Talk:HTML/Elements/footer

From W3C Wiki

The new HTML5 <footer> element seems to be causing more problems than uses. Most articles found on the web about the footer element deals with the problem of actually placing the footer at the bottom, as well as placing it on each page in printed media. Since this [bottom placement] is the definition of footer in all word processing, why are we actually using a different definition for it in HTML5?

There is actually no semantic definition of what content a footer (or header) should have - our common perception is just layout placement.

PROPOSAL: <bottomfooter> I think both browser developers and web developers would much appreciate a footer element that behaves as follows.

The default behaviors should be to:

  • graphically align itself below the bottom of the conceptual page (document.body)
  • It should not matter, where in the body content that the footer element is defined (no relative positioning), it should by default still be displayed at the bottom of the page.
  • on screen viewports is should appear once below the page bottom coordinate - not adding offset height to the total height of the page, but still adding height to the window representation of the page
  • in print media the footer element should steal its own height from the total height of the page (making the viewport height smaller).
  • IMPORTANT on print media it should be repeated on every printed page, just like in word processing softwares.
  • selected CSS parameters may affect the inner content as well as outer placement, but because it is defined as not part of the page area, its top coordinate should equal document.body.offsetHeight.
  • we should state that browsers that implement <bottomfooter> also need to implement the CSS properties counter(page) and counter(pages)

While footer placement in print media and screen viewports is possible to do with current CSS magic and javascript [and a lot of work] , the problem is that current methods differ between browser platforms, and there seems to be no common ground on how to implement this element - the a lack of standard seems to be caused by an unclear definition.

When we have established a clear, layout oriented, definition of <bottomfooter>, we should probably match this with a <topheader> element.

that’s just my two cents Richard Zembron