• From: -8 GMT
  • Registered: 2004-05-04
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Topic: Support for Microformats - hCard and MicroID?

i was browsing the dev.punbb.org and saw this on the roadmap of 1.3. can someone give me an example or 2 of how these will be beneficial to a forum admin/member?

i'm not sure i understand what these are so this is why i asked. i've even read both websites and i'm still kinda confused.

~James
FluxBB - Less is more

2 Reply by MattF

  • MattF
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  • From: South Yorkshire, England
  • Registered: 2007-03-15
  • Posts: 1,956

Re: Support for Microformats - hCard and MicroID?

Far as I know, h-card is just another variant of the likes of v-card.

Full info is here:

http://microformats.org/

MattF's Website

  • Ed[UK]
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  • Registered: 2007-11-10
  • Posts: 4

Re: Support for Microformats - hCard and MicroID?

Microformats add semantic value where HTML fails to do so. Improving semantics means consumers need to make use of them so examples would be:

- A custom user.css in Firefox that highlights hcards and floats it for easy reading.
- A customer database application that can read an address in microformat, saves typing it.
- A calendar can load an event that's listed in microformat with one-click.

The idea is that since there is no <street> element in HTML, using a semantic hook like <span id="street"> means user agents can process the information more effectively.

How microformats will evolve is uncertain as HTML5 is still being argued/written and the semantic nature of the language is up in the air, but one things for certain, using microformats gives more people more options to consume the information which can only be a good thing.

4 Reply by Paul

  • Paul
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  • From: Wales, UK.
  • Registered: 2003-08-13
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Re: Support for Microformats - hCard and MicroID?

Probably the most useful microformat at the moment is hcard. By adding a few classes to a user profile a vcard can be extracted without any other coding if the user agent is able to do it. Firefox has extensions which will pull information straight out of a profile marked as an hcard and export it to Outlook as a vcard.