Reading up on html

Manuel Matuzović updates his HTML boilerplate for 2026, explaining each essential and optional tag and why he includes them for modern web development.

HTML can create interactive UI components, animations, and data handling without JavaScript, leveraging CSS, custom elements, and the Shadow DOM to build rich interfaces directly in markup.

Safari 27's customizable select allows full visual styling of `<select>` elements without JavaScript, but requires text or accessible attributes on every option for usability, accessibility, and fallback compatibility.

The new `sizes="auto"` HTML attribute, combined with `loading="lazy"`, lets browsers automatically determine the best image size to request, eliminating the need for manual `sizes` calculations.

You can create and style arbitrary custom HTML tags—they default to inline like <span>—but this practice trades semantic clarity for convenience.

Native HTML elements like <details>, <dialog>, and <datalist> can replace some JavaScript, but still lack the interactivity and styling needed for complex apps.

The article catalogs long-obsolete HTML elements like `<xmp>`, `<spacer>`, `<keygen>`, and `<isindex>`, explaining their original purposes and why they were abandoned.