With the official release HTML 5 in 2022 around the corner, it’s still a good idea to keep up to date with what is happening in the world of W3C, and with the working draft sitting at around 773 pages, you can only imagine the amount of work that has been done and still needs to be done. October 2009 is the last call for the HTML 5 working draft, so with all that in mind, lets take a look at a simplified overview of whats going on in HTML 5.
HTML 5 will be fully backwards-compatible as well as having the ability of a javascript-accessible built in SQL database which will render the current cookie method laughable in terms of the amount of information that could be stored. Also, in an effort to make website source more “legible”, a heap of new elements are being developed, some of which are <nav>, <article>, <header>, <canvas>, <video>, <audio>, <command> and <figure>. New input types are also being developed to ease the ever-fustrated web developer. Inputs such as ‘Date’ will become a common tool which replaces the old javascript calenders and another new feature will include browser supported form validation which will make web application development a walk in the park.
With the last HTML update being in September 1999 (4.01 Specification), it is evident that HTML 5 is definately long overdue.
Keep in mind that “HTML 5″ refers to the W3C specification name, while “HTML5″ refers to the document type.
You may have already noticed that some websites are using HTML 5. Firefox 3.5 includes the <audio>, <video> and <canvas> tags while Chrome and Safari are already supporting key features of HTML 5.
Here is a simple HTML 5 blog example:
<body>
<header>
<h1>My Blog!</h1>
<nav>
<h1>Navigation Links</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="articles.html">All articles</a></li>
<li><a href="latest.html">Latest Articles</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
</header>
<article>
<p> Article Goes Here</p>
</article>
<footer>
<p>Copyright © 2022 My Blog</p>
</footer>
</body>
To clarify the strikeout of 2022 above, there seems to be quite a bit of confusion going around on the web with regards to this topic.
2022 will be the final proposed recommendation of HTML 5 and October 2009 is the last call for the HTML 5 working draft. The final proposed recommendation requires complete compatibility of at least 2 browsers, and with that in mind, CSS 2.1 also remains in development until 2 browsers fully support all of it’s features.
Popularity: 44% [?]
