engineering has always been about build upon the mere foundation to make the tool do more and be more useful . The construct of the wheel moderate to the horse cavalry - drawn cart , which led to the automobile . Automobiles without respite organization , which render driver and rider with rough , uncomfortable and potentially unsafe rides , led to the development of springs on cars , give them better shock absorption and smoother travel .
The same idea put on to the major growing in computer andInternettechnologies . While the early stages of the Internet consist of simple pageboy with text and images ( what some concern to as Web 1.0 ) , today web site seek to be as deeply synergistic as potential , employing tawdry animation and easy - to - use software ( known by most asWeb 2.0 ) . The Web has become a vast labyrinth of connectedness : Sites hyperlink to each other , bloggers and societal networkers stake interesting link while keeping their friends updated and people perform any identification number of hunt on news article , physical contact selective information , address locations and so on .
But some finger this is just the beginning of what will be a dramatic sea change in the landscape of the Internet . One of the most of import developments that ’s creating a pregnant bombination in the tech industriousness is the borrowing ofmicroformats , small snippets of Web code that help standardise formatting . As everyone gets more connected , backers of the microformat standard trust the practice session will serve make buildingWeb pagesand the end user ’s experience easier , smooth and richer than ever .
Like many of today ’s emerging vane standards , like the phrases Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 and concepts such as assailable source , microformats are as much a philosophy as they are a specific readiness of rules . What just are microformats ? Are they something you ’ll see on a Web page , or are they only rules that developer and Internet browsers will use and admit ? What will they do , and why are they considered to be so important for the futurity of the WWW ?
Web Documents and Microformats
When someone creates a Sir Frederick Handley Page they want to display over theInternet , they useWeb documents . A World Wide Web written document is essentially the construction closure or pattern for anyWeb pageboy : developer place certain piece of codification , calledtags , around the Word they want to show up . These tags format the text and epitome on the varlet , so that if someone desire a pulley-block of information centered , for instance , a specific bit of codification will tell your web internet browser to do just that .
Microformatsare dim-witted pieces of text that developers of a Web Thomas Nelson Page can commit within the codification of a entanglement papers . The important affair to remember is that microformats work with most types of Web papers , including hypertext mark-up language , XHTML and XML .
For example , here ’s some distinctive HTML code that lists someone ’s personal information – the person in question might require to use this block of text as an online business placard .
< div >
< div > John Smith
< div > HowStuffWorks
< span>1234 Brain St.
< straddle > Atlanta ,
< span > GA
< span>12345
< /div >
< div > speech sound # : 123 - 456 - 7890
This chip of computer code will end up expect like this on a Web Thomas Nelson Page :
John Smith
HowStuffWorks
1234 Brain St.
Atlanta , GA 12345
Phone # : 123 - 456 - 7890
In this example , a " div " represent a block of information – everything within that first " < div > " and the final " < /div > " will remain apart from other pieces of schoolbook . It ’s best to think of it fairly like a treble - space paragraph break you habituate in a Word processor , except it wo n’t really show up on a Web Sir Frederick Handley Page when someone looks at the information . The " pair " rag , on the other hand , is very similar to the " div " tag , except it group text edition element together in one city block .
These tag do n’t have very much semantic meaning – they are n’t something people can look at to earn an understanding of the aim of the block of school text . You could say " div " looks a little bit like the parole " divide , " but that ’s about it as far as it goes ; however , within the HTML standard , there are other ways to make the same sort of business card . Here ’s another instance :
< p > John Smith < br >
HowStuffWorks < br >
< blockquote>1234 Brain St.
Atlanta,
GA < br >
12345 < br>
speech sound # : 123 - 456 - 7890
The business batting order will show up on the vane site in basically the same way , but the tags used are more meaningful to us : " atomic number 15 " stands for " paragraph , " to tell the web web browser to set out a new paragraph , and " br " stand for " break , " which tells the web web browser to add a line fracture and start a unexampled line . It ’s a more straightforward option than the " div " and " span " tags .
But this still was n’t enough for the people support microformats . The former computer code win in creating a perfectly fine leaning , but the code itself does n’t tell the developer tuck the information that the case of text listed is specifically a business card . What ’s a forward - search developer to do ?
Tag Attributes
Most tags haveattributes , extra notations that can vary certain facial expression of the text in question . They act as a sort of recording label that ’s tie to a specific piece of data point ; it ’s like enounce to thecomputer , " The majority of this school text you could handle normally , but for this one line I ’d like you to represent it this way . " If you ’re using the " couple " rag , for instance , and you require to make a small-arm of text show up red on a Web page , you could add the " style " attribute :
< span style=“color : # 0000ff;">HowStuffWorks
betimes on , multitude in the microformat community were looking around the HTML standard for more meaningful attribute – most significantly , they want to practice what was already available within HTML rather of scrap everything and starting all over again with a completely different markup nomenclature .
What they find were three important attributes :
class- allow developers to identify similar constituent across several World Wide Web documents
rel- draw the human relationship of a tie in text file to the current document
rev- delineate the reverse of rel : The relationship of the current written document to a link up document
Developers can add any one of these to an hypertext mark-up language tag and follow up with an adequate house and an easy - to - understand semantic label in quotation marks .
Take , for instance , the class attribute . If someone want to list the reference " 1234 Brain St. , " it could face very simply like this in a Web text file :
This , however , is how that same codification would look after add a microformat :
< span class=“street - address”>1234 Brain St.
The initial ticket can be anything , whether it ’s " span , " " p " and so on . The key to microformats is in standardizing the semantic labels you see in quotes .
So what does this achieve , not just for the developer , but for the intermediate net web internet browser ? Once these attributes are added to the computer code , specifically designed Web - basedaggregators– service that check for info around theInternetat unconstipated intervals and call for it in one situation – can seek out relevant microformats . An hCard aggregator , for example , could search the WWW for any pages that contain hCard microformats ( which , at their most basic , look likeclass=“vcard"within a web document ) – a byplay could then easy root for in a significant amount of potential customer information on a veritable basis .
The microformat community is essentially say , " These parts of HTML work really well ; they ’re gentle to use , and both people and computers understand them , so let ’s keep build upon this idea . " Although we wo n’t see microformats used extensively across theWebfor a while , suspensor of microformats and loose beginning sucker - up language are continue to standardise and remain excited about the possibility in store for an even more affiliated online experience .
For spate more information on microformats and emerge internet technologies , see the next page .
