2.0WebTutorialsAre You Ready for HTML 5?
HTML 5 is a new specification being developed to move HTML forward in the realm of Web applications. It was initially being developed by a group independently of the W3C, but the W3C HTML working group has since joined the development. HTML 5 adds a lot of great new features to Web pages and Web design and it will be exciting when more browsers support it. Microsoft has stated that they will begin supporting at least portions of HTML 5 in IE. If you want to get started sooner, Opera has had the best support, with Safari close behind, although all major browsers support total o partial HTML 5
The nice thing about HTML 5 is how easy it is to implement. You use the HTML 5 doctype, which is very simple and streamlined:
<!doctype html>
Yes, that’s it. Just two words “doctype” and “html”. It can be this simple because HTML 5 is no longer part of SGML, but is instead a markup language all on its own.
The character set for HTML 5 is streamlined as well. It uses UTF-8 and you define it with just one meta tag:
<meta charset="UTF-8">
HTML 5 recognizes that Web pages have a structure, just like XML documents. In general, Web pages have navigation, body content, and sidebar content plus headers, footers, and other features. And HTML 5 has created tags to support those elements of the page.
- <section> – to define sections of pages
- <header> – defines the header of a page
- <footer> – defines the footer of a page
- <nav> – defines the navigation on a page
- <article> – defines the article or primary content on a page
- <aside> – defines extra content like a sidebar on a page
- <figure> – defines images that annotate an article
There are also a few exciting new elements in HTML 5:
- <canvas> – an element to give you a drawing space in JavaScript on your Web pages. It can let you add images or graphs to tool tips or just create dynamic graphs on your Web pages, built on the fly.
- <video> – add video to your Web pages with this simple tag.
- <audio> – add sound to your Web pages with this simple tag.
You also need a browser that supports canvas. Browsers that I know support canvas include:
- Chrome 5 or later
- Firefox 3 or later
- Opera 9.5 or later
- Safari 5 or later
Other browsers and versions may support the canvas tag as well, but those are reliable.
HTML 5 is getting more and more traction as companies find different ways to create websites that use it and devices that rely on it. So go ahead and open your favorite text application and write your firs piece of HTML 5. Who knows you may be the best new HTML 5 developer.
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