HTML Concepts: “Body-Ok”

Published on May 4, 2021 (updated May 27, 2021), filed under development, html. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

On Twitter, I like to run little polls. They’re often about HTML. These last days I ran one about “body-ok.” I asked, what is that?

When I took the screenshot below, more than 60% thought “body-ok” wouldn’t exist, when others related it to some sort of emphasis of content (as part of the document body), or the fact that you can omit the body tags.

But “body-ok” relates to link type keywords, and denotes what link elements are okay to be used in the document body (as opposed to its head). Here’s what the spec says:

Keywords that are body-ok affect whether link elements are allowed in the body. The body-ok keywords are dns-prefetch, modulepreload, pingback, preconnect, prefetch, preload, prerender, and stylesheet.

The section describing the link element adds:

This [being allowed in the body] means that the element can be used where phrasing content is expected.

That is “body-ok” in HTML.

As for the currently 17 link types that are not body-ok… let’s say that I happen to cover them somewhere, too. This does include chapter 6 of my upcoming booklet, Upgrade Your HTML III. Get notified through Leanpub as soon as it gets released! And, if you like, follow me for more HTML polls on Twitter Mastodon 📊

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)