HTML5 is the fifth revision and newest version of the HTML standard. It offers new features that provide not only rich media support, but also enhance support for creating web applications that can interact with the user, his/her local data, and servers, more easily and effectively than it was ever possible previously.
Interesting Facts About HTML5
It’s not as complicated as we think
You must be wondering: “How can I start using HTML5 if older browsers don’t support it?” But the question itself is misleading. HTML5 is not one big thing; it is a collection of individual features. So you can’t detect “HTML5 support,” because that doesn’t make any sense. But you can detect support for individual features, like canvas, video, or geolocation.
You may think of HTML as tags and angle brackets. That’s an important part of it, but it’s not the whole story. The HTML5 specification also defines how those angle brackets
interact with JavaScript, through the Document Object Model (DOM). HTML5 doesn’t just define a video width=”300″ height=”150″ tag; there is also a corresponding DOM API for video objects in the DOM. You can use this API to detect support for different video formats, play a video, pause, mute audio, track how much of the video has been
downloaded, and everything else you need to build a rich user experience around the video tag itself.
It’s the Continuation of Previous HTML Versions
As we all know that HTML4 is the most successful markup format ever. HTML5 builds on that success. You don’t need to throw away your existing markup. You don’t need to relearn things you already know. If your web application worked yesterday in HTML4, it will still work today in HTML5. If you want to improve your web applications, you should definitely learn HTML5.
Here’s a concrete example: HTML5 supports all the form controls from HTML 4, but it also includes new input controls. Some of these are long-overdue additions like sliders and date pickers; others are more subtle. For example, the email input type looks just like a text box, but mobile browsers will customize their onscreen keyboard to make it easier to type email addresses. Older browsers that don’t support the email input type will treat it as a regular text field, and the form still works with no markup changes or scripting hacks. This means you can start improving your web forms today, even if some of your visitors are stuck on IE 6.
Easy to get started with
“Upgrading” to HTML5 can be as simple as changing your doctype. The doctype should already be on the first line of every HTML page. Previous versions of HTML defined a lot of doctypes, and choosing the right one could be tricky. In HTML5, there is only one doctype:
!DOCTYPE html
Upgrading to the HTML5 doctype won’t break your existing markup, because elements previously defined in HTML 4 will still render in HTML5. But it will allow you to use — and validate — new semantic elements like
article, section, header, and footer.
It already works
Whether you want to draw on a canvas, play video, design better forms, or build web applications that work offline, you’ll find that HTML5 is already well-supported. Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and mobile browsers already support canvas , video, geolocation, local storage , and more. Google already supports microdata annotations. Even Microsoft — rarely known for blazing the trail of standards support — supports most HTML5 features in Internet Explorer9.
HTML5 goes far beyond the browser
In previous versions of HTML, there was an inherent assumption that a traditional Web browser was the user agent of choice. While other user agents and content types were supported, there was an implication that they were not as important. HTML5, on the other hand, has a good number of changes to put non-browser, non-desktop-size-screen user agents on more equal footing with traditional Web browsers. There have been a lot of advances with things like how well it works with screen readers and mobile phones. As a result, well-written HTML5 can be a “write-once, view anywhere” framework for developers who need it, and it can reach users (particularly those with a variety of disabilities) who otherwise would struggle with the Web.
HTML5 is going to kill Flash
A lot of HTML5’s functionality eliminates the need for stuff like Flash or Silverlight for two reasons: First, HTML5 will likely change the way you view YouTube videos, though it does nothing on the 3D front — for now. Eliminating specialized apps is a good thing, and not just because it kills the need to install a bunch of plug-ins. It shifts the online power base back onto the open standards side, which is where the profit motive just doesn’t count and cool tech happens simply because it can. The second reason is that iPhones and iPads will run HTML5. Even Adobe can’t ignore that platform.
