Status: Last call for comments
body
elementStatus: Last call for comments
html
element.onafterprint
onbeforeprint
onbeforeunload
onblur
onerror
onfocus
onhashchange
onload
onmessage
onoffline
ononline
onpagehide
onpageshow
onpopstate
onredo
onresize
onstorage
onundo
onunload
interface HTMLBodyElement : HTMLElement { attribute Function onafterprint; attribute Function onbeforeprint; attribute Function onbeforeunload; attribute Function onblur; attribute Function onerror; attribute Function onfocus; attribute Function onhashchange; attribute Function onload; attribute Function onmessage; attribute Function onoffline; attribute Function ononline; attribute Function onpopstate; attribute Function onpagehide; attribute Function onpageshow; attribute Function onredo; attribute Function onresize; attribute Function onstorage; attribute Function onundo; attribute Function onunload; };
The body
element represents the main
content of the document.
In conforming documents, there is only one body
element. The document.body
IDL attribute provides scripts with easy access to a document's
body
element.
The body
element exposes as event handler
content attributes a number of the event
handlers of the Window
object. It also mirrors
their event handler IDL attributes.
The onblur
, onerror
, onfocus
, and onload
event
handlers of the Window
object, exposed on the
body
element, shadow the generic event
handlers with the same names normally supported by HTML
elements.
Thus, for example, a bubbling error
event fired on a child of the
body element of a Document
would first trigger
the onerror
event handler
content attributes of that element, then that of the root
html
element, and only then would it trigger
the onerror
event handler content
attribute on the body
element. This is because
the event would bubble from the target, to the body
, to
the html
, to the Document
, to the
Window
, and the event
handler on the body
is watching the
Window
not the body
. A regular event
listener attached to the body
using addEventListener()
, however, would fire when the
event bubbled through the body
and not when it reaches
the Window
object.
This page updates an indicator to show whether or not the user is online:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head> <title>Online or offline?</title> <script> function update(online) { document.getElementById('status').textContent = online ? 'Online' : 'Offline'; } </script> </head> <body ononline="update(true)" onoffline="update(false)" onload="update(navigator.onLine)"> <p>You are: <span id="status">(Unknown)</span></p> </body> </html>
section
elementStatus: Last call for comments
formatBlock
candidate.HTMLElement
.The section
element represents a
generic section of a document or application. A section, in this
context, is a thematic grouping of content, typically with a
heading.
Examples of sections would be chapters, the various tabbed pages in a tabbed dialog box, or the numbered sections of a thesis. A Web site's home page could be split into sections for an introduction, news items, contact information.
Authors are encouraged to use the
article
element instead of the section
element when it would make sense to syndicate the contents of the
element.
The section
element is not a generic container element. When an element is
needed for styling purposes or as a convenience for scripting,
authors are encouraged to use the div
element
instead. A general rule is that the section
element is
appropriate only if the element's contents would be listed
explicitly in the document's outline.
In the following example, we see an article (part of a larger Web page) about apples, containing two short sections.
<article> <hgroup> <h1>Apples</h1> <h2>Tasty, delicious fruit!</h2> </hgroup> <p>The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree.</p> <section> <h1>Red Delicious</h1> <p>These bright red apples are the most common found in many supermarkets.</p> </section> <section> <h1>Granny Smith</h1> <p>These juicy, green apples make a great filling for apple pies.</p> </section> </article>
Notice how the use of section
means that the author
can use h1
elements throughout, without having to
worry about whether a particular section is at the top level, the
second level, the third level, and so on.
Here is a graduation programme with two sections, one for the list of people graduating, and one for the description of the ceremony.
<!DOCTYPE Html> <Html ><Head ><Title >Graduation Ceremony Summer 2022</Title ></Head ><Body ><H1 >Graduation</H1 ><Section ><H1 >Ceremony</H1 ><P >Opening Procession</P ><P >Speech by Validactorian</P ><P >Speech by Class President</P ><P >Presentation of Diplomas</P ><P >Closing Speech by Headmaster</P ></Section ><Section ><H1 >Graduates</H1 ><Ul ><Li >Molly Carpenter</Li ><Li >Anastasia Luccio</Li ><Li >Ebenezar McCoy</Li ><Li >Karrin Murphy</Li ><Li >Thomas Raith</Li ><Li >Susan Rodriguez</Li ></Ul ></Section ></Body ></Html>
nav
elementStatus: Last call for comments
formatBlock
candidate.HTMLElement
.The nav
element represents a section of
a page that links to other pages or to parts within the page: a
section with navigation links.
Not all groups of links on a page need to be in a
nav
element — only sections that consist of major
navigation blocks are appropriate for the nav
element. In particular, it is common for footers to have a short
list of links to various pages of a site, such as the terms of
service, the home page, and a copyright page. The
footer
element alone is sufficient for such cases,
without a nav
element.
User agents (such as screen readers) that are targeted at users who can benefit from navigation information being omitted in the initial rendering, or who can benefit from navigation information being immediately available, can use this element as a way to determine what content on the page to initially skip and/or provide on request.
In the following example, the page has several places where links are present, but only one of those places is considered a navigation section.
<body> <header> <h1>Wake up sheeple!</h1> <p><a href="news.html">News</a> - <a href="blog.html">Blog</a> - <a href="forums.html">Forums</a></p> <p>Last Modified: <time>2009-04-01</time></p> <nav> <h1>Navigation</h1> <ul> <li><a href="articles.html">Index of all articles</a></li> <li><a href="today.html">Things sheeple need to wake up for today</a></li> <li><a href="successes.html">Sheeple we have managed to wake</a></li> </ul> </nav> </header> <div> <article> <header> <h1>My Day at the Beach</h1> </header> <div> <p>Today I went to the beach and had a lot of fun.</p> ...more content... </div> <footer> <p>Posted <time pubdate datetime="2009-10-10T14:36-08:00">Thursday</time>.</p> </footer> </article> ...more blog posts... </div> <footer> <p>Copyright © 2006 The Example Company</p> <p><a href="about.html">About</a> - <a href="policy.html">Privacy Policy</a> - <a href="contact.html">Contact Us</a></p> </footer> </body>
Notice the div
elements being used to wrap all the
contents of the page other than the header and footer, and all the
contents of the blog entry other than its header and footer.
In the following example, there are two nav
elements, one for primary navigation around the site, and one for
secondary navigation around the page itself.
<body> <h1>The Wiki Center Of Exampland</h1> <nav> <ul> <li><a href="/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="/events">Current Events</a></li> ...more... </ul> </nav> <article> <header> <h1>Demos in Exampland</h1> <p>Written by A. N. Other.</p> </header> <nav> <ul> <li><a href="#public">Public demonstrations</a></li> <li><a href="#destroy">Demolitions</a></li> ...more... </ul> </nav> <div> <section id="public"> <h1>Public demonstrations</h1> <p>...more...</p> </section> <section id="destroy"> <h1>Demolitions</h1> <p>...more...</p> </section> ...more... </div> <footer> <p><a href="?edit">Edit</a> | <a href="?delete">Delete</a> | <a href="?Rename">Rename</a></p> </footer> </article> <footer> <p><small>© copyright 1998 Exampland Emperor</small></p> </footer> </body>
article
elementStatus: Last call for comments
formatBlock
candidate.HTMLElement
.The article
element represents a
self-contained composition in a document, page, application, or site
and that is intended to be independently distributable or reusable,
e.g. in syndication. This could be a forum post, a magazine or
newspaper article, a blog entry, a user-submitted comment, an
interactive widget or gadget, or any other independent item of
content.
When article
elements are nested, the inner
article
elements represent articles that are in
principle related to the contents of the outer article. For
instance, a blog entry on a site that accepts user-submitted
comments could represent the comments as article
elements nested within the article
element for the blog
entry.
Author information associated with an article
element (q.v. the address
element) does not apply to
nested article
elements.
When used specifically with content to be
redistributed in syndication, the article
element is
similar in purpose to the entry
element in
Atom. [ATOM]
The time
element's pubdate
attribute can be used to
provide the publication date for an article
element.
This example shows a blog post using the article
element:
<article> <header> <h1>The Very First Rule of Life</h1> <p><time pubdate datetime="2009-10-09T14:28-08:00"></time></p> </header> <p>If there's a microphone anywhere near you, assume it's hot and sending whatever you're saying to the world. Seriously.</p> <p>...</p> <footer> <a href="?comments=1">Show comments...</a> </footer> </article>
Here is that same blog post, but showing some of the comments:
<article> <header> <h1>The Very First Rule of Life</h1> <p><time pubdate datetime="2009-10-09T14:28-08:00"></time></p> </header> <p>If there's a microphone anywhere near you, assume it's hot and sending whatever you're saying to the world. Seriously.</p> <p>...</p> <section> <h1>Comments</h1> <article> <footer> <p>Posted by: George Washington</p> <p><time pubdate datetime="2009-10-10T19:10-08:00"></time></p> </footer> <p>Yeah! Especially when talking about your lobbyist friends!</p> </article> <article> <footer> <p>Posted by: George Hammond</p> <p><time pubdate datetime="2009-10-10T19:15-08:00"></time></p> </footer> <p>Hey, you have the same first name as me.</p> </article> </section> </article>
Notice the use of footer
to give the information
each comment (such as who wrote it and when): the
footer
element can appear at the start of its
section when appropriate, such as in this case. (Using
header
in this case wouldn't be wrong either; it's
mostly a matter of authoring preference.)
aside
elementStatus: Last call for comments
formatBlock
candidate.HTMLElement
.The aside
element represents a section
of a page that consists of content that is tangentially related to
the content around the aside
element, and which could
be considered separate from that content. Such sections are often
represented as sidebars in printed typography.
The element can be used for typographical effects like pull
quotes or sidebars, for advertising, for groups of nav
elements, and for other content that is considered separate from the
main content of the page.
It's not appropriate to use the aside
element just for parentheticals, since those are part of the main
flow of the document.
The following example shows how an aside is used to mark up background material on Switzerland in a much longer news story on Europe.
<aside> <h1>Switzerland</h1> <p>Switzerland, a land-locked country in the middle of geographic Europe, has not joined the geopolitical European Union, though it is a signatory to a number of European treaties.</p> </aside>
The following example shows how an aside is used to mark up a pull quote in a longer article.
... <p>He later joined a large company, continuing on the same work. <q>I love my job. People ask me what I do for fun when I'm not at work. But I'm paid to do my hobby, so I never know what to answer. Some people wonder what they would do if they didn't have to work... but I know what I would do, because I was unemployed for a year, and I filled that time doing exactly what I do now.</q></p> <aside> <q> People ask me what I do for fun when I'm not at work. But I'm paid to do my hobby, so I never know what to answer. </q> </aside> <p>Of course his work — or should that be hobby? — isn't his only passion. He also enjoys other pleasures.</p> ...
The following extract shows how aside
can be used
for blogrolls and other side content on a blog:
<body> <header> <h1>My wonderful blog</h1> <p>My tagline</p> </header> <aside> <!-- this aside contains two sections that are tangentially related to the page, namely, links to other blogs, and links to blog posts from this blog --> <nav> <h1>My blogroll</h1> <ul> <li><a href="http://blog.example.com/">Example Blog</a> </ul> </nav> <nav> <h1>Archives</h1> <ol reversed> <li><a href="/last-post">My last post</a> <li><a href="/first-post">My first post</a> </ol> </nav> </aside> <aside> <!-- this aside is tangentially related to the page also, it contains twitter messages from the blog author --> <h1>Twitter Feed</h1> <blockquote cite="http://twitter.example.net/t31351234"> I'm on vacation, writing my blog. </blockquote> <blockquote cite="http://twitter.example.net/t31219752"> I'm going to go on vacation soon. </blockquote> </aside> <article> <!-- this is a blog post --> <h1>My last post</h1> <p>This is my last post.</p> <footer> <p><a href="/last-post" rel=bookmark>Permalink</a> </footer> </article> <article> <!-- this is also a blog post --> <h1>My first post</h1> <p>This is my first post.</p> <aside> <!-- this aside is about the blog post, since it's inside the <article> element; it would be wrong, for instance, to put the blogroll here, since the blogroll isn't really related to this post specifically, only to the page as a whole --> <h1>Posting</h1> <p>While I'm thinking about it, I wanted to say something about posting. Posting is fun!</p> </aside> <footer> <p><a href="/first-post" rel=bookmark>Permalink</a> </footer> </article> <footer> <nav> <a href="/archives">Archives</a> — <a href="/about">About me</a> — <a href="/copyright">Copyright</a> </nav> </footer> </body>
h1
, h2
,
h3
, h4
,
h5
, and h6
elementsformatBlock
candidate.hgroup
element.interface HTMLHeadingElement : HTMLElement {};
These elements represent headings for their sections.
The semantics and meaning of these elements are defined in the section on headings and sections.
These elements have a rank given by the number in
their name. The h1
element is said to have the highest
rank, the h6
element has the lowest rank, and two
elements with the same name have equal rank.
These two snippets are equivalent:
<body> <h1>Let's call it a draw(ing surface)</h1> <h2>Diving in</h2> <h2>Simple shapes</h2> <h2>Canvas coordinates</h2> <h3>Canvas coordinates diagram</h3> <h2>Paths</h2> </body>
<body> <h1>Let's call it a draw(ing surface)</h1> <section> <h1>Diving in</h1> </section> <section> <h1>Simple shapes</h1> </section> <section> <h1>Canvas coordinates</h1> <section> <h1>Canvas coordinates diagram</h1> </section> </section> <section> <h1>Paths</h1> </section> </body>
hgroup
elementStatus: Last call for comments
formatBlock
candidate.h1
, h2
, h3
, h4
, h5
, and/or h6
elements.HTMLElement
.The hgroup
element represents the
heading of a section. The element is used to group a set of
h1
–h6
elements when the heading has
multiple levels, such as subheadings, alternative titles, or
taglines.
For the purposes of document summaries, outlines, and the like,
the text of hgroup
elements is defined to be the text
of the highest ranked
h1
–h6
element descendant of the
hgroup
element, if there are any such elements, and the
first such element if there are multiple elements with that
rank. If there are no such elements, then the text of
the hgroup
element is the empty string.
Other elements of heading content in the
hgroup
element indicate subheadings or subtitles.
The rank of an hgroup
element is the
rank of the highest-ranked h1
–h6
element descendant of the hgroup
element, if there are
any such elements, or otherwise the same as for an h1
element (the highest rank).
The section on headings and sections
defines how hgroup
elements are assigned to individual
sections.
Here are some examples of valid headings. In each case, the emphasized text represents the text that would be used as the heading in an application extracting heading data and ignoring subheadings.
<hgroup> <h1>The reality dysfunction</h1> <h2>Space is not the only void</h2> </hgroup>
<hgroup> <h1>Dr. Strangelove</h1> <h2>Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</h2> </hgroup>
The point of using hgroup
in these examples is to
mask the h2
element (which acts as a secondary title)
from the outline algorithm.
header
elementStatus: Last call for comments
formatBlock
candidate.header
or
footer
element descendants.HTMLElement
.The header
element represents a group
of introductory or navigational aids.
A header
element is intended to usually
contain the section's heading (an
h1
–h6
element or an
hgroup
element), but this is not required. The
header
element can also be used to wrap a section's
table of contents, a search form, or any relevant logos.
Here are some sample headers. This first one is for a game:
<header> <p>Welcome to...</p> <h1>Voidwars!</h1> </header>
The following snippet shows how the element can be used to mark up a specification's header:
<header> <hgroup> <h1>Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.2</h1> <h2>W3C Working Draft 27 October 2004</h2> </hgroup> <dl> <dt>This version:</dt> <dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20041027/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20041027/</a></dd> <dt>Previous version:</dt> <dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20040510/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20040510/</a></dd> <dt>Latest version of SVG 1.2:</dt> <dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/">http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/</a></dd> <dt>Latest SVG Recommendation:</dt> <dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/">http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/</a></dd> <dt>Editor:</dt> <dd>Dean Jackson, W3C, <a href="mailto:dean@w3.org">dean@w3.org</a></dd> <dt>Authors:</dt> <dd>See <a href="#authors">Author List</a></dd> </dl> <p class="copyright"><a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notic ... </header>
The header
element is not
sectioning content; it doesn't introduce a new
section.
In this example, the page has a page heading given by the
h1
element, and two subsections whose headings are
given by h2
elements. The content after the
header
element is still part of the last subsection
started in the header
element, because the
header
element doesn't take part in the
outline algorithm.
<body> <header> <h1>Little Green Guys With Guns</h1> <nav> <ul> <li><a href="/games">Games</a> <li><a href="/forum">Forum</a> <li><a href="/download">Download</a> </ul> </nav> <h2>Important News</h2> <!-- this starts a second subsection --> <!-- this is part of the subsection entitled "Important News" --> <p>To play today's games you will need to update your client.</p> <h2>Games</h2> <!-- this starts a third subsection --> </header> <p>You have three active games:</p> <!-- this is still part of the subsection entitled "Games" --> ...
footer
elementStatus: Last call for comments
formatBlock
candidate.header
or
footer
element descendants.HTMLElement
.The footer
element represents a footer
for its nearest ancestor sectioning content or
sectioning root element. A footer typically contains
information about its section such as who wrote it, links to related
documents, copyright data, and the like.
Contact information for the author or editor of a
section belongs in an address
element, possibly itself
inside a footer
.
Footers don't necessarily have to appear at the end of a section, though they usually do.
When the footer
element contains entire sections,
they represent appendices, indexes,
long colophons, verbose license agreements, and other such
content.
The footer
element is not
sectioning content; it doesn't introduce a new
section.
When the nearest ancestor sectioning content or sectioning root element is the body element, then it applies to the whole page.
Here is a page with two footers, one at the top and one at the bottom, with the same content:
<body> <footer><a href="../">Back to index...</a></footer> <hgroup> <h1>Lorem ipsum</h1> <h2>The ipsum of all lorems</h2> </hgroup> <p>A dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p> <footer><a href="../">Back to index...</a></footer> </body>
Here is an example which shows the footer
element
being used both for a site-wide footer and for a section
footer.
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <HTML><HEAD> <TITLE>The Ramblings of a Scientist</TITLE> <BODY> <H1>The Ramblings of a Scientist</H1> <ARTICLE> <H1>Episode 15</H1> <VIDEO SRC="/fm/015.ogv" CONTROLS PRELOAD> <P><A HREF="/fm/015.ogv">Download video</A>.</P> </VIDEO> <FOOTER> <!-- footer for article --> <P>Published <TIME PUBDATE DATETIME="2009-10-21T18:26-07:00"></TIME></P> </FOOTER> </ARTICLE> <ARTICLE> <H1>My Favorite Trains</H1> <P>I love my trains. My favorite train of all time is a Köf.</P> <P>It is fun to see them pull some coal cars because they look so dwarfed in comparison.</P> <FOOTER> <!-- footer for article --> <P>Published <TIME PUBDATE DATETIME="2009-09-15T14:54-07:00"></TIME></P> </FOOTER> </ARTICLE> <FOOTER> <!-- site wide footer --> <NAV> <P><A HREF="/credits.html">Credits</A> — <A HREF="/tos.html">Terms of Service</A> — <A HREF="/index.html">Blog Index</A></P> </NAV> <P>Copyright © 2009 Gordon Freeman</P> </FOOTER> </BODY> </HTML>
address
elementStatus: Last call for comments
formatBlock
candidate.header
, footer
, or
address
element descendants.HTMLElement
.The address
element represents the
contact information for its nearest article
or
body
element ancestor. If that is the body
element, then the contact information applies to the document
as a whole.
For example, a page at the W3C Web site related to HTML might include the following contact information:
<ADDRESS> <A href="../People/Raggett/">Dave Raggett</A>, <A href="../People/Arnaud/">Arnaud Le Hors</A>, contact persons for the <A href="Activity">W3C HTML Activity</A> </ADDRESS>
The address
element must not be used to represent
arbitrary addresses (e.g. postal addresses), unless those addresses
are in fact the relevant contact information. (The p
element is the appropriate element for marking up postal addresses
in general.)
The address
element must not contain information
other than contact information.
For example, the following is non-conforming use of the
address
element:
<ADDRESS>Last Modified: 1999/12/24 23:37:50</ADDRESS>
Typically, the address
element would be included
along with other information in a footer
element.
Status: Last call for comments
The h1
–h6
elements and the
hgroup
element are headings.
The first element of heading content in an element of sectioning content represents the heading for that section. Subsequent headings of equal or higher rank start new (implied) sections, headings of lower rank start implied subsections that are part of the previous one. In both cases, the element represents the heading of the implied section.
Certain elements are said to be sectioning roots, including blockquote
and
td
elements. These elements can have their own
outlines, but the sections and headings inside these elements do not
contribute to the outlines of their ancestors.
Sectioning content elements are always considered subsections of their nearest ancestor sectioning root or their nearest ancestor element of sectioning content, whichever is nearest, regardless of what implied sections other headings may have created.
For the following fragment:
<body> <h1>Foo</h1> <h2>Bar</h2> <blockquote> <h3>Bla</h3> </blockquote> <p>Baz</p> <h2>Quux</h2> <section> <h3>Thud</h3> </section> <p>Grunt</p> </body>
...the structure would be:
body
section, containing the "Grunt" paragraph)
section
section)
Notice how the section
ends the earlier implicit
section so that a later paragraph ("Grunt") is back at the top
level.
Sections may contain headings of any rank, but
authors are strongly encouraged to either use only h1
elements, or to use elements of the appropriate rank
for the section's nesting level.
Authors are also encouraged to explicitly wrap sections in elements of sectioning content, instead of relying on the implicit sections generated by having multiple headings in one element of sectioning content.
For example, the following is correct:
<body> <h4>Apples</h4> <p>Apples are fruit.</p> <section> <h2>Taste</h2> <p>They taste lovely.</p> <h6>Sweet</h6> <p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p> <h1>Color</h1> <p>Apples come in various colors.</p> </section> </body>
However, the same document would be more clearly expressed as:
<body> <h1>Apples</h1> <p>Apples are fruit.</p> <section> <h2>Taste</h2> <p>They taste lovely.</p> <section> <h3>Sweet</h3> <p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p> </section> </section> <section> <h2>Color</h2> <p>Apples come in various colors.</p> </section> </body>
Both of the documents above are semantically identical and would produce the same outline in compliant user agents.
Status: Last call for comments
The outline for a sectioning content
element or a sectioning root element consists of a list
of one or more potentially nested sections. A section is a container that
corresponds to some nodes in the original DOM tree. Each section can
have one heading associated with it, and can contain any number of
further nested sections. (The sections in the
outline aren't section
elements, though some may
correspond to such elements — they are merely conceptual
sections.)
The following markup fragment:
<body> <h1>A</h1> <p>B</p> <h2>C</h2> <p>D</p> <h2>E</h2> <p>F</p> </body>
...results in the following outline being created for the
body
node (and thus the entire document):
Section created for body
node.
Associated with heading "A".
Also associated with paragraph "B".
Nested sections: