There used to be a thing for this https://caniuse.com/imports

tehbeard · 2025-05-03T14:54:34 1746284074

No HTML imports was an idea of using the HTML document format to encapsulate the 3 distinct data types needed for custom elements:

- JS for functionality via the custom elements API - HTML for layout via <template> tags. - CSS for aesthetics via <style> tags.

Not for just quickly and simply inserting the contents of header.html at a specific location in the DOM.

HeavyStorm · 2025-05-03T20:26:29 1746303989

Says "superseded by ES modules". Not really the same thing, right?

tln · 2025-05-04T14:56:05 1746370565

The article asks about includes but also about imports ("HTML cannot import HTML ") which this is very directly.

This feature was billed as #includes for the web [1]. No, it acts nothing like an #include. TBH I don't see why ES modules are a "replacement" here.

Personally I would like to see something like these imports come back, as a way to reuse HTML structure across pages, BUT purely declaratively (no JS needed).

#includes where partially formed HTML (ie, header.html has a <body> open tag and footer.html has the closing tag) isn't very DOM compatible.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20181121181125/https://www.html5...

moffkalast · 2025-05-04T16:20:39 1746375639

Chad QQ and UC browsers, the only ones still supporting HTML imports lmao. I've never heard of them before but I like the cut of their jib.