Posted by Toby Inkster on 05/06/06 10:24

Luigi Donatello Asero wrote:

> Now assuming that we use <h1> to display sections, I guess that we should
> use <h2> to display subsections but how should I call the class
> referring to the menu on the left then?

Aha! At last a sensible question from Luigi! What is the best way to
structure a page into sections when some of them are not really part of
the document, but are navigation.

I think conventional wisdom is to do something like this:

h1 = British Royal Family
h2 = The Queen
h2 = Price Charles
h3 = Marriage to Lady Diana Spencer
h3 = Marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles
h2 = Prince Andrew
h3 = Marriage to Sarah Fergusson
h2 = Prince Edward
h2 = Princess Anne
h2 = Site Search
h2 = Navigation Menu

But do the Site Search and Navigation Menu really deserve to be on the
same level as the main subsection headings? They're not really sections of
the main article.

Currently on my site I'm using:

h1 = British Royal Family
h2 = The Queen
h2 = Price Charles
h3 = Marriage to Lady Diana Spencer
h3 = Marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles
h2 = Prince Andrew
h3 = Marriage to Sarah Fergusson
h2 = Prince Edward
h2 = Princess Anne
h6 = Site Search
h6 = Navigation Menu

Which does mark out a distinction between document headings and all those
extra bits that are common on web pages, but it's still not very
satisfying.

I think the best way might be:

h1 = British Royal Family
h2 = The Queen
h2 = Price Charles
h3 = Marriage to Lady Diana Spencer
h3 = Marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles
h2 = Prince Andrew
h3 = Marriage to Sarah Fergusson
h2 = Prince Edward
h2 = Princess Anne
h1 = Site Search
h1 = Navigation Menu

Which in my opinion offers the closest match to the logical structure of
the page.

Ultimately the nicest solution would be to not have *any* navigation on
the page:

h1 = British Royal Family
h2 = The Queen
h2 = Price Charles
h3 = Marriage to Lady Diana Spencer
h3 = Marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles
h2 = Prince Andrew
h3 = Marriage to Sarah Fergusson
h2 = Prince Edward
h2 = Princess Anne

and to use only the humble <LINK> element for navigation; however, even in
browsers that support <LINK>, implementations are not sufficiently good to
be relied on for primary navigation. Perhaps the day will come though.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

• Next in forum: Re: <div class="position"> and <div class" section">
• Prev in forum: Re: no target="_blank"
• Thread view: Re: <div class="position"> and <div class" section">

[Reply to this message]