What is HTML5?

HTML5 is simply the next generation of HTML and it supersedes HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and XHTML 1.1. It includes many features that web developers have been using for many years but not standardized or documented. It has also added many new features that are needed for modern web application and it will significantly change the way you develop for the web.

“HTML is the acronym for Hypertext Markup Language. Hypertext is the ability to click on a text and jump from one place to another within a document or to another document. Markup implies tags added to plain text to describe layout and formatting while Language suggest a kind or sort of programming language.”

HTML5 is work in progress and continue to evolve. Despite this many modern browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Opera and Mozilla support many HTML5 features. Support on mobile browsers is even stronger.

HTML5 runs across platforms. You do not need to be running Windows or Linux or any particular operating system to take advantage of HTML5. All you need is a good browser.

And HTML5 is designed to be backward compatible with existing web browsers.

What is New in HTML5?

HTML5 add support for some new elements or tags and remove support for others.

There is a new set of semantic tags with names such as <header>, <section>, <article> and <footer> to define layout in a more intuitive way than the general purpose <div> tag.

HTML5 defines a new tag or element called <video> for embedding video in your web page without the need for third party plug in such as Adobe Flash or Apple QuickTime. There is also a new tag <audio> for embedding audio in your web pages.

A new element or tag call <canvas> allows you to render graphs, games graphics or other visual images on the fly.

HTML5 together with CSS3 gives you more control over styling resulting in a better user interface. It also improves on FORMS by adding new form fields such as a calendar date picker, spin boxes and slider. It also adds new feature such as autofocus and placeholders. Autofocus allow you to move the focus to a particular input box while placeholders give the ability to set example text in an input field.

New to HTML5 is Web Socket. It gives you a persistent connection to the server. So instead of polling the server for the latest progress, the server can push notifications to your site visitors. There is also Web Worker that allows browsers to run applications in the background. Imagine the ability to do mathematical calculation, make network request or access local storage while still scrolling, clicking or typing!

Also new to HTML5 are client side storage technologies such as Web Storage and Web SQL Database API. They allow you to build client side applications in the browser with data that persist entirely on the client’s machine. The concept is much like cookies except that the volume of information is much larger. But unlike cookies, the data stays on your computer and websites can access it after the page is loaded.

HTML5 also supports Offline Web Application. The first time you visit an offline enabled website, the server tells the browser to download all necessary files that it needs to work offline. When the browser detects that you are offline, it will use the files that it has already downloaded.

New is feature called Microdata which provide a standardized way to store additional semantic on your web pages.

What’s not in HTML5?

Support for frames has been removed. This affects the tags <frame>, <frameset> and <noframe>. Certain tags such as <center> and <font> together with a set of seldom used tags such as <acronym> and <basefont> are removed in HTML5. The functionality of these tags is easily replaced with new semantic tags and CSS3.

Some attribute such as the “longdesc” attribute with the <img> tag are gone.

Some tags revert back to their original form. The Line Break and Horizontal Lin tags are back to <br> and <hr> from its XHTML format of <br /> and <hr />.

The specifications in HTML5 (and CSS3) are not final. This means that anything in those specifications could change. You should however be okay if you just follow the progress of HTML5 and CSS3 and stay up to date.

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