Re: Naming of <header>

Hi Ian,

>The name used is the most commonly used name for the class that means the
>same thing.


from the data http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/naming_conventions_table.html

It is not the most commonly used class name its the most commonly used
id name (none of the pages in the sample cited used header as a class
name, they all used it as an id value, which means that it is a unique
container on a web page.

This appears to contradict the the way header has been specified in HTML 5.


regards

stevef

2009/3/27 Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>:
> On Fri, 27 Mar 2009, James Graham wrote:
>>
>> At risk of creating a bikeshed discussion…
>>
>> The <header> element's name seems to be creating some considerable
>> confusion, with authors either assuming it designed to be used for all
>> page header content or that it is designed to replace <h1>-<h6> and be a
>> generic heading element (e.g. [1], [2] and note that these are the tiny
>> fraction of people who are motivated to ask about these things upfront).
>> Almost no one seems to guess that it is supposed to be used for grouping
>> multiple heading/subheadings into an overall heading. This implies that
>> it will be poorly used in practice and so UAs will not be able to
>> reliably implement e.g. the outline algorithm since it will give
>> unexpected results on real sites.
>
> The name used is the most commonly used name for the class that means the
> same thing. If people naturally use this name for this purpose, why would
> they get confused when other people use the name for that purpose?
>
>
> On Fri, 27 Mar 2009, Joshue O Connor wrote:
>>
>> Yes, I agree. There needs to be some way to better distinguish the
>> <header> element in terms of its functionality. Throw a couple of ARIA
>> role type elements into the mix and you have a riot in the bikeshed.
>
> Presumably one would not need to use the relevant ARIA roles if one was
> using the HTML elements.
>
>
> On Fri, 27 Mar 2009, James Graham wrote:
>>
>> Several of those sites use it unnecessarily to wrap <hn> elements, suggesting
>> that they have not fully grasped the point of the element.
>
> That appears harmless.
>
>
>> Moreover that is a hugely biased sample because they are early adopters,
>> all of whom are likely to be aware of tools like validators.
>
> The people who have expressed confusion are also early adopters. :-)
>
>
> On Fri, 27 Mar 2009, James Graham wrote:
>>
>> Oh and another related point is that doing something like
>>
>>  <article>
>>    <header>
>>      <h1>My blog post</h1>
>>      <p>2022-01-01T01:01</p>
>>    </header>
>>    <section>
>>      <p>This is the content</p>
>>    </section>
>>  </article>
>>
>> seems to be rather common. This is technically wrong because it makes
>> the content a subsection of the article and so, technically, not titled
>> by it. It would be better in this case if untitled sectioning elements
>> collapsed from the point of view of the outline algorithm.
>
> This is just an example of people using <section> as a "semantic <div>"
> (incorrectly); I don't think we necessarily want to encourage that by
> making it less of a problem.
>
> --
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'



-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium

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Received on Friday, 27 March 2009 23:59:12 UTC