Outline Algorithm

Letting go of XHTML and all of its well structured and ridged rules is going to be difficult, however the future looks rather bright. HTML5 is practically a brand now and for good reasons. One of the features that have really impressed me is the “Outline Algorithm” rule. This may not seem that important to some, but I have learned to appreciate an old word that I have never used – “semantic”. Imagine that, you are required to structure your documents in a hierarchical manner that actually makes sense.

Example

 <body>
     <heading>Heading content and Main Navigation</heading>
     <section>
     <h1>Products, Service and Whatever</h1>
     <article>
     <h1>Products</h1>
     <p>Content....</p>
     </article>
     <article>
     <h1>Services offered</h1>
     <p>Content...</p>
     </article>
     </section>
</body>

The other snazzy part of my new found interest is the fact that we are also given a tool that validates this rule. There are several providers, but I will stick with the very familiar and sometimes not so trusted Google. Chrome has an extension you can download at this link. Before you go, there are a few quirks you need to be aware of; the extension does not play well with local flat files. If you are running a local server or uploading to a live server, you will get the results you are searching for. Happy hunting.

May, 2011 | HTML5

Example