DEV Community

The HTML Elements You’re (Probably) Misusing – And How to Fix It

Maxime on February 20, 2025

Most developers start with <div> and <span> and never look back. Need a button? Wrap it in a <div> and slap an onclick. Need a ...
Read full post
Collapse
 
xwero profile image
david duymelinck • • Edited

Not a lot of people know the button tag is very powerful.

<div class="alwaysVisible">
<button 
     type="submit" 
     form="longForm"
     formmethod="post" 
    formaction="/save-long-form" 
    formenctype="multipart/form-data">Save</button>
</div>
<form id="longForm">
<!-- a lot of inputs -->
</form>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
Collapse
 
digitalminds profile image
Maxime •

Exactly! The <button> tag is powerful and a lot of people don’t realize all the built-in functionality it has. Nice example!

Collapse
 
ishimwe_ningque_26744785 profile image
Ishimwe Ning Que •

👍

Collapse
 
crosschainer profile image
crosschainer •

You should make an article on the built-in JS features for browsers like:
confirm("Do you want to proceed?") - which pops up a browser-default confirmation window
and
input("Type in your name") - which pops up a input field in the browser

Collapse
 
digitalminds profile image
Maxime •

Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll think about it (There’s no input(), you might be thinking of prompt())

Collapse
 
nickcoffey profile image
Nicholas Coffey •

In React it can be easy to end up with <div>’s everywhere. I agree 100% that we should be using the proper HTML tags no matter the stack. I also didn’t know about the <figure> and <figcaption> tags. Great article!

Collapse
 
digitalminds profile image
Maxime •

Thanks! And I agree, it’s easy to rely on <div> everywhere in React. Glad you found the <figure> and <figcaption> tips helpful!

Collapse
 
melfunc profile image
MeL •

Very valid points and promotes good coding practices.

Collapse
 
digitalminds profile image
Maxime •

Many thanks!

Collapse
 
slobodan4nista profile image
Slobi •

Nice ⭐ figure figcaption 🔖

Collapse
 
madhurima_rawat profile image
Madhurima Rawat • • Edited

Thanks, great article 👍 All this are very useful for web development projects.

Collapse
 
digitalminds profile image
Maxime •

Thanks! Glad you found it useful

Collapse
 
aadswebdesign profile image
Aad Pouw •

The 'main' element is somewhere in the middle, right?

Collapse
 
ishimwe_ningque_26744785 profile image
Ishimwe Ning Que •

Help me I have problem in JavaScript switch question is (by us a switch case write a program that ask for a number (1-7) and print the corresponding day of the week.

Some comments have been hidden by the post's author - find out more