HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
• figure
: this element can be used to surround self-contained content such as photos and
illustrations. This element uses the
block
display type rather than the
inline-block
display
type (as used for images)
• figcaption
: this is used for providing a legend for a
figure
.
• address
: defines a section describing contact information.
It is important not to overuse these new tags. The new tags have specific meaning, and
if you need to separate content for other purposes, including stylistic purposes (via CSS),
there is nothing wrong with using
div
and
span
tags.
In addition, don't expect these tags to radically change your life. In reality they are one of
the most uninteresting features of HTML5. Even the often quoted benefit of these tags, “re-
purposing”, is probably more hype that reality.
As an example of repurposing, consider Safari's “Reader” mode. This cuts out all the su-
perfluous content from a page containing an article, and therefore makes the article easier
to read. It may have been easier for Apple to implement this if everyone used the
article
tag: but Apple still managed to implement this feature without it. In addition, it is unlikely
Apple would simply trust the semantic tags presented by a page, since websites would
quickly learn the benefits of placing advertising material inside an article element, even
though the specification implies they should be outside it.
There are a number of other new tags that are directly related to functional aspects of pages
(such as
video
and
audio
): these will be addressed separately.
