An exploration of HTML5 (2/2)

What is HTML5?

HTML5 is the fifth generation of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and is the latest version of HTML currently being implemented into modern browsers.

So, what’s new?

Well, HTML5 has brought a lot of changes and new features. Here are some of our favourites:

• A number of new multimedia tags have been introduced to define and integrate audio and video content into your website, making websites a much greater multimedia experience.
• Ability to create graphics from within a web browser using the or the tags. Canvas works with JavaScript to produce images, and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) uses XML to describe the image.
• New feature for input is the introduction of the, which acts as a sort of auto-complete feature, in the sense that as the user begins to type into the input box, a set of pre-defined options will appear underneath it, that the user can use to complete the field.
• Use the Geolocation API to determine where your users are from (in terrific detail: longitude, and latitude), enabling you to provide content specifically for certain locations!
• Drag and Drop – the ability to pick up an image from one area, and place it in another defined area on the web page.

A problem…

One of the many new features HTML5 is bringing to the Internet is local storage. For a website to use local storage, the site needs to obtain the user’s consent, under the EU Cookie Law. You can read more about the EU Cookie Law here: EU Cookie Law: EUseless.

This is also a real shame, as Web Storage is more secure and faster than the use of cookies, mostly due to the fact that it is only read upon request, and not with every server request.

Our stance:

HTML5 is very powerful, and offers some fantastic features, however it is not yet fully supported by all web browsers (IE lagging behind – as per usual), and until it is fully supported – we cannot fully recommend it’s use.

For now, XHTML all the way… But, hopefully, not for too long.

Concluding the two-part series…

Together CSS3 and HTML5 will pave the way for a better designed, more user friendly, and more exciting internet. We just need all the main browser vendors to hurry up and get supporting, and get those users whom are still stuck on the likes of IE7 up to date.