What happened to microformats?

Question

Some time ago, I remember that the idea of microformats came up. I think its a great idea and a logical extension to the semantic web. So why did W3C not pick it up and why do the browsers not support it nativly?

Answer 1

The specs are in development:

• http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/microdata.html
• http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/microdata.html#using-the-microdata-dom-api

 

Opera and Firefox already implemented it, so you can play with it:

• http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/microdata-and-the-microdata-dom-api/
• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=591467

Comments

Oh, nice! Gotta check it at work, there I got a nightly firfox ;)

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microformat vocabulary using microdata statement syntax samples are presently shown within HTML5 specification at http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#mdvocabs
The specific samples of hCalendar#event and hCard can be replaced by desired microformat candidates by the web developer. The only opposition to supporting pre-existing work from Google Ian Hickson is seen at http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/RDFa_HTML_prefix_issue.html

Answer 2

Microformats are still very much alive as far as I know. Check out places like schema.org. Google even supports a range of microformats that are displayed in search results.

Comments

But why is it not supported by innovative browsers such as google chrome or firefox?

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While browsers may not be taking advantage of microformats, there are browser extensions that are. Operator is a great add-on for Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/operator/), and Microformats for Google Chrome is a great one for,  you guessed it, Google Chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/microformats-for-google-c/oalbifknmclbnmjlljdemhjjlkmppjjl)

I prefer the add-on/extension approach as it leaves some bloat out for people who don't know what microformats are or what do to with them.
It's up to us to continue to use microformats and keep pushing them further. Once they're more mainstream and developed into more sites/web apps, browser manufacturers may wind up using the data in some great ways.

Microdata was mentioned as well, but they're not really the same thing. From my understanding, microdata is more machine readable, and microformats is more readable for people. Either way, getting extra information from the addition of just a minimal amount of markup is great (though writing microformats is just plain easier).

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Please note that microformats (as in the initiative at http://microformats.org) and microdata are two different things. Microformats are pre-defined classnames to add to markup patterns and thereby creating a machine-readable (and backwards compatible) representation of what the markup refers to, and a different technique from the attributes and vocabulary used in schema.org.