Captions and Slide Notes

On this card you’ll learn about two more types of container element: one that you can use to add a caption (some text like a title or short description) to a picture, and another for when you have extra stuff that doesn’t really belong with the main information on a page.

Pictures with captions

  • Find an img element where you have text above or below that goes with the picture. I’m working with the Tito picture on index.html, but you can go with whatever is on your website.
<img id="titoPicture" class="solidRoundBorders" src="tito.png" alt="Tito the dog" />
<p>
  Tour guide Tito!
</p>

  • On the line above the code, add the opening tag <figure>. On a new line below the code, place the closing tag </figure>.

  • Next, remove the p tags, or whatever tags you have around the text (maybe it’s a heading, like h2?), and put the text in between <figcaption> </figcaption> tags instead. The whole thing should look something like this:

<figure>
    <img id="titoPicture" class="solidRoundBorders" src="tito.png" alt="Tito the dog" />
    <figcaption>
    Tour guide Tito!
    </figcaption>
</figure>

The figcaption element is your caption. It can go either above the img element or below it.

Picture of Tito with a caption

Why is this useful?

The figure element acts as a sort of container for your picture and its caption. This allows you to treat them as one unit when defining styles.

Grouping them together logically also helps to maintain good structure in your website code.

You can use CSS code to style figure and figcaption as you would any other element using classes, IDs, or element selectors. I’m adding the following rules to remove the extra spacing that was added by the new container:

figure {
    margin-top: 0px;
    margin-bottom: 0px;
    margin-left: 0px;
    margin-right: 0px;
}

Side notes

The Attractions page on my website is a list of places to visit. I want to add some notes about weather and how to get around. That information doesn’t really belong in the article element with all the attractions. This is an example of when you might use the aside element.

  • Go to a page of your website that has an article element on it — I’m using attractions.html.

  • Outside of the article element, add one or more pairs of <aside> </aside> tags containing your extra stuff.

<aside class="sideNoteStyle">
    <h2>Getting around</h2>
    <h3>Train and bus</h3>
    <p>You can get to most of the major towns by train from Dublin. There are many buses that do tours to popular locations and tourist attractions.</p>
    <h3>Car</h3>
    <p>The easiest way to get around outside of the cities is by car.</p>
  </aside>
  <aside class="sideNoteStyle">
    <h2>Weather</h2>
    <p>The weather in Ireland is <span class="specialText">very unpredictable!</span> It's best to <span class="specialText">be prepared</span> for any kind of weather, even if it's a nice day!</p>
</aside>

Why is this useful?

The aside, article, and other containers are all similar. The only real difference is in the meaning, that is, what you use them for.

It’s important to use meaningful HTML elements whenever you can. It gives your website better structure and is especially helpful for people using screen readers.

Did you spot the other element in there, span? This is a special tag you can use just for adding extra CSS code! You can put anything in between a pair of span tags. It’s useful for things like styling a part of the text in a paragraph.

  • Add the following CSS code to your style sheet to complete the styling for the HTML code above.
.sideNoteStyle {
  border: dotted 1px purple;
  background-color: #c1ebec;
  padding: 0.5em;
  margin: 0.5em;
}
.specialText {
    color: #FF4500;
    font-size: larger;
}

Additional notes with their own styling

On the next card, you’re going to learn how to make your website’s layout more interesting!

  • To get ready, make a page that has one article and two aside elements inside the <main> </main> tags. Or if you prefer, you can work with the Attractions page on my website.
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