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by Ian Lloyd

cite (HTML attribute)

Spec
Depr. Version
No HTML 4
Browser support full matrix
IE7 FF2 Saf3 Op9.5
None None None None
cite="uri"

Example

The cite attribute is used in conjunction with both the del and ins elements below:

<p>Bernie enjoyed nothing more than a <del
    cite="http://berniesworld.com/drag.html"
    datetime="2007-11-05T23:31:05Z">night out on the town at his
    favorite drag queen show</del> <ins
    cite="http://berniesworld.com/drag.html"
    datetime="2007-11-05T23:33:32Z">quiet night in with a warm cup of
    cocoa</ins></p>

Description

Perhaps the reason why the del element was used to change the page content is explained in an external document. In such cases, you can use the cite attribute to point users to that document.

Value

This element takes as its value a reference to another document in the form of a URI.

Compatibility

IE5.5None
6.0None
7.0None
Firefox1.0None
1.5None
2.0None
Safari1.3None
2.0None
3.0None
Opera9.2None
9.5None

None of the browsers we tested do anything useful with the cite attribute. It would be possible to use DOM scripting to retrieve this information for some purpose, but natively, the most that any of the tested browsers can do with cite is shown in the Firefox screenshot in Figure 1. To access this information, I had to right-click on the text and select Properties from the menu displayed.

Figure 1. cite properties as found in Firefox Firefox showing ins and del attributes in properties

Given that no visual clue is provided to indicate that the ins and del content has anything extra to reveal, few people would ever discover this information. And even if they did, the URI of the document isn’t clickable, nor is the date formatted in a friendly way.

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