I tried to search the web about what is the purpose of the HTML <var> Tag and didn't find any good explanation or let say I'm not satisfied yet. I can read what they say about it but I don't understand the purpose. I tried two different lines of code and both gives me the same thing now I need to know what exactly is <var> and why we should use it rather than a single style.
<var>y</var> = <var>m</var><var>x</var> + <var>b</var>
<p style='font-style:italic'>y = mx + b</p>
Reference to name only one: https://html.com/tags/var/
Funny because I read the explanation but I still don't see what is the use of <var> other than just making the text italic!
Here is how W3Schools defines HTML:
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages
HTML describes the structure of a Web page
HTML consists of a series of elements
HTML elements tell the browser how to display the content
HTML elements label pieces of content such as "this is a heading", "this is a paragraph", "this is a link", etc.
The way I see it is that, even though <var> and <i> have the same output printed to the browser, they mean different things, specially if you are "reading" pages without opening a browser like search engines do.
Check it is not particular to the example you mentioned. Look at the example on <b> and <strong> (https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_formatting.asp). They also have the same output but mean different things.
Semantics.
<p> tags are generic paragraph elements, typically used for text.
<var> elements represent the name of a variable in a mathematical expression or a programming context.
If you italicize a paragraph it may resemble the default styling of the <var> element, but that's where the similarities end. Also, they're different to screen readers.
Here's an example using both elements and you can see that semantically, it's a paragraph of text that contains references to variables in a mathematical sense:
<p>The volume of a box is <var>l</var> × <var>w</var> × <var>h</var>, where <var>l</var> represents the length, <var>w</var> the width and <var>h</var> the height of the box.</p>
When I want to emphasize or discuss a word that is related to computer code inside a block of normal text, I use the <code> tag. For example:
If you set the variable foo to the value 'bar', then something will happen. If you set foo to any other value, then nothing that's any good will happen.
What is the best semantic HTML5 tag to use to emphasize or discuss a word that is not related to computer code? The way I am thinking of this, it would be (or could be) styled like <code> but not monospace. For example:
The word math is a shortened version of the word mathematics, which has its root in some ancient language that I am not going to research right now.
If you're looking for the tag indicates that its content is being referenced / used as an object for discussion
you can use <dfn> tag. According to MDN:
The HTML Definition element (<dfn>) is used to indicate the term being defined within the context of a definition phrase or sentence.
I just found the updated meaning of the <i> tag for HTML5. From MDN:
The HTML <i> element represents a range of text that is set off from the normal text for some reason. Some examples include technical terms, foreign language phrases, or fictional character thoughts. It is typically displayed in italic type:
Musa is one of two or three genera in the family Musaceae; it includes bananas and plantains.
It is a good idea to use the class attribute to identify why the element is being used, so that if the presentation needs to change at a later date, it can be done selectively with style sheets.
So, this is what I am going to do for this case... <i class="example"> or similar.
Yet another tag that was given new meaning in HTML5, <small> apparently lives on:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/small.html#small
The small element represents so-called “fine print” or “small print”,
such as legal disclaimers and caveats.
This unofficial reference seems to take it a little further:
http://html5doctor.com/small-hr-element/
<small> is now for side comments, which are the inline equivalent of
<aside> — content which is not the main focus of the page. A common
example is inline legalese, such as a copyright statement in a page
footer, a disclaimer, or licensing information. It can also be used
for attribution.
I have a list of people I want to display, which includes their real name and nickname. The nickname is sort of an "aside", and I want to style it with lighter text:
<li>Laurence Tureaud <small>(Mr.T)</small></li>
I'll need to do something like this for several sections of the site (people, products, locations), so I'm trying to develop a sensible standard. I know I can use <span class="quiet"> or something like that, but I'm trying to avoid arbitrary class names and use the correct HTML element (if there is one).
Is <small> appropriate for this, or is there another element or markup structure that would be appropriate?
The spec you're looking at is old, you should look at the HTML5 spec:
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/
I suggest <em> here instead of small:
<p>Laurence Tureaud also called <em>Mr. T</em> is famous for his role
in the tv series A-TEAM.</p>
<small> is not used commonly in an article sentence, but like this:
<footer>
<p>
Search articles about Laurence Tureaud,
<small>or try articles about A-TEAM.</small>
</p>
</footer>
<footer>
<p>
Call the Laurence Tureaud's "life trainer chat line" at
555-1122334455 <small>($1.99 for 1 minute)</small>
</p>
</footer>
Article sentence:
<p>
My job is very interesting and I love it: I work in an office
<small>(123 St. Rome, Italy)</small> with a lot of funny guys that share
my exact interests.
</p>
Personally I would think <small> would not be the correct tag for this as it suggests the text will be physically smaller which doesn't seem to be the case with your example. I think using a <span> would be more appropriate or possible the HTML <aside>. http://dev.w3.org/html5//spec-author-view/the-aside-element.html
You should ask yourself how you would prefer the document to be displayed when style sheets are not applied. Select the markup according to this, instead of scholarly or scholastic theories about “semantic markup” (see my pragmatic guide to HTML).
If smaller size is what you want, then use <small> or <font size=2>. The former is more concise and easier to style, and it is more “resistant” (on some browsers, settings that tell the browser to ignore font sizes specified on web pages do not remove the effect of small). So it’s a rather simple choice.
On the other hand, font size variation inside a line of text is typographically questionable. In printed matter, it is much more often accidental, an error, rather than intentional. Putting something in parentheses is normally a sufficient indication of being somehow secondary
Total newbie question, but I cant figure out what im doing wrong. I want a make a link that jumps down the page to a header. I believe these are called fragment links. Here is my code thats not working:
My Link
<div id="cont">
<p>Lots of content here, abbreviated in this example to save space</p>
<h2 id="Frag">Header I want to jump to</h2>
</div>
Pretty sure you need to specify the name attribute for an anchor to work, for example:
Skip to content
<div name="content" id="content"></div>
Okay, so 'pretty sure' was a euphemism for 'guess' and I thought I'd look it up, so, from the HTML 4.01 Specification we get this from section 12.2.3 Anchors with the id attribute:
The id attribute may be used to create an anchor at the start tag of
any element (including the A element). This example illustrates the use of the id attribute to position an anchor in an H2 element. The anchor is linked to via the A element.
You may read more about this in Section Two.
...later in the document
<H2 id="section2">Section Two</H2>
...later in the document
<P>Please refer to Section Two above for more details.`
To carry on the convention of guesswork, perhaps your page isn't long enough to allow jumping to that content (that is, your page might have nowhere to jump and the content to jump to is already visible.)
Other than that, and from the same section of the spec previously linked, here is some general info on when to use what as the anchor identifier (in terms of the link its self) that could be otherwise valuable:
Use id or name? Authors should consider the following issues when
deciding whether to use id or name for an anchor name:
The id attribute can act as more than just an anchor name (e.g., style sheet selector, processing identifier, etc.).
Some older user agents don't support anchors created with the id attribute.
The name attribute allows richer anchor names (with entities).
Your code works fine in firefox anyway you can use as well name instead of id..
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_a_name.asp
if you want to have a nice scrolling you can use jquery scroll http://api.jquery.com/scroll/
I want to create something like
<menu>
<lunch>
<dish>aaa</dish>
<dish>bbb</dish>
</lunch>
<dinner>
<dish>ccc</dish>
</dinner>
</menu>
Can it be done in HTML5?
I know I can do it with
<ul id="menu">
<li>
<ul id="lunch">
<li class="dish">aaa</li>
<li class="dish">bbb</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<ul id="dinner">
<li class="dish">ccc</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
but it is so much less readable :(
You can use custom tags in browsers, although they won’t be HTML5 (see Are custom elements valid HTML5? and the HTML5 spec).
Let's assume you want to use a custom tag element called <stack>. Here's what you should do...
STEP 1
Normalize its attributes in your CSS Stylesheet (think css reset) -
Example:
stack{display:block;margin:0;padding:0;border:0; ... }
STEP 2
To get it to work in old versions of Internet Explorer, you need to append this script to the head (Important if you need it to work in older versions of IE!):
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script> document.createElement("stack"); </script>
<![endif]-->
Then you can use your custom tag freely.
<stack>Overflow</stack>
Feel free to set attributes as well...
<stack id="st2" class="nice"> hello </stack>
I'm not so sure about these answers. As I've just read:
"CUSTOM TAGS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ALLOWED IN HTML."
http://www.crockford.com/html/
The point here being, that HTML was based on SGML. Unlike XML with its doctypes and schemas, HTML does not become invalid if a browser doesn't know a tag or two. Think of <marquee>. This has not been in the official standard. So while using it made your HTML page "officially unapproved", it didn't break the page either.
Then there is <keygen>, which was Netscape-specific, forgotten in HTML4 and rediscovered and now specified in HTML5.
And also we have custom tag attributes now, like data-XyZzz="..." allowed on all HTML5 tags.
So, while you shouldn't invent a whole custom unspecified markup salad of your own, it's not exactly forbidden to have custom tags in HTML. That is however, unless you want to send it with an +xml Content-Type or embed other XML namespaces, like SVG or MathML. This applies only to SGML-confined HTML.
I just want to add to the previous answers that there is a meaning to use only two-words tags for custom elements.
They should never be standardised.
For example, you want to use the tag <icon>, because you don't like <img>, and you don't like <i> neither...
Well, keep in mind that you're not the only one. Maybe in the future, w3c and/or browsers will specify/implement this tag.
At this time, browsers will probably implements native style for this tag and your website's design may break.
So I'm suggesting to use (according to this example) <img-icon>.
As a matter of fact, the tag <menu> is well defined ie not so used, but defined. It should contain <menuitem> which behave like <li>.
As Michael suggested in the comments, what you want to do is quite possible, but your nomenclature is wrong. You aren't "adding tags to HTML 5," you are creating a new XML document type with your own tags.
I did this for some projects at my last job. Some practical advice:
When you say you want to "add these to HTML 5," I assume what you really mean is that you want the pages to display correctly in a modern browser, without having to do a lot of work on the server side. This can be accomplished by inserting a "stylesheet processing instruction" at the top of the xml file, like <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="menu.xsl"?>. Replace "menu.xsl" with the path to the XSL stylesheet that you create to convert your custom tags into HTML.
Caveats: Your file must be a well-formed XML document, complete with XML header <xml version="1.0">. XML is pickier than HTML about things like mismatched tags. Also, unlike HTML, tags are case-sensitive. You must also make sure that the web server is sending the files with the appropriate mime type "application/xml". Often the web server will be configured to do this automatically if the file extension is ".xml", but check.
Big Caveat: Finally, using the browsers' automatic XSL transformation, as I've described, is really best only for debugging and for limited applications where you have a lot of control. I used it successfully in setting up a simple intranet at my last employer, that was accessed only by a few dozen people at most. Not all browsers support XSL, and those that do don't have completely compatible implementations. So if your pages are to be released into the "wild," it's best to transform them all into HTML on the server side, which can be done with a command line tool, or with a button in many XML editors.
Creating your own tag names in HTML is not possible / not valid. That's what XML, SGML and other general markup languages are for.
What you probably want is
<div id="menu">
<div id="lunch">
<span class="dish">aaa</span>
<span class="dish">bbb</span>
</div>
<div id="dinner">
<span class="dish">ccc</span>
</div>
</div>
Or instead of <div/> and <span/> something like <ul/> and <li/>.
In order to make it look and function right, just hook up some CSS and Javascript.
Custom tags can be used in Safari, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox, at least as far as using them in place of "class=..." goes.
green {color: green} in css works for
<green>This is some text.</green>
<head>
<lunch>
<style type="text/css">
lunch{
color:blue;
font-size:32px;
}
</style>
</lunch>
</head>
<body>
<lunch>
This is how you create custom tags like what he is asking for its very simple just do what i wrote it works yeah no js or convoluted work arounds needed this lets you do exactly what he wrote.
</lunch>
</body>
For embedding metadata, you could try using HTML microdata, but it's even more verbose than using class names.
<div itemscope>
<p>My name is <span itemprop="name">Elizabeth</span>.</p>
</div>
<div itemscope>
<p>My name is <span itemprop="name">Daniel</span>.</p>
</div>
Besides writing an XSL stylesheet, as I described earlier, there is another approach, at least if you are certain that Firefox or another full-fledged XML browser will be used (i.e., NOT Internet Explorer). Skip the XSL transform, and write a complete CSS stylesheet that tells the browser how to format the XML directly. The upside here is that you wouldn't have to learn XSL, which many people find to be a difficult and counterintuitive language. The downside is that your CSS will have to specify the styling very completely, including what are block nodes, what are inlines, etc. Usually, when writing CSS, you can assume that the browser "knows" that <em>, for instance, is an inline node, but it won't have any idea what to do with <dish>.
Finally, its been a few years since I tried this, but my recollection is that IE (at least a few versions back) refused to apply CSS stylesheets directly to XML documents.
The point of HTML is that the tags included in the language have an agreed meaning, that everyone in the world can use and base decisions on - like default styling, or making links clickable, or submitting a form when you click on an <input type="submit">.
Made-up tags like yours are great for humans (because we can learn English and thus know, or at least guess, what your tags mean), but not so good for machines.
Polymer or X-tags allow you to build your own html tags. It is based on native browser's "shadow DOM".
In some circumstances, it may look like creating your own tag names just works fine.
However, this is just your browser's error handling routines at work. And the problem is, different browsers have different error handling routines!
See this example.
The first line contains two made-up elements, what and ever, and they get treated differently by different browsers. The text comes out red in IE11 and Edge, but black in other browsers.
For comparison, the second line is similar, except it contains only valid HTML elements, and it will therefore look the same in all browsers.
body {color:black; background:white;} /* reset */
what, ever:nth-of-type(2) {color:red}
code, span:nth-of-type(2) {color:red}
<p><what></what> <ever>test</ever></p>
<p><code></code> <span>test</span></p>
Another problem with made-up elements is that you won't know what the future holds. If you created a website a couple of years ago with tag names like picture, dialog, details, slot, template etc, expecting them to behave like spans, are you in trouble now!
This is not an option in any HTML specification :)
You can probably do what you want with <div> elements and classes, from the question I'm not sure exactly what you're after, but no, creating your own tags is not an option.
As Nick said, custom tags are not supported by any version of HTML.
But, it won't give any error if you use such markup in your HTML.
It seems like you want to create a list. You can use unordered list <ul> to create the rool elements, and use the <li> tag for the items underneath.
If that's not what you want to achieve, please specify exactly what you want. We can come up with an answer then.
You can add custom attribute through HTML 5 data- Attributes.
For example: Message
That is valid for HTML 5. See http://ejohn.org/blog/html-5-data-attributes/ to get details.
You can just do some custom css styling, this will create a tag that will make the background color red:
redback {background-color:red;}
<redback>This is red</redback>
you can use this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>MyExample</title>
<style>
bloodred {color: red;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<bloodred>
this is BLOODRED (not to scare you)
</bloodred>
</body>
<script>
var btn = document.createElement("BLOODRED")
</script>
</html>
I found this article on creating custom HTML tags and instantiating them. It simplifies the process and breaks it down into terms anyone can understand and utilize immediately -- but I'm not entirely sure the code samples it contains are valid in all browsers, so caveat emptor and test thoroughly. Nevertheless, it's a great introduction to the subject to get started.
Custom Elements : Defining new elements in HTML