base.html represents the absolute minimum that you should include in your base template.
Usage
curl http://basehtml.xyz > base.html
Rationale
HTML Boilerplate is the gold standard of HTML base templates but I've always wanted something simpler.
We don't need to force decisions about JS / CSS layout in our base template, you're an adult - you can make those mistakes yourself.
It should no longer be considered best practice to always include JQuery (or any third party JS / CSS).
Plus, and this is awesome, if you're using a modern SSL configuration you no longer have to worry about IE 10 compatibility (so no more ie css tags that you remove with JS).
This base.html project aims to be as minimal and un-opinionated as possible, including only things that would be considered best practice for 99% of web projects.
Browser Support
100%! No, but really, there's nothing in the base.html that will break in any browser.
What's not included is code that specifically adds support for older browsers.
Or really any actual code beyond a very simple base.
That means there's no CSS reset, normalize.css or modernizr.js - so if you want to support old version of IE you'll have to include those yourself.
If you want to use HTML5-style markup (<section>, <article>, <nav>, etc.) and still support IE9 you'll need to include something like html5shiv.
What about...
...setting a favicon?
Just include favicon.ico in the root of your site as recommended by Audrey R's amazingly detailed favicon-cheat-sheet.
...including a css reset?
Sure. Use whichever one you want! You just have to include it yourself.
...Google Analytics?
There's a bunch of analytics options out there and Google provides one of them. Our aim is to not be opinionated so you'll need to include your own analytics package.
Contributing
Before committing please make sure that any changes pass htmlhint (with the default settings).
Resources
- Josh Buchea's excellent HEAD project
- HTML5 Boilerplate
- Sitepoint's Minimal HTML Document
- CSS Wizardry's Real HTML5 Boilerplate
Favicon credit: Baseball Field by Ryan Choi from the Noun Project