HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
Phew, that was quite a ride, wasn't it? You've seen a lot of new
structures, new elements, and quite a few changes to existing
elements. If you've studied our markup examples carefully, you
also know the favoured weaponry of fairies, so beware if you're
a goblin or an orc.
HTML5 allows us to mark up common website structures with
dedicated elements, rather than empty
<div>
or
<span>
elements.
These are still completely necessary parts of the language. Just
as with HTML 4, you should use these generic containers when
there aren't any more appropriate elements, but now you have
a larger arsenal of elements to choose from. You've also seen
that some of these new elements have conceptually built-in
roles to help assistive technologies. However, while we're in this
transitional period and browser (and more importantly screen
reader) support for these built-in roles may still be lacking, you
can still (validly and legally) add extra ARIA information.
It probably seems pretty complex, but take my word for it: as
you use these new constructs, they soon become much easier
to understand. The only way to familiarise yourself with these
new constructs is to start using them, so get stuck in!
