- From: James Graham <jg307@cam.ac.uk>
- Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2007 12:54:41 +0100
- To: Jens Meiert <jens.meiert@erde3.com>
- CC: public-html@w3.org
Jens Meiert wrote: > Andrew Fedoniouk wrote: >> footer { position: fixed; top:0; } >> >> Is it still footer or is it header now? > > That exactly “made me wonder”. It's a footer. Functionally you might notice this for several reasons: * It wouldn't take part in the heading algorithm [1] * It wouldn't be read by a screenreader which ignored footers in some sort of page skimming mode * It could have a different default print stylesheet The second point is an example of extra functionality that can be provided by having a <footer> element. There's also evidence that authors would use this element, even if they do not use the UAs which make use of <footer> to improve the user experience; "footer" is the most commonly found classname in the Google survey by some margin [2]. Any other name to represent the same concept is likely to be more confusing than following this precedent. <header> also fills a hole in the language; it provides a way of marking up heading + subheading content; the lack of this functionality in HTML 4 is something that authors often try to work around by abusing <h1>-<h6> e.g. by doing things like <h1>My blog</h1> <h3>With an amusing tagline</h3> <h2>My First Article</h2> [1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#headings [2] http://code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/classes.html -- "Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?" -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Received on Friday, 7 September 2007 11:54:56 UTC