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B.1 Core Attributes

Prior to HTML 4.0, there were few attributes that could be used consistently for all the HTML tags. HTML 4.0 changed this, defining a set of 16 core attributes that can be applied to almost all the elements in both HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0. For brevity, we list these core attributes in this section and spare you the redundancies in the table that follows:

class=name

Specify a style class controlling the appearance of the tag's contents

dir=dir

Specify the rendering direction for text — either left to right (ltr) or right to left (rtl)

id=name

Define a reference name for the tag that is unique in the document

lang=language

Specify the human language for the tag's contents with an ISO 639 standard two-character name and optional dialect subcode

onclick=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user clicks the mouse on the tag's content display area

ondblclick=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user double-clicks the mouse button on the tag's content display area

onkeydown=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user presses down on a key while the tag's contents have input focus

onkeypress=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user presses and releases a key while the tag's contents have focus

onkeyup=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user releases a pressed key while the tag's contents have focus

onmousedown=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user presses down on the mouse button while pointing to the tag's content display area

onmousemove=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user moves the mouse in the tag's content display area

onmouseout=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user moves the mouse off the tag's content display area

onmouseover=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user moves the mouse into the tag's content display area

onmouseup=applet

Specify an applet to be executed when the user releases the mouse button while in the tag's content display area

style=style

Specify an inline style for the tag

title=string

Specify a title for the tag

Only a small handful of tags accept none or only some, but not all, of these attributes. They are:

<applet>

<base>

<basefont>

<bdo>

<br>

<comment>

<embed>

<font>

<frame>

<frameset>

<head>

<hr>

<html>

<iframe>

<ilayer>

<isindex>

<keygen>

<layer>

<marquee>

<meta>

<multicol>

<nextid>

<nobr>

<noembed>

<param>

<script>

<server>

<spacer>

<style>

<title>

<wbr>

   

For convenience, we've marked each of these tags with an asterisk (*) in the following table, and we list all of the attributes supported by these special tags, including the common ones. For all other tags (those without an asterisk), assume that the common attributes listed above apply. Do note, however, that the popular browsers do not support all of the HTML 4.0 standard attributes, common or not. Please refer to the main text for details.

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