Time element

2010-07-13T11:19:40Z

ZairaSimon:

Research, data, use cases, issues, and enhancements related to the HTML5 <code>time</code> element.

== year only ==
The time element should accept just a year.
;ISO8601 syntax
:YYYY
;use case research
:http://microformats.org/wiki/birthday-examples#year_only

<div class="discussion">
Opinions / discusion:
* +1 [[Faruk]] (per [http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7145 Bug 7145 - Valid date strings should accept ambiguous inputs, like "2009" or "2007-01"]) One example is the very common archive view found on most blogs, which contain distinct links or headers for each year, each month per year, and often each date within a chosen or highlighted month. Currently, the <code><time></code> element only allows for <code>datetime</code> values as precise as a specific day, e.g. YYYY-MM-DD. [http://www.casino-spielen.biz online casino spielen]
* -1 [[Hixie]] - "Without clear use cases, I don't intend to change the spec here." (ibid)
* +1 [[Tantek]] (per [http://www.zeldman.com/superfriends/guide/#time HTML5 Super Friends Technical Details: time element])
* +1 [[User:Pigsonthewing|Andy Mabbett]] (Per use cases in VCARDDAV - see external links)
* ...
</div>

== year month only ==
The time element should accept just a year and a month.
;ISO8601 syntax
:YYYY-MM

<div class="discussion">
Opinions / discusion:
* +1 [[Faruk]] (per [http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7145 Bug 7145 - Valid date strings should accept ambiguous inputs, like "2009" or "2007-01"]) One example is the very common archive view found on most blogs, which contain distinct links or headers for each year, each month per year, and often each date within a chosen or highlighted month. Currently, the <code><time></code> element only allows for <code>datetime</code> values as precise as a specific day, e.g. YYYY-MM-DD.
* -1 [[Hixie]] - "Without clear use cases, I don't intend to change the spec here." (ibid)
* +1 [[User:Tantek|Tantek]] I think the blog archives use case (where blogs often link to their archives by a specific month and year) is sufficient to justify adding this capability to the time element. Content hosting sites like Flickr also list archives by specific year/month, e.g. see http://www.flickr.com/photos/tantek/archives/
* +1 [[User:Pigsonthewing|Andy Mabbett]] (Per use cases in VCARDDAV - see external links)
* ...
</div>

== month day only ==
The time element should accept just a month and a day.
;ISO8601 syntax
:--MM-DD
;use case research
:http://microformats.org/wiki/birthday-examples#month_and_day_only

<div class="discussion">
Opinions / discusion:
* +1 [[Tantek]] (per [http://www.zeldman.com/superfriends/guide/#time HTML5 Super Friends Technical Details: time element])
* +1 "radiz" implied support for --MM-DD with the use case question: "How to use <time> with a date in astrology?" in the article http://html5doctor.com/your-questions-answered-6/
* +1 [[User:Pigsonthewing|Andy Mabbett]] (Per use cases in VCARDDAV, e.g. birthdays, wedding anniversaries - see external links)
</div>

== Calendar ==
The time element should accept a calendar scale (default is GREGORIAN) per the [http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-vcarddav-vcardrev-11#section-5.7 emergent vCard 4 specification], to facilitate the mark-up of non-Gregorian (e.g. Julian) dates.

<div class="discussion">
Opinions / discussion:
* +1 [[User:Pigsonthewing|Andy Mabbett]] (Per use cases in VCARDDAV - see external links)
* ...
</div>

== Fuzzy dates ==
The time element should accept ''fuzzy'' (uncertain, approximate) dates.

<div class="discussion">
Opinions / discussion:
* +1 [[User:Pigsonthewing|Andy Mabbett]] (Per use cases in "Extended Date Time Format efforts" discussions - see external links)
* ...
</div>

== External links ==
* [http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/ Extended Date Time Format efforts] based at the USA's Library of Congress (Covers unspecific dates; date periods and non-Gregorian dates)
* [http://pigsonthewing.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/dates-and-coordinates-in-html5/ Dates and coordinates in HTML5] - blog post by [[User:Pigsonthewing|Pigsonthewing]]
** [http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-February/018639.html Feb 2009 whatwg mailing list discussion of the above]
* [http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-vcarddav-vcardrev-11 vCard Format Specification draft-ietf-vcarddav-vcardrev-11] (latest draft as at July 2010)
** [http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-vcarddav-vcardrev-11#section-4.3 Section 4.3, date & time]
** [http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-vcarddav-vcardrev-11#section-5.7 section-5.7, CALSCALE] (specifies Gregorian or other (e.g. Julian) calendar)
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 ISO 8601 (Wikipedia article)]

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Time element