Comments on: Customizing Your Markup http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/ Things that Eric A. Meyer, CSS expert, writes about on his personal Web site; it's largely Web standards and Web technology, but also various bits of culture, politics, personal observations, and other miscellaneous stuff Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:30:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Sean Hogan http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-655515 Sean Hogan Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:38:00 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-655515 Apologies. My last comment was meant to end with:

wouldn’t the “font” element be appropriate for this job? I don’t think anyone styles it and it’s semantically close.

]]> By: Customizing Your Markup « Raanan Avidor http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-655362 Customizing Your Markup « Raanan Avidor Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:40:43 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-655362 [...] this article http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/ by Eric Meyer, published on March 28, 2012 at 04:55PM. Share this:StumbleUponDiggRedditLike [...]

]]> By: David Hudson http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-655243 David Hudson Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:32:47 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-655243 Bottom line: We can create any element we want to. The W3C argument against creating custom DTDs has to do with the old school browser wars, where each browser had its own set of unique elements. Obviously that’s bad and we don’t want to go back to those days. However, a developer creating their own unique element for their own unique site is a different matter entirely. Yes, it’s possible that the tag will someday be added to the HTML DTD which could cause unforeseen problems, but if we name our elements carefully we can avoid namespacing issues. Anyone who develops a website thinking they can future-proof it with standards compliant code doesn’t understand the history of the web. I mean, even if you could future-proof a website, it’s going to look like crap in 10 years when we have super retina displays that attach directly to our brain-stems that are controlled by our thoughts and are charged by our farts. We should plan for maintainability more than trying to eliminate the need for maintenance entirely.

I definitely want to avoid some dystopian version of the interwebs where a developer’s ability to innovate is limited, all in the name of “standards”. I’d rather have to do a little extra work to make my site compatible with most browsers while still having the ability to shape my text into bacon just for fun: http://baconforme.com/

]]> By: Sean Hogan http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-655043 Sean Hogan Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:03:46 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-655043 Hi Eric,

I agree that the custom elements proposal is clumsy.

I think TypeButter is a good use-case for a shadow DOM (http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webcomponents/raw-file/tip/spec/shadow/index.html) which is being proposed by the same author.

I imagine any shadow DOM solution is 5-10 years away, but in the mean-time wouldn’t be appropriate for this job? I don’t think anyone styles it and it’s semantically close.

]]> By: anonymous http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654995 anonymous Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:31:39 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654995 If we could create any element we wanted to, what would stop people from creating super semantic tags and striving towards XML-ification?

No more just use in the HTML itself. I assume that’s what they may be trying to prevent from happening.

]]> By: Michael. http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654989 Michael. Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:11:26 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654989 Thinking of new tags, I wanna define a new tag based on <a>. So, using the syntax mentioned previously (which isn’t showing up just now, but was basically move the proposed element tag to the head) create:

<element extends="a" name="bullshit">
<template>

<style>
color { #abcdef;} /* shit brown (not actually shit brown)*/
:after
{
content: "(eww)";
}
</style>
<attributes>
<attribute>rel="nofollow"</attribute>
<attributes>
</template>
</element>

So, our new tag is like an anchor, except that it has a default colour of “shit brown”, and “(eww)” after it. It will also have the default attribute rel=”nowfollow”.
It should be used to link to sites such as Faux News, or The Conservative News Network.

I’m not sure whether browsers should by default:
* go through and change all the bullshit elements to a elements (with the defaults) and then continue (which might make JS unhappy, because they won’t get the new element to play with, but would make generating the DOM easier); or
* keep them in the DOM, and just magically treat them as the type of element they are.

]]> By: Boris http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654982 Boris Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:01:31 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654982 I certainly wasn’t intending to dress you down… I’m sorry if it came across that way.

HTML5 really doesn’t have a “spec-compliant” way to address you use case. Inventing your own names will make the document not “valid HTML5″, though of course the processing model requires the browser to have the right behavior for them. So your advice to “just go ahead and do it” is spot on. There will still be issues (e.g. if you want your custom element as a child of a table row group or some such), but that’s the best you can do right now without spec changes.

]]> By: Michael. http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654980 Michael. Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:55:48 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654980 Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t this what namespaces is meant to solve? So can’t you just use HTML5 in it’s XML form, and then use namespaces to throw in your various custom elements? A quick web search suggests this is a perfectly valid approach. (Though you do have to use XML, which you may not want to for various other reasons.)

OK, but what about in plain HTML? What about having an <element> attribute defined in the <head>, perhaps using the same form as currently >element extends=”span” name=”x-kern”<. The new tag <x-kern>> then takes on the various default attributes of the <span> tag, such as being inline, etc. Or, you could use <template> as well, to give it style or whatever.

Alternatively you could define a custom DTD…

Or, you could, I don’t know, just go with existing elements (span and div probably) with specific class names and make sure that you aren’t having styles that’ll cause problems for those specific cases.

At least some people think it’s bad form to create custom elements. Because, you know, they won’t have any semantics attached.

]]> By: Eric Meyer http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654974 Eric Meyer Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:30:20 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654974 Okay, Boris, then perhaps you could point us in the right direction? I appreciate being systematically dressed down as much as the next guy, but I always like a bit of a knowledge chaser to perk the spirits back up. Bonus kudos if you answer the question of whether it’s legal to invent your own HTML5 elements and insert them into the document, but I’ll take what I can get.

]]> By: Boris http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654961 Boris Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:44:53 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654961 I think you mostly misunderstood the point of web components. The idea is not to make up a new element name; the idea is to assign to a given element (which should have some semantically appropriate element name to start with) a set of behavior and presentation.

This misunderstanding leads to your markup being completely wrong (and in fact, if used, would lead to an infinite loop). It also leads to you complaining about the fact that a tool that’s not designed to solve your problem is not solving your problem…

(There’s a side point that the web components draft is basically one guy’s thoughts, and not actually part of HTML5 yet, and may never get there in its current form, but that’s all less relevant.)

]]> By: Bridget Stewart http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654948 Bridget Stewart Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:08:19 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654948 I wonder if the over-complication and potential CSS run-ins was intentional, for the sake of preventing an onslaught of new elements — really goofy ones like crapulent or epeen. (I claim the right to use those first if the playing field opens up.)

]]> By: Neal G http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654940 Neal G Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:43:55 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654940 Perhaps HTML5 could go the route of data-attribute and use a prefix element sort of like <element-mycustnamehere></element-mycustnamehere>

That way, it won’t conflict with future versions of HTML where new elements may be created.

]]> By: Eric Meyer http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654939 Eric Meyer Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:39:13 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654939 Trever: It was mostly based on what I found in poking under TypeButter’s hood, but I’m sure the existence of those tools and commentaries filtered into my subconscious and nudged me in this direction as well.

]]> By: Trever http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654937 Trever Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:36:18 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654937 Disruptively delicious thoughts Eric. Scott Jehl’s polyfill for RWD and Rachel Andrew’s contemptuous article, Stop Solving Problems You Don’t Have come to mind. Would you say either of these ideas spurred on your article, or was it purely based on experiments with TypeButter?

]]> By: Eric Meyer http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/28/customizing-your-markup/#comment-654935 Eric Meyer Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:22:42 +0000 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/?p=1713#comment-654935 It’s hard for me to be sure, Ben—I tend to get lost in any subsection that’s beyond three levels deep—but if that’s possible then I don’t understand why the element-based element customization exists. Surely if there was an easier method available, nobody would’ve gone to the effort of writing the more complicated thing?

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