- From: Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 11:53:17 +1100
- To: "Jens O. Meiert" <jens@meiert.com>
- Cc: whatwg@whatwg.org
On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 5:26 AM, Jens O. Meiert <jens@meiert.com> wrote: > Should <main> be optional or required? > > I’d deem an optional <main> to be nonsense because it suggests > documents are inherently without goal, or focus. > > I’d deem a required <main> to be nonsense because we already have an > (implied) <body> element, and because element proliferation doesn’t > work in anyone’s favor. > I can imagine it to become "required", if we mean by that that the browsers will need to parse a page and either find a <main> element or determine heuristically with the Scooby-Doo algorithm which part of the page is actually the main part and then add that to its DOM. Since we have the Scooby-Doo algorithm, we have a means to stay backwards compatible. That <body> essentially means <main> always seemed reasonable to me. > There are plenty of options for authors to add styling hooks if they > need any, including <div role=main>. You are correct - there is no need for this for styling. However, <main> is actually not for styling, but to provide a direct markup of the *semantically* main piece of content on the page. A Scooby-Doo algorithm can only heuristically determine what that is - with <main> the Web Dev gets an actual vehicle to point their finger explicitly rather than implicitly saying in a hand-wavy manner that it's what remains if you take away all this other stuff (that is: if we're lucky and that "other stuff" has actually been marked up). Silvia.
Received on Tuesday, 13 November 2012 00:54:18 UTC