itself with
<body> - table cells with
<td> <blockquote><details>,<dialog>,<fieldset>, and<figure>- nothing else
example HTML
<body>
<h3>if you want siblings
at top level...</h3>
<h3>...you have to use untyped
sections with <h*>...</h3>
<article>
<h1>...as any other section
will descent</h1>
</article>
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href=...>...</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
</body>
has this outline
1. if you want siblings
at top level...
2. ...you have to use untyped
sections with <h*>...
2.1. ...as any other section
will descent
2.2. (unnamed navigation)
This raises two questions:
What is the difference between <article> and <section>?
- both can:
- be nested in each other
- take a different notion in a different context or nesting level
<section>s are like book chapters- they usually have siblings (maybe in a different document?)
- together they have something in common, like chapters in a book
- one author, one
<article>, at least on the lowest level- standard example: a single blog comment
- a blog entry itself is also a good example
- a blog entry
<article>and its comment<article>s could also be wrapped with an<article> - it’s some "complete" thing, not a part in a series of similar
<section>s in an<article>are like chapters in a book<article>s in a<section>are like poems in a volume (within a series)
How do <header>, <footer> and <main> fit in?
- they have zero influence on sectioning
<header>and<footer>- they allow you to mark zones of each and every section
- even within a section you can have them several times
- to differentiate from the main part in this section
- limited only by the author’s taste
<header>- may mark the title/name of this section
- may contain a logo for this section
- has no need to be at the top or upper part of the section
<footer>- may mark the credits/author of this section
- can come at the top of the section
- can even be above a
<header>
<main>- only allowed once
- marks the main part of the top level section (i.e. the document,
<body>that is) - subsections themselves have no markup for their main part
<main>can even “hide” in some subsections of the document, while document’s<header>and<footer>can’t (that markup would mark header/footer of that subsection then)- but it is not allowed in
<article>sections3
- but it is not allowed in
- helps to distinguish “the real thing” from document’s non-header, non-footer, non-main content, if that makes sense in your case...
1 to mind comes: outline, algorithm, implicit sectioning
2 I use <h*> as shorthand for <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5> and <h6>
3 neither is <main> allowed in <aside> or <nav>, but that is of no surprise. – In effect: <main> can only hide in (nested) descending <section> sections or appear at top level, namely <body>
<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>
https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/sections.html#the-nav-element
I want to clarify this question more precisely,correct me if I am wrong Lets take an example of Facebook Wall
1.Wall comes under "section" tag,which denotes it is separate from page.
2.All posts come under "article" tag.
3.Then we have single post,which comes under "section" tag.
3.We have heading "X user post this" for this we can use "heading" tag.
4.Then inside post we have three section one is Images/text,like-share-comment button and comment box.
5.For comment box we can use article tag.
EDIT: Unfortunately I have to correct myself.
Refer below https://stackoverflow.com/a/17935666/2488942 for a link to the w3 specs which include an example (unlike the ones I looked at earlier on).
But then.... Here is a nice article about it thanks to @Fez.
My original response was:
The way the w3 specs are structured:
4.3.4 Sections
4.3.4.1 The body element
4.3.4.2 The section element
4.3.4.3 The nav element
4.3.4.4 The article element
....
suggests to me that section is higher level than article. As mentioned in this answer section groups thematically related content. Content within an article is in my opinion thematically related anyway, hence this, to me at least, then also suggests that section groups at a higher level compared to article.
I think it's meant to be used like this:
section: Chapter 1
nav: Ch. 1.1
Ch. 1.2
article: Ch. 1.1
some insightful text
article: Ch. 1.2
related to 1.1 but different topic
or for a news website:
section: News
article: This happened today
article: this happened in England
section: Sports
article: England - Ukraine 0:0
article: Italy books tickets to Brazil 2014
„line 23. Is this div right? or must this be a section?“
Neither – there is a main tag for that purpose, which is only allowed once per page and should be used as a wrapper for the main content (in contrast to a sidebar or a site-wide header).
<main>
<!-- The main content -->
</main>
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/grouping-content.html#the-main-element
The markup for that document could look like the following:
<body>
<header>...</header>
<nav>...</nav>
<article>
<section>
...
</section>
</article>
<aside>...</aside>
<footer>...</footer>
</body>
You may find more information in this article on A List Apart.
[explanations in my “main answer”]
line 7. section around the whole website? Or only a div?
Neither. For styling: use the <body>, it’s already there. For sectioning/semantics: as detailed in my example HTML its effect is contrary to usefulness. Extra wrappers to already wrapped content is no improvement, but noise.
line 8. Each section start with a header?
No, it is the author’s choice where to put content typically summarized as “header”. And if that header-content is clearly recognizable without extra marking, it may perfectly stay without <header>. This is also the author’s choice.
line 23. Is this div right? or must this be a section?
The <div> is probably wrong. It depends on the intentions: is it for styling only it could be right. If it’s for semantic purposes it is wrong: it should be an <article> instead as shown in my other answer. <article> is also right if it is for both styling and sectioning combined.
<section> looks wrong here, as there are no similar sections before or after this one, like chapters in a book. (This is the purpose of <section>).
line 24. Split left/right column with a div.
No. Why?
line 25. Right place for the article tag?
Yes, makes sense.
line 26. Is it required to put your h1-tag in the header-tag?
No. A lone <h*> element probably never needs to go in a <header> (but it can if you want to) as it is already clear that it’s the heading of what is about to come. – It would make sense if that <header> also encompassed a tagline (marked with <p>), for example.
line 43. The content is not related to the main article, so I decided this is a section and not an aside.
It is a misunderstanding that an <aside> has to be “tangentially related” to the content around. The point is: use an <aside> if the content is only “tangentially related” or not at all!
Nevertheless, apart from <aside> being a decent choice, <article> might still be better than a <section> as “hot items” and “new items” are not to be read like two chapters in a book. You can perfectly go for one of them and not the other like an alternative sorting of something, not like two parts of a whole.
line 44. H2 without header
Is great.
line 53. section without header
Well, there is no <header>, but the <h2>-heading leaves pretty clear which part in this section is the header.
line 63. Div with all (non-related) news items
<article> or <aside> might be better.
line 64. header with h2
Discussed already.
line 65. Hmm, div or section? Or remove this div and only use the article-tag
Exactly! Remove the <div>.
line 105. Footer :-)
Very reasonable.
I'd suggest reading the W3 wiki page about structuring HTML5:
<header>Used to contain the header content of a site.<footer>Contains the footer content of a site.<nav>Contains the navigation menu, or other navigation functionality for the page.
<article>Contains a standalone piece of content that would make
sense if syndicated as an RSS item, for example a news item.
<section>Used to either group different articles into different
purposes or subjects, or to define the different sections of a single article.
<aside>Defines a block of content that is related to the main content around it, but not central to the flow of it.
They include an image that I've cleaned up here:
In code, this looks like so:
<body> <header></header> <nav></nav> <section id="sidebar"></section> <section id="content"></section> <aside></aside> <footer></footer> </body>Let's explore some of the HTML5 elements in more detail.
<section>The
<section>element is for containing distinct different areas of functionality or subjects area, or breaking an article or story up into different sections. So in this case: "sidebar1" contains various useful links that will persist on every page of the site, such as "subscribe to RSS" and "Buy music from store". "main" contains the main content of this page, which is blog posts. On other pages of the site, this content will change. It is a fairly generic element, but still has way more semantic meaning than the plain old<div>.
<article>
<article>is related to<section>, but is distinctly different. Whereas<section>is for grouping distinct sections of content or functionality,<article>is for containing related individual standalone pieces of content, such as individual blog posts, videos, images or news items. Think of it this way - if you have a number of items of content, each of which would be suitable for reading on their own, and would make sense to syndicate as separate items in an RSS feed, then<article>is suitable for marking them up. In our example,<section id="main">contains blog entries. Each blog entry would be suitable for syndicating as an item in an RSS feed, and would make sense when read on its own, out of context, therefore<article>is perfect for them:<section id="main"> <article><!-- first blog post --></article> <article><!-- second blog post --></article> <article><!-- third blog post --></article> </section>Simple huh? Be aware though that you can also nest sections inside articles, where it makes sense to do so. For example, if each one of these blog posts has a consistent structure of distinct sections, then you could put sections inside your articles as well. It could look something like this:
<article> <section id="introduction"></section> <section id="content"></section> <section id="summary"></section> </article>
<header>and<footer>as we already mentioned above, the purpose of the
<header>and<footer>elements is to wrap header and footer content, respectively. In our particular example the<header>element contains a logo image, and the<footer>element contains a copyright notice, but you could add more elaborate content if you wished. Also note that you can have more than one header and footer on each page - as well as the top level header and footer we have just discussed, you could also have a<header>and<footer>element nested inside each<article>, in which case they would just apply to that particular article. Adding to our above example:<article> <header></header> <section id="introduction"></section> <section id="content"></section> <section id="summary"></section> <footer></footer> </article>
<nav>The
<nav>element is for marking up the navigation links or other constructs (eg a search form) that will take you to different pages of the current site, or different areas of the current page. Other links, such as sponsored links, do not count. You can of course include headings and other structuring elements inside the<nav>, but it's not compulsory.
<aside>you may have noticed that we used an
<aside>element to markup the 2nd sidebar: the one containing latest gigs and contact details. This is perfectly appropriate, as<aside>is for marking up pieces of information that are related to the main flow, but don't fit in to it directly. And the main content in this case is all about the band! Other good choices for an<aside>would be information about the author of the blog post(s), a band biography, or a band discography with links to buy their albums.Where does that leave
<div>?So, with all these great new elements to use on our pages, the days of the humble
<div>are numbered, surely? NO. In fact, the<div>still has a perfectly valid use. You should use it when there is no other more suitable element available for grouping an area of content, which will often be when you are purely using an element to group content together for styling/visual purposes. A common example is using a<div>to wrap all of the content on the page, and then using CSS to centre all the content in the browser window, or apply a specific background image to the whole content.
Here's my example in which I work
Why not have the item_1, item_2, etc. IDs on the article tags themselves? Like this:
<article id="item_1">
...
</article>
<article id="item_2">
...
</article>
...
It seems unnecessary to add the wrapper divs. ID values have no semantic meaning in HTML, so I think it would be perfectly valid to do this - you're not saying that the first article is always item_1, just item_1 within the context of the current page. IDs are not required to have any meaning that is independent of context.
Also, as to your question on line 26, I don't think the <header> tag is required there, and I think you could omit it since it's on its own in the "main-left" div. If it were in the main list of articles you might want to include the <header> tag just for the sake of consistency.
The main mistake: You have "divitis" in the whole document.
Why this?
<header>
<div id="logo"></div>
<div id="language"></div>
</header>
Instead of:
<header role="banner">
<!-- Not the best -->
<h1 id="logo"></h1> <!-- or <figure> and <figcaption>, or <h1> and <p>... -->
<h2 id="language"></h2>
<!-- Better, if the IDs have not semantic sense -->
<h1></h1>
<h2></h2>
</header>
To stylize this header, use CSS hierarchy: body > section > header > h1, body > section > header > h2
More, ...line 63: why header wraps h2?? If you do not include any more element inside header, just use a single h2.
Keep in mind, your structure is not to stylize document, but construct a document self-explained.
Apply this to the rest of document; Good luck ;)
I dont think you should use the tag on the news item summary (lines 67, 80, 93). You could use section or just have the enclosing div.
An article needs to be able to stand on its own & still make sense or be complete. As its incomplete or just an extract it cannot be an article, its more a section.
When you click 'read more' the subsequent page can
Source: Stackoverflow.com