Semantic HTML: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:03, 24 August 2022

Revision as of 10:05, 25 October 2022

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HTML has included semantic markup since its inception.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Berners-Lee|first1=Tim|author-link1=Tim Berners-Lee|last2=Fischetti|first2=Mark|title=Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor|url=https://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0|url-access=registration|isbn=978-0062515872 |publisher=Harper|___location=San Francisco|year=2000}}</ref> In an HTML document, the author may, among other things, "start with a title; add headings and paragraphs; add emphasis to [the] text; add images; add links to other pages; [and] use various kinds of lists".<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Overview.html|title=Getting started with HTML|last=Raggett|first=Dave|author-link=Dave Raggett|date=24 April 2005|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=8 December 2010}}</ref>

Various versions of the HTML standard have included [[HTML element#Presentation|presentational markup]] such as <code>&lt;font&gt;</code> (added in HTML 3.2; removed in HTML 4.0 Strict), <code>&lt;i&gt;</code> (all versions) and <code>&lt;center&gt;</code> (added in HTML 3.2). There are also the semantically neutral [[span and div]] elements. Since the late 1990s when [[Cascading Style Sheets]] were beginning to work in most browsers, web authors have been encouraged to avoid the use of presentational HTML markup with a view to the [[separation of presentationcontent and contentpresentation]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style.html|title=Adding a touch of style|last=Raggett|first=Dave|date=8 April 2002|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=8 December 2010}} This article notes that presentational HTML markup may be useful when targeting browsers "before [[Netscape Communicator|Netscape 4.0]] and [[Internet Explorer 4|Internet Explorer 4.0]]" which were both released in 1997.</ref>

In 2001, [[Tim Berners-Lee]] participated in a discussion of the [[Semantic Web]], where it was presented that intelligent software 'agents' might one day automatically trawl the Web and find, filter and correlate previously unrelated, published facts for the benefit of end users.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-semantic-web|title=The Semantic Web|first1=Tim|last1=Berners-Lee|first2=James|last2=Hendler|first3=Ora|last3=Lassila|publisher=Scientific American|year=2001|access-date=2009-10-02}}</ref> Such agents are not commonplace even now, but some of the ideas of [[Web 2.0]], [[Mashup (web application hybrid)|mashups]] and [[Price comparison service|price comparison websites]] may be coming close. The main difference between these web application hybrids and Berners-Lee's semantic agents lies in the fact that the current [[news aggregator|aggregation]] and hybridisation of information is usually designed in by web developers, who already know the web locations and the [[Application programming interface|API semantics]] of the specific data they wish to mash, compare and combine.