Is HTML\'s \'scoped\' Attribute Dead? The Story of a Feature That Never Was

Current State of the "scoped" Attribute in HTML5

The "scoped" attribute for the element was proposed in HTML5 to limit the scope of styles to a specific parent element and its descendants. This attribute aimed to prevent unintentional global styling issues. However, its implementation faced challenges, and it was eventually dropped from the specification.

W3C Interpretation

Your interpretation of the W3C documents was partially correct. The initial proposal envisioned two types of elements:

Global : To be used within and apply styles globally. Scoped : To be used within the body, with the "scoped" attribute and placed as the first child, limiting styles to the parent element. Current Status (2023)

Currently, the scoped attribute is not supported by any major browsers. elements can appear anywhere within the document, and their styles apply globally, potentially causing unexpected behavior. The best practice is to use explicit selectors (e.g., ID or class) to target specific elements or areas of the document.

Future Outlook

There are no concrete plans to revive the scoped attribute in the foreseeable future. The current approach of using explicit selectors and ensuring proper isolation between different stylesheets remains the recommended method for implementing scoped styling.