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 at various companies, including Google; I’m an open-source developer and a 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, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)