What is HTML5?
HTML5 is the latest version of Hypertext Markup Language . HTML5 is the next major revision of the HTML standard superseding HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, and XHTML 1.1. HTML5 is a standard for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web.
HTML5 is a cooperation between the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG).
The new standard incorporates features like video playback and drag-and-drop that have been previously dependent on third-party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Google Gears.
What’s so great about HTML5?
HTML5 has been designed to deliver almost everything you’d want to do online without requiring additional software such as browser plugins. It does everything from animation to apps, music to movies, and can also be used to build incredibly complicated applications that run in your browser. It’s also cross-platform, which means it doesn’t care whether you’re using a tablet or a smartphone, a netbook, notebook or ultrabook or a Smart TV: if your browser supports HTML5, it should work flawlessly.
New Features of HTML5
HTML5 introduces a number of new elements and attributes that can help you in building modern websites. Here is a set of some of the most prominent features introduced in HTML5.
- New Semantic Elements: These are like <header>, <footer>, and <section>.
- Forms 2.0: Improvements to HTML web forms where new attributes have been
introduced for <input> tag.
- Persistent Local Storage: To achieve without resorting to third-party plugins.
- WebSocket: A next-generation bidirectional communication technology for web
applications.
- Server-Sent Events: HTML5 introduces events that flow from a web server to the
web browsers and they are called Server-Sent Events (SSE).
- Canvas: This supports a two-dimensional drawing surface that you can program with JavaScript.
- Audio & Video: You can embed audio or video on your webpages without resorting to third-party plugins.
- Geolocation: Now visitors can choose to share their physical location with your web application.
- Microdata: This lets you create your own vocabularies beyond HTML5 and extend your web pages with custom semantics.
- Drag and drop: Drag and drop the items from one location to another location on the same webpage.
What does HTML5 do?
HTML instructs the browser on how to display text and images on a web page. Recall the last time you created a document with a word processor. Whether you use Microsoft Word or Wordpad, Apple Pages, or another application, your word processor has the main window in which you type text, and a menu or toolbar with multiple options to structure and style that text.
Do I need an HTML5 browser?
You are already using HTML 5 supported browser. The latest versions of Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera all support many HTML5 features, and Internet Explorer 9.0 will also have support for some HTML5 functionality.
The mobile web browsers that come pre-installed on iPhones, iPads, and Android phones all have excellent support for HTML5.
Firefox generally supports the widest selection of HTML5 features, with Chrome and Safari following shortly afterward, but as we said HTML5 is an evolving standard and the latest versions of each browser more than cover the basics.
What’s the problem with HTML5 video?
The HTML5 standard supports video, but unfortunately, nobody could agree on which format(s) to support – and that means that different browsers support different HTML5 video formats.
There are three main ones: Ogg Theora, which is supported by every browser bar Internet Explorer (Safari support requires a manual installation); H.264, which is supported by everyone but Firefox; and VP8/WebM, which is supported by everything (although Safari and IE require manual installations).
Will HTML5 replace Flash and Silverlight?
In some ways it already has: iOS devices don’t run Flash, and many video websites have either moved from Flash to HTML5 video or at least offered HTML5 as an option. However, as HTML5 doesn’t include digital rights management (DRM) technology to prevent copying, many content owners prefer proprietary, DRM-friendly formats such as Flash or Silverlight. For example, UK video site LoveFilm is dropping Flash – but instead of HTML5, it’s moving to Silverlight.
Although Adobe has announced that it will stop developing the Flash Player for mobile devices Flash is also used for considerably more than just showing the video, so it’s not going anywhere in a hurry.
What tools do I need to create HTML5 websites?
Purists would say that you don’t need any tools – you can write HTML5 code with a biro and a bit of paper if you wish – but others prefer tools such as Adobe’s Dreamweaver, which gained an HTML5 pack in 2010.
Adobe is also readying Edge, a dedicated HTML5 animation tool that promises to make it easy to create Flash-style animation.
Where can I see some HTML5 demos?
The cunningly named HTML5demos.com has some good demonstrations, along with a key showing which ones work in which browsers, while the excellent Google Web Fundamentals Program has both demos and code samples for designers and developers. Google has put together an HTML5 video player for YouTube, and Apple has put together an HTML5 showcase on Apple.com. Our favorite, though, is the interactive film Chris Milk made for Arcade Fire’s We Used To Wait.