The Low-Hanging Fruit of HTML 5
A look at some of the parts of HTML 5 you can use today and tips for the future.
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The Low-Hanging Fruit of HTML 5 But What is HTML5? HTML5 is the next evolution of the language through which every web developer writes applications. HTML5 is an open standard of the W3C and is estimated to be formally recommended by 2022. However, it's scheduled to be a candidate recommendation (final stage) by 2012. Many HTML5 features are available in today's browsers and some are recommended by certain browser manufacturers. Why is HTML5 Important? HTML4 specification was initially published in 1999 with XHTML in 2001. HTML5 is focused on document layout and semantics. HTML5 is the first specification that tells the browser how it should handle behavior and errors. The specification also defines Javascript APIs. So What's Changed? Framesets (other than IFrame) are obsolete. Presentation-related tags have been either repurposed or made obsolete. The <a> tag can contain other tags and not break validation. Markup Style (i.e. tag casing, whitespace, empty tags, etc.) is loose like HTML4 instead of strict like XHTML. This means <Br> and <bR /> and <br></br> are all valid. <!DOCTYPE html > You no longer need specify "text/css" or "text/javascript" ...it's assumed. Simplified! So What's New in HTML5? Rich Media Enhancements to Forms New Layout Elements Rich Media SVG Canvas Audio Video Layout Elements Header Section Article Footer Nav Aside New Form Attributes Placeholder Autofocus Required Autocomplete Data-* List New Form Elements Search Email Url Tel Range Number Date Color ther Items In HTML5 Drag and Drop Offline Mode Local Storage Datalists Websockets Scoped Styling Geolocation International Charactersets MathML Editable Content Regions Access Key APIs Undo Manager No Marquee Tag! WebGL Let's Look at Some Demos