3.8.8. The header element

http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#the-header

Clearly written. I have some comments on the content model.

First a minor suggestion around cross-referencing: "any sectioning
elements (such as section)" - I suggest we link "sectioning elements"
to http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#sections, rather than
linking to only the section element.

Interesting element, I can see where it might be useful. Kind of
offers an alternative to before/after content for headings
(particularly the VoidWars example). Be interesting to contrast these:
<header><p>Welcome to...</p><h1>Voidwars!</h1></header> (the HTML5 way)
<h1>Welcome to...<strong>Voidwars!</strong></h1> (what I'd do in HTML4)

Content model: 2 considerations.

1. should <header> (and footer) allow <nav>?
2. should <header> not require h1-6?

Here's an example: http://www.alistapart.com/d/slashdot/indexwithoutmarkup.html
(and the article that goes with it: article:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slashdot/)
Look for <div class="header"> in the source.

Cowpaths this demonstrates:
1. nav is often included in "header" sections
2. "header" sections sometimes don't contain a h1-6 element (why?
because a header is often a header for an entire website, not the
individual documents).

I actually agree with the content model for <header> but want to raise
this concepts as I think they are quite likely to occur and we should
think about what we want to do about it. I think the choice of the
term "header" is perhaps at fault here. If it were "heading" it would
more closely match the intent (to my mind, at least).

Received on Sunday, 5 August 2007 10:22:05 UTC