Non-Standard Attributes on HTML Tags. Good Thing? Bad Thing? Your Thoughts?

Question

HTML (or maybe just XHTML?) is relatively strict when it comes to non-standard attributes on tags. If they aren't part of the spec, then your code is considered non-compliant.

Non-standard attributes can be fairly useful for passing along meta-data to Javascript however. For instance, if a link is suppose to show a popup, you can set the name of the popup in an attribute:

<a href="#null" class="popup" title="See the Popup!"     popup_title="Title for My Popup">click me</a> 

Alternatively, you can store the title for the popup in a hidden element, like a span:

<style>     .popup .title { display: none; } </style> <a href="#null" title="See the Popup!" class="popup">     click me     <span class="title">Title for My Popup</span> </a> 

I am torn however as to which should be a preferred method. The first method is more concise and, I'm guessing, doesn't screw with search engines and screen readers as much. Conversely, the second option makes storing large amounts of data easier and is thus, more versatile. It is also standards compliant.

I am curious what this communities thoughts are. How do you handle a situation like this? Does the simplicity of the first method outweigh the potential downsides (if there are any)?

Answer 1

I am a big fan of the proposed HTML 5 solution (data- prefixed attributes). Edit: I'd add that there are probably better examples for the use of custom attributes. For instance, data that a custom application will use that have no analogue in standard attributes (eg. customization for event handlers based on something that can't necessarily be expressed in a className or id).

Answer 2

Custom attributes provide a convenient way to carry extra data to the client side. Dojo Toolkit is doing this regularly and it has been pointed (Debunking Dojo Toolkit Myths) out that:

Custom attributes have always been valid HTML, they just don’t validate when tested against a DTD. [...] The HTML specification states that any attribute not recognized is to be ignored by the HTML rendering engine in user agents, and Dojo optionally takes advantage of this to improve ease of development.