A Preview of HTML 5

A List Apart published a very informative article about HTML 5. The author sheds light on some major features that are expected when the new standard is ready.

"To give authors more flexibility and interoperability, and enable more interactive and exciting websites and applications, HTML 5 introduces and enhances a wide range of features including form controls, APIs, multimedia, structure, and semantics, " the author writes.

Work on HTML 5 started more than three years ago as a joint project of the W3C HTML WG and the WHATWG. Also key participants in the W3C effort are representatives from the four major browser vendors: Apple, Mozilla, Opera, and Microsoft; and a range of other organizations and individuals with many diverse interests and expertise.

The author starts the review examining the structure of the new Hypertext Markup Language with its new set of elements. He points out the <div> element can now be replaced with the new elements: header, nav, section, article, aside, and footer. He also introduces the <video> and <audio> tags and presents the defining HTML 5 in terms of the Document Object Model (DOM). All these he backs up with real life examples and setting out the advantages of using these.

Still the specification is in progress, the author reminds. In addition to the specification, there are several other related efforts designed to help people better understand the work.

• The Differences from HTML 4 describes the changes that have occurred since the previous version of HTML.
• The HTML Design Principles discusses principles used to help make decisions, and will help you understand the rationale behind many of the current design decisions.
• The Web Developer’s Guide to HTML 5, which only recently began, is being written to help web designers and developers understand everything they need to know to write conforming HTML 5 documents, and provide guidelines and describe best practices.

In the end the author summons the users to join the W3C’s HTML WG and subscribe/contribute to the HTML WG mailing lists or wiki. Users may also subscribe and contribute to the any of the WHATWG mailing lists, post to the WHATWG forum, post comments or write articles on the WHATWG blog.