The Surprisingly Exciting World of HTML Elements

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about HTML — interesting HTML elements, things you might not know, wish lists for the future, and more!

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Show Notes

02:34 - What is semantic HTML?

• What is the content? HTML should describe the content first and foremost.

04:04 - Why semantic HTML?

• Accessibility
• SEO
• Styling is easier
• HTML tags that have meaning:
  • Almost all of them
  • Common ones:
    • <p>
    • <ul>/<ol> and <li>
    • <a>
    • <h1> to <h6>

20:04 - Structural / Layout tags

• <nav>
• <header>
  • You can have more than one header
  • Header cannot be in a footer / address / header
• <section>
• <footer>
• <aside>
• <main>
• <article>

26:18 - Some fun ones you might not know

• <address>
• <kbd>
• <sup> /
• <datalist>
• <time> and strike?
• <track>
• <wbr>
• <cite>
• <dfn>
• <mark>
• <ruby> / <rt> / <rb>
  • A ruby annotation is a small extra text, attached to the main text to indicate the pronunciation or meaning of the corresponding characters.
• <meter> and <progress>
  • While <progress> is used to convey how much work in a task has been completed, the element is used to display a measurement on a known scale. This could be something like the current disk usage on your computer, or a temperature measurement (within a defined range).
• <marquee>

32:12 - Visual vs Semantic tags

• Almost all tags in HTML are semantic
• <i> vs <em> and <bold> vs <strong>
  • <i> and <bold> are NOT deprecated like many have said
  • The <strong> element is for content that is of greater importance, while the element is used to draw attention to text without indicating that it's more important.

35:40 - HTML tags with no meaning:

• <div>
• <span>

37:51 - Some elements have special functionality or styling

• <details> and <summary> tag
• <fieldset> + <legend>

40:59 - What elements would we like to see?

• Modal element
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/dialog
• Textarea that grows with content
• Animated accordion
• A better table
  • One that works with grid/flex/modern CSS, auto-sizing, max/min widths
• From Twitter:
  • VirtualList
  • Carousel - HOT DRAMA
  • Date range
  • Hero
  • tag that figured its level out by itself. Useful for components that can go anywhere
  • Icon tag
  • Cookie banner

  •  tag that shows HTML elements without encoding
    * You can kinda do this with display block on script and style tags
    
    

Links

• Sara Soueidan

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• Wes: Netflix's This is a Robbery

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