New semantic elements in HTML5
If I check the definition of the word 'semantics' in the dictionary of OS X, it is defined as:
"the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning".
For our purposes, semantics is the process of giving our markup meaning. Why is this important? Glad you asked.
Most websites follow fairly standard structural conventions; typical areas include a header, a footer, a sidebar, a navigation bar, and so on. As web authors we will often name the divs we use to more clearly designate these areas (for example, class="Header"
). However, as far as the code itself goes, any user agent (web browser, screen reader, search engine crawler, and so on) looking at it couldn't say for sure what the purpose of each of these div
elements is. Users of assistive technology would also find it difficult to differentiate one div
from another. HTML5 aims to solve that problem with new semantic elements.
Note
For the full list of HTML5 elements, get yourself (very) comfy and point your...