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:

    • /
      and
      3. to

  20:04 - Structural / Layout tags

  • • You can have more than one header
    • Header cannot be in a footer / address / header

  26:18 - Some fun ones you might not know

  • /
  • and strike?
  • / /
    • A ruby annotation is a small extra text, attached to the main text to indicate the pronunciation or meaning of the corresponding characters.
  • and
    • While 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).

  32:12 - Visual vs Semantic tags

  • Almost all tags in HTML are semantic
  • vs and vs
    • and are NOT deprecated like many have said
    • The 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:

  37:51 - Some elements have special functionality or styling

  • and tag
  • +

  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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