Reason for using both html,css{ } elements

Question

In one of code academy lessons I found a CSS text like this;

html,body {
    font-family: 'Roboto', sans-serif;
    color: #404040;
    background-color: #eee;
}

is there a particular reason to use both "html,body" elements? Is there any bad affects to the page if the "html" element is removed? http://www.codecademy.com/courses/web-beginner-en-hk5qh/0/1?content_from=make-an-interactive-website%3Ajquery-dom-manipulation

There is: Some browsers won't apply to the body the style and only to the html, while others witll apply only to the body. And others that apply on both. — Ismael Miguel
– Ismael Miguel, Commented Apr 4, 2015 at 5:29
Not something like background color though, who needs that in the <head>... — Shikkediel
– Shikkediel, Commented Apr 4, 2015 at 9:14

grepsedawk · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-04 15:38:10Z

2

The way I see it, it's more so redundancy than anything else.

When you code, you usually want to have many "backups" because each browser renders differently.

Some browsers (in the past) only support background colors in the HTML tag and others only in the body tag.

I know for sure that [Chrome, FireFox, Opera, IE] support backgrounds on the body tag.

Most developers have switched to only putting background on the body tag, but putting the background on the body and html tag comes from ancient practice.

edited Apr 4, 2015 at 15:38

answered Apr 4, 2015 at 5:29

grepsedawk

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2 Comments

DACrosby Over a year ago

Do you have a source on this? Which browsers don't support background-color and on which elements?

grepsedawk Over a year ago

I'm sorry, I couldn't find anything. In true honesty, the main browsers (Chrome, FireFox, Opera, and Internet Explorer) support background on simply body tag. Edited my answer with more info.

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