Custom MetaTags & HTML5

[localhorst]

howdy,
i use HTML5 for my website and zoom search metadata like

<meta name="EAN" content="4013389455961" />
<meta name="ARTNR" content="G-33116" />
<meta name="ZOOMIMAGE" content="/thumbnails/bilder-G-33116.jpg" />

unfortunately this doesn't validate and I ask you if there is another way to provide metadata in a valid way.
A good way, could be microformats http://schema.org/Offer
But I am sure that's not simple to realize (at example
<span itemprop="price">$55.00</span> zoom needs an integer here, to calculate min/max price as search option)

at least, ZOOMIMAGE could be replaced with <link rel="image_src" href="thumb.jpg" />
This is a common way to include thumbnails for sharing over social networks.

would this find it's way into the next version of Zoom? and when will it come?

cheers m.

[Ray]

We'll have to sit down and consider some alternatives.

HTML4 and earlier always allowed an arbitrary list of name= attributes for <meta> tags.

It is surprising that the new HTML5 is apparently requiring a specific set of registered name= attributes.

Considering that it is early days for HTML5 (even the W3 Validator for HTML5 is marked as being "experimental"), it is hard to gauge what would be the most popular method to markup such meta data. Standards often introduce something which might be most appropriate but if its least supported and least utilized by the web community, then it becomes sidelined. We'll have to look into this in more detail and keep your suggestions in mind. Thanks.

[David]

The current standard is here,
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/semantics...e-meta-element

Seems like, anyone is free to add MetaExtensions at any time. So the tags you use don't need to be invalid as long as you define your tags or use the existing tags in the WHATWG Wiki MetaExtensions page.

But the zoom image tag does look like it might be invalid in HTML5 and we might need to support the <link> tag in the future.

[localhorst]

Personally I like the idea of metatags as hidden datafields. On the other side, microformats are more context specific and big searchengines support it, to show ratings, breadcrumbs etc. So, once set for google&co it's usable for zoom too.

I would like to ask for another output format, too.
I messed around with the XML output of zoom to do some kind of autosuggest ajax blabla. (jquery)

I stumbled over these problems:
the € sign was encoded to &euro; which made the XML invalid, so I have to pull the xml as text, did some replacements to transform the custom <zoomrice> datafield tags to plain <price> and then grab the text from the nodes. It works, but it's a weird workaround, so alternative output as JSON(P) would be awesome and easier to use.
I think JSON is the current way to share data, since all these APIs outside...

what do you think

[nmyers]

It has been over 6 months since this HTML5 validation thread was started. I was wondering if you have any solutions planned yet? Have you considered submitting some basic Zoom tags to the WHATWG Wiki MetaExtensions page, like ZOOMIMAGE, ZOOMTITLE, ZOOMDESCRIPTION, AND ZOOMWORDS?

[Richard]

It has been over 6 months since this HTML5 validation thread was started. I was wondering if you have any solutions planned yet? Have you considered submitting some basic Zoom tags to the WHATWG Wiki MetaExtensions page, like ZOOMIMAGE, ZOOMTITLE, ZOOMDESCRIPTION, AND ZOOMWORDS?

Yes, we have plans to add Zoom related meta tags to the WHATWG wiki. We are currently awaiting our account to be created to be able to edit the page.

[nmyers]

Yes, we have plans to add Zoom related meta tags to the WHATWG wiki. We are currently awaiting our account to be created to be able to edit the page.

Thank You.

[Richard]

We have added our Zoom supported meta tags to the WHATWG wiki. They are under Proposal status.

Also note that changes to this registry may not be reflected in validators in real time.

[nmyers]

custom metatags

We have added our Zoom supported meta tags to the WHATWG wiki. They are under Proposal status.

Also note that changes to this registry may not be reflected in validators in real time.

I run the indexer on my local files and then upload the files required by Zoom to the website. If I could strip out the Zoom metatags during upload (ZOOMIMAGE, ZOOMTITLE, ZOOMDESCRIPTION, ZOOMWORDS), would the web searches still work as if the tags were there? That is, does the information used for the search and display of results all come from the zdat files, not from the actual remote HTML files?

If this is true, then do you, or anyone else, know of any ftp clients that might do this? I am using an old version of Adobe GoLive and it will strip out Adobe's proprietary tags, but I don't see any way to get it to strip out these Zoom metatags.

Thank You
Nancy

[David]

Yes, after indexing the tags are no longer required.
But on the other hand there is really no need to remove them either. We aren't aware of any software to strip them.

[nmyers]

Looking at the registered meta extensions again at http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/MetaExtensions I see the various Zoom keywords under the Registered Extensions category with the status of Proposal. This appears to be the same status as the web trends keywords. When I try to validate pages using the online validator at http://validator.w3.org/check, pages with Zoom keywords still fail with error such as "Bad value ZOOMTITLE for attribute name on element meta: Keyword zoomtitle is not registered." I tried a couple of Web trends keywords instead and the page passes.

It seems as if you have gotten the Zoom keywords registered since they are in the registered extensions table and every term in that table has a status of Proposal. I read the text at the top of the page that warns that validators may not reflect additions to the list in real time. I also noticed the suggestion that "If you add a meta name value to this table and you want it supported in the validator(s), you need to either open a validator bug or e-mail the www-validator@w3.org list to ask that it be added and reference your change to this page."

I understand there are many different validators available and would not expect you to take this step for all possible validators, but perhaps you have, or could, submit the zoom keywords to w3.org.

If you know of any validators that already include the Zoom keywords I would appreciate a suggestion to those, especially if they are free!

Thank You,
Nancy Myers