Microdata
Microdata is a standardized way to provide additional semantics in your web pages. For example, you can use microdata to declare that a photograph is available under a specific Creative Commons license. As youâll see in Chapter 10, you can also use microdata to mark up an âAbout Meâ page. Browsers, browser extensions, and search engines can convert your HTML5 microdata markup into a vCard, a standard format for sharing contact information. You can also define your own microdata vocabularies.
The HTML5 microdata standard includes both HTML markup (primarily for search engines) and a set of DOM functions (primarily for browsers). Thereâs no harm in including microdata markup in your web pages; itâs nothing more than a few well-placed attributes, and search engines that donât understand the microdata attributes will just ignore them. But if you need to access or manipulate microdata through the DOM, youâll need to check whether the browser supports the microdata DOM API.
Checking for HTML5 microdata API support
uses detection technique #1 (see Detection Techniques).
If your browser supports the HTML5 microdata API, there
will be a getItems()
function on the
global document
object. If your browser
doesnât support microdata, the getItems()
function will be undefined. You can
check for support as follows:
function supports_microdata_api() { return !!document.getItems; }
Modernizr does not yet support checking for the microdata API, so youâll need to use a function ...
Get HTML5: Up and Running now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.