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**Learning Newbie** · 11-16-2007, 04:40 PM

I got this in an email

http://css-tricks.com/examples/CleanCode/CleanCode.jpg

And I'm a little confused on the ID in the body tag. There's only 1. It seems like navigation menus or paragraphs or any kind of thing that there's a lot of repetition but different content inside, should get a ID. But the body tag is pretty easy to distinguish because there's only 1.

I get the point about you can make all kinds of page specific changes outside that page you want to change. But is that really the best level to go changing things at? Think how much that'll grow your CSS file for a large site!

**gringo** · 11-16-2007, 04:59 PM

I thought one of the advantages of using CSS was to give a consistent look to all your <h2>s etc. with just one rule. If you want to distinguish some <h2>s from others, shouldn't we be using classes for them instead of uniquifying the <body>?

**mountlaurel** · 11-16-2007, 06:01 PM

i suggest you not to put id on the body tag... cause the body tag has no other instance of other body or there is only one body tag on every webpage.

**LadynRed** · 11-16-2007, 06:06 PM

Actually, using an ID on the body tag can have some advantages, though I wouldn't put an id on the body of EVERY page. I only do it on sites where, say, the home page is a slightly different layout than the rest of the site, or some other page, for whatever reason, may be different.

You can still control the whole site with one file.. the CSS file, you just may have to pay attention to a few more ID's.

**serandfae** · 11-16-2007, 07:15 PM

It seems to make sense, though. By doing it that way you can still override style rules for elements on individual elements, with no-inherits where necessary to avoid the cascade. Done right, it's a good way to organize your style rules.

**Foundationflash** · 11-17-2007, 06:42 AM

When I was building my site, I looked at Dan Cederholm's SimpleBits.com site, and because that uses a different homepage layout, that has an ID for the body tag on the front page.

**ADAM Web Design** · 11-17-2007, 10:35 AM

I think I can answer this question with a practical example, although I don't use it very often.

http://www.canterburyclinic.ca/

I used an id tag on the subpages (not the home page) and a faux background for the center part. I also created small CSS files for each color so that I could apply specific colors to other properties for each page.

(And yes, I know the news needs to be updated, and already told the client. This site isn't fully launched yet.)

**CSS4Life** · 11-17-2007, 07:31 PM

I've never done this before myself, but I've seen it recommended. The primary reason I saw was for highlighting the current page in the navigation bar. I've actually found a PHP way around this, and since I use PHP to put the page together (header.php, footer.php etc.), then I couldn't uniquely assign the body tag a different id on each page (unless I used more PHP).

It certainly has it's uses, but unless there is a specific reason for doing so, I wouldn't bother.

By the way, you found that through StumbleUpon right?

I saw it yesterday or the day before

**ForrestCroce** · 11-19-2007, 08:25 PM

Where's the second pic...?

I've been using jscript lately to put coolness int my pages, and haven't needed to give the body tag an ID. I usually give the page body some styling rules at the body level, but this is usually stuff I want to be consistent across all pages. I guess this makes sense though, if you have 'sections' on a site that should look different.

**bigleo23** · 11-19-2007, 11:40 PM

I would only use the body id tag if the layout was different throughout the page

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