About Block Formatting in HTML...
= Index DOT Html by Brian Wilson [bloo@blooberry.com] =

Justification for Character Formatting

The main intent of SGML (and the derivative HTML language) is to be a device independent language for describing the content of documents. To accomplish this, it tries to divorce presentation rules from textual content. Block Formatting elements allow the assignment of semantic purpose to a block of content as well as allowing a consistent minimum of layout behavior in the form of inherent linebreaking rules.

Block Formatting in HTML provides the means to render content in sections that are distinct both physically and often visually from other surrounding sections and content. Browsers should render Block Formatted sections with an implied line break before and after the content block in addition to any other styles applied. Character Formatting (the other main content formatting class of elements), on the other hand, will render content changes in-place.

The Full Scope of Block Formatting

[<address>, <blockquote>, <center>, <Hx>, <listing>, <p>, <plaintext>, <pre>, <xmp>]

Other HTML tag groupings also exhibit "Block" nature similar to that of the Block Formatting tags. All lists, table structures and form structures have the basic linebreaking behavior that is characteristic of Block Formatting in order to produce distinct regions of content. Discussion of these topics is best separated from Block Formatting concepts because these other tag groupings are not meant to assign a simple semantic style to the content.

A Special Generic Block Style

[<div>]

The introduction of Style Sheets has added two new HTML tags to allow for generic tagging situations where no specific HTML markup would be appropriate. The DIV tag (and its companion Character Formatting Tag SPAN) has no real inherent semantic purpose assigned to its structure - the author can assign Style Sheet properties as needed. Of course the only inherent property given to DIV is the implied linebreak before and after its content.

Other Block Formatting Tags

[<layer>, <marquee>, <multicol>]

I only recently decided to place these tags in this section, having moved them from the 'miscellaneous' section. These tags were created by the browser companies and are not supported in any HTML standard (nor are they ever likely to be), but they do exhibit the requirements necessary to be called Block Formatting elements. They define blocks of text, usually have a definite semantic structure, and have an implied line break before and after the block.

Official References

ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1866.txt

RFC 1866: The HTML 2.0 specification (plain text)

http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/html-spec

The web version of the HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866) specification

http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Wilbur/

The HTML 3.2 (Wilbur) proposal
[Includes all HTML 2 character elements and newer formatting elements in common use]

http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Cougar/HTML.dtd

The experimental HTML (Cougar) draft
[Demonstrates some of the directions HTML is taking]

http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-css1.html

Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1 specification draft
[Includes usage of DIV and SPAN]

http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/html_extensions.html

Netscape Extensions to HTML 2.0
[Details Center tag usage]

http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/html_extensions_3.html

Netscape Extensions to HTML 3.0
[Includes ALIGN attributes of P and DIV]

http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/3.0/relnotes/windows-3.0.html#Layout

Netscape 3.0 release notes
[Details the use of the MULTICOL tag]

http://developer.netscape.com/library/documentation/communicator/layers/layers.htm

Netscape's documentation for the LAYER tag

http://www.netscape.com/comprod/products/communicator/layers/layers_glossary.html

Netscape's glossary of LAYER tag information

http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/newhtml/htmlr020.htm

Internet Explorer 3.0 Tag reference
[Details HTML 2.0, 3.2 and common extensions. Also details MARQUEE tag]