[microformats-discuss] Microformat to denote the date of the last page modfication

Tue Aug 16 05:08:03 PDT 2005

Andreas Haugstrup wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 21:15:15 +0200, Robert Bachmann
> <rbach at rbach.priv.at>  wrote:
> 
>> I don't think so because the HTTP Last-Modified header describes when
>> _the file_ was last modified, <abbr class="page-last-modified">
>> describes when the last edit of _the page content_ happened.
> 
> Isn't the difference the same?
I'll try to provide a better example.

This shall be our orginal page:
<!DOCTYPE ...>
<html>
 <head>
 <title>Some article</title>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
 </head>
 <body>
 <h1>Some article</h1>
 ...
 ...
 ...
 
 Do not try this at home!
 
 
 Last update:
 <abbr class="page-last-modified" title="20050102">2 Jan 2005</abbr>
 
</body>
</html>

Now we make a cosmetical change.
We add
  p.warning {color: red; }
to style.css and change our HTML file to:

<!DOCTYPE ...>
<html>
 <head>
 <title>Some article</title>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
 </head>
 <body>
  <h1>Some article</h1>
  <p>...</p>
  <p>...</p>
  <p>...</p>
  <p class="warning"> <!-- <<< -->
  <strong>Do not</strong> try this at home!
  </p>
  <p>
  Last update:
  <abbr class="page-last-modified" title="20050102">2 Jan 2005</abbr>
  </p>
</body>
</html>

Althought we updated the file we did not change the visble content,
i.e: no user would bother the re-read the article because there is
no visible change.
Therfore we didn't change the date of <abbr class="page-last-modified" ...

I hope that the above example brings some clarity.

Additionaly this microformat has the benefit that it can
be used to denote the last modifcation of an entry/item, e.g:

<div class="some-microformat-container">
Content ...
<p class="fineprint">Last updated:
<abbr class="last-modified" title="...">...</abbr>
</p>
</div>

Robert
-- 
Robert Bachmann <rbach at rbach.priv.at> (OpenPGP KeyID: 0x4A5CCF10)