On 5/28/08, Chris Pearce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > For a few years now I've been marking up a clients company logo as a <h1>. I > just wanted to get an idea of how many people actually do this compared to > using a html image tag? I believe a <h1> is more semantically correct > however I'd be interested in seeing what other people on this list think. >
Headers and particularly h1 headers are not "the" most important item on a page. Headers introduce sections of which there can be more than one on a page and which can run more than one page. This is what the html 4.01 specs say about headers: "A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section it introduces. Heading information may be used by user agents, for example, to construct a table of contents for a document automatically. There are six levels of headings in HTML with H1 as the most important and H6 as the least. Visual browsers usually render more important headings in larger fonts than less important ones. The following example shows how to use the DIV element to associate a heading with the document section that follows it. Doing so allows you to define a style for the section (color the background, set the font, etc.) with style sheets. <DIV class="section" id="forest-elephants" > <H1>Forest elephants</H1> <P>In this section, we discuss the lesser known forest elephants. ...this section continues... <DIV class="subsection" id="forest-habitat" > <H2>Habitat</H2> <P>Forest elephants do not live in trees but among them. ...this subsection continues... </DIV> </DIV>" http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H1 HTML5 is perhaps even clearer on the sectioning nature of headings since it also calls for the specific use of section tags to work with headers: "The h1–h6 elements and the header element are headings. The first element of heading content in an element of sectioning content gives the header for that section. Subsequent headers of equal or higher rank start new (implied) sections, headers of lower rank start subsections that are part of the previous one. Sectioning content elements are always considered subsections of their nearest ancestor element of sectioning content, regardless of what implied sections other headings may have created. Certain elements are said to be sectioning roots, including blockquote and td elements. These elements can have their own outlines, but the sections and headers inside these elements do not contribute to the outlines of their ancestors. " http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#headings0 Discussions of sections and articles and outlines seem to further confirm that headers are for sections not sites. Site headers are discussed under articles and outlines which include and seem to superceed headers in 5. In other words, it seems completely plausible to have an h1 for the logo and an h1 for the page topic if both of those seem to the author to constitute separate sections in 4.01 and obligatory in 5. drew ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
