Is there a shorthand version of HTML available?

Question

I remember reading an article about a shorthand version, or extension, of HTML a few months ago. Its purpose was to make HTML code significantly more concise, by removing end tags, and it may have allowed loops of some sort as well. I want to use it now, but I can't seem to remember what it was called.

Searching online, I found HAML, but HAML syntax doesn't look like the example that I remember from the article. The syntax from the article made use of right angle brackets, which were a sort of replacement for indentation.

Can anyone identify this language?

Answer 1

I think you are looking for Zen Coding, which can be found at http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/.

Zen Coding is an editor plugin for high-speed HTML, XML, XSL (or any other structured code format) coding and editing. The core of this plugin is a powerful abbreviation engine which allows you to expand expressions—similar to CSS selectors—into HTML code.

Example

div#page>div.logo+ul#navigation>li*5>a

Expands into

<div id="page">
  <div class="logo"></div>
  <ul id="navigation">
    <li><a href=""></a></li>
    <li><a href=""></a></li>
    <li><a href=""></a></li>
    <li><a href=""></a></li>
    <li><a href=""></a></li>
  </ul>
</div>