The INS element is one of two elements used (the other being
DEL) to allow revision control in
HTML documents. The INS element is nestable and can be used in
conjunction with the DEL element to indicate content and/or markup
which has been inserted after the document's initial creation. A
date stamp is used to mark when the change was made and no destructive
changes are ever made to the document. This is useful in areas such as
the legal profession where historical change information is important.
HTML documents containing revision annotations will contain all
content and markup ever applied to the document. Browsers that
can interpret the DEL and INS elements could possibly display the
"current" state of the document or display all content with
common visual cues for inserted or deleted text. More advanced revision
systems could allow for chronological snapshots of a document at any
point in its history.
Description:
Indicates the URL citing the reason for the change in the document.
Values:
Either relative or absolute URLs
Datetime
2
| 3 | 3.2
| 4 | IE
| M
| N | O
Required? No
Description:
Indicates the date and time when the contents were deleted. For more information
on this format, see the ISO8601 document.
Values: YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD where:
YYYY = Four-digit year
MM = Two digit month (01-12)
DD = Two digit day of month (01-31)
hh = Two digit hour (00-23, no AM/PM designation is used)
mm = Two digit minutes (00-59)
ss = Two digit seconds (00-59)
TZD = Time zone designator
Compatibility Tip: Older browsers that
do not understand the INS and DEL elements will display all revision
content on-screen without regard to their revision state, even the
"deleted" content. This could be messy. Recommend using this
element only if you can reasonably guarantee that everyone in your audience
has a browser supporting these elements.
DTD Note: The current HTML 4.0 DTD lists INS/DEL
as content only of the BODY element. In light of its potential use,
this seems fairly limiting. I believe these elements should be
usable at least as block level elements (such as BLOCKQUOTE.)
Browser Peculiarities
Internet Explorer 4.0 displays inserted content with an underlining
effect.
Internet Explorer 4.0 does not use the CITE or DATETIME attributes. It also
does not offer by default any way to control views of a document based on
the state of revisions.
INS and DEL can be nested in Internet Explorer 4.0. Because the only
visual difference is strike and underline, only simple nesting will
have any visual effect. Nesting INS within INS, for example, will
look no different from a single INS element occurrence. Nesting
INS within DEL however will produce the necessary feedback.