What effect do HTML5 structural elements — <nav>, <article>, <section>, etc — actually have in •practice•?
Do they affect the behavior of browsers? of screen readers?
Is there a canonical nesting order?
Does it matter? Can I just slap them over a page willy-nilly and it doesn’t matter?
I find lots of uselessly prescriptive guides that are essentially aesthetic opinions about the tags, but very little on the actual practical •effect• of using one.
@MostlyCoraGrace The <article> tag generally wraps the only content worth actually keeping / reading on a page...
Answering @inthehands: you might want to take a look at the Readbility.js code to see what elements its looking for on pages to render the actual main article payload. Though I suspect much of that is itself an ad hoc mess.
I've suggested a browser built on an FYWD principle.
Some people say that means Fine Young Western Dinosaurs.
Others insist it means Fuck Your Web Design.
The parser would be premised on a strict rejection of Postel's Law.
Paul Cantrell
Cora Grace
Doc Edward Morbius ⭕
spitchell