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HTML5 has introduced a series of powerful attributes that improve the user experience, accessibility, security and performance of web pages. In this article we see the most useful and advanced ones, with explanations and practical examples.
✅ Attributes for dynamic and interactive content
🔹 contenteditable
Allows you to make the content of an element editable directly from the browser, without using JavaScript.
<div contenteditable="true"> Click here to edit this text. </div>🔹 draggable
Makes an element draggable with the mouse.
<img src="logo.png" draggable="true">🔹 hidden
Hides an element from the view and reading of screen readers, but keeps it in the DOM.
<div hidden>This message is hidden</div>🔹 translate
Controls whether the content should be automatically translated by the browser.
<span translate="no">HTML5</span>🔹 spellcheck
Enable or disable spell checking on a text field.
<textarea spellcheck="true">Check spelling here...</textarea>✅ Advanced form and input attributes
🔹 autofocus
Automatically set focus on a field when the page loads.
<input type="text" placeholder="Your name" autofocus>🔹 required, pattern, minlength, maxlength
Allow automatic data validation in forms.
<input type="text" pattern="[A-Za-z]+" minlength="3" maxlength="10" required placeholder="Name">🔹 placeholder
Shows help text within the input field.
<input type="search" placeholder="Search...">🔹 form
Link an input field to a form even if it is outside the <form> tag in the DOM.
<form id="myForm" action="/submit"></form> <input type="text" name="email" form="myForm">🔹 novalidate
Disable automatic browser validation for HTML5 forms.
<form novalidate> <input type="email" required> </form>🔹 multiple
Allows selection of multiple files or values in an input field.
<input type="file" multiple>🔹 accept
Limits the file types the user can upload.
<input type="file" accept="image/png, image/jpeg">🔹 list + datalist
Offers predefined suggestions to the user via auto-completion.
<input list="browsers"> <datalist id="browsers"> <option value="Chrome"> <option value="Firefox"> <option value="Safari"> </datalist>🔹 range + step
Create a slider for numeric values with a defined step.
<input type="range" min="0" max="100" step="10">🔹 type="color"
Create a browser-native color picker to choose a hex color via palette.
<input type="color" value="#ff0000">✅ Media and File Attributes
🔹 download
Forces a file to download instead of opening it in the browser.
<a href="manual.pdf" download="User_Guide.pdf">Download PDF</a>🔹 controls, autoplay, loop, muted
Controls the behavior of embedded audio/video content.
<video src="video.mp4" controls autoplay loop muted></video>✅ Attributes for responsive images
🔹 srcset + sizes
Serves different images based on screen resolution or size.
<img src="img-default.jpg" srcset="img-small.jpg 480w, img-medium.jpg 800w, img-large.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 480px, (max-width: 900px) 800px, 1200px" alt="Mountain landscape">🔹 picture + source
It offers advanced control, allowing the change image or format based on media query.
<picture> <source srcset="image.webp" type="image/webp"> <source srcset="image.jpg" type="image/jpeg"> <img src="fallback.jpg" alt="Responsive image"> </picture>🔄 srcset vs picture
srcset is ideal for just changing the resolution. <picture> also allows changing format or content.
<picture> <source srcset="image@1x.webp 1x, image@2x.webp 2x" type="image/webp"> <source srcset="image@1x.jpg 1x, image@2x.jpg 2x" type="image/jpeg"> <img src="image@1x.jpg" alt="Responsive image"> </picture>🔹 loading="lazy"
Delays loading images until they are visible in the viewport, improving initial page performance.
<img src="photo.jpg" alt="Gallery image" loading="lazy">✅ Security Attributes
🔹 integrity
Verifies that an external resource (such as a script) has not been modified by checking the hash.
<script src="https://cdn.example.com/library.min.js" integrity="sha384-oqVuAfXRKap7fdgcCY5uykM6+R9GqQ8K/uxJvB1JCqQ=" crossorigin="anonymous"> </script>How to generate the hash? You can use:
openssl dgst -sha384 -binary script.js | openssl base64 -A✅ Accessibility attributes (ARIA)
🔹 aria-label
Provides a text label accessible to screen readers.
<button aria-label="Close menu">✕</button>📌 Conclusion
HTML5 attributes allow you to:
- Build dynamic, automatically validated and easy-to-use forms
- Optimize images for different devices and connections
- Control media behavior intuitively
- Manage accessible and interactive content without JavaScript
- Improve the security of external resources with the
integrity attribute
Learning to use these attributes not only improves the quality of the HTML code, but also the user experience, the performance of the site and the compatibility between browsers and devices.
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