What is HTML5?
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and current version of the HTML standard.
It was published in October 2014 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to improve the language with support for the latest multimedia, while keeping it both easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices such as web browsers, parsers, etc.
HTML5 is intended to subsume not only HTML 4, but also XHTML 1 and DOM Level 2 HTML.
What is New in HTML5?
The DOCTYPE declaration for HTML5 is very simple:
<!DOCTYPE html>
The character encoding (charset) declaration is also very simple:
<meta charset="UTF-8">
HTML5 Example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Title of the document</title>
</head>
<body>
Content of the document......
</body>
</html>
The default character encoding in HTML5 is UTF-8.
New HTML5 Elements
The most interesting new elements are:
New semantic elements like <header>, <footer>, <article>, and <section>.
New form control attributes like number, date, time, calendar, and range.
New graphic elements: <svg> and <canvas>.
New multimedia elements: <audio> and <video>.
In the chapter HTML5 Support, you will learn how to "teach" old browsers to handle HTML5 semantic.
New HTML5 API's (Application Programming Interfaces)
The most interesting new API's are:
- HTML Geolocation
- HTML Drag and Drop
- HTML Local Storage
- HTML Application Cache
- HTML Web Workers
- HTML SSE
Local storage is a powerful replacement for cookies.
Elements Removed in HTML5
The following HTML4 elements have been removed from HTML5:
| Element | Use instead |
|---|---|
| <acronym> | <abbr> |
| <applet> | <object> |
| <basefont> | CSS |
| <big> | CSS |
| <center> | CSS |
| <dir> | <ul> |
| <font> | CSS |
| <frame> | |
| <frameset> | |
| <noframes> | |
| <strike> | CSS |
| <tt> | CSS |
In the chapter HTML5 Migration, you will learn how to easily migrate from HTML4 to HTML5.
HTML History
Since the early days of the web, there have been many versions of HTML:
| Version | Year |
|---|---|
| Tim Berners-Lee invented www | 1989 |
| Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML | 1991 |
| Dave Raggett drafted HTML+ | 1993 |
| HTML Working Group defined HTML 2.0 | 1995 |
| W3C Recommended HTML 3.2 | 1997 |
| W3C Recommended HTML 4.01 | 1999 |
| W3C Recommended XHTML 1.0 | 2000 |
| HTML5 WHATWG First Public Draft | 2008 |
| HTML5 WHATWG Living Standard | 2012 |
| HTML5 W3C Final Recommendation | 2014 |
Tim Berners-Lee invented the "World Wide Web" in 1989, and the Internet took off in the 1990s.
From 1991 to 1998, HTML developed from version 1 to version 4.
In 2000, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommended XHTML 1.0.
The XHTML syntax was strict, and the developers were forced to write valid and "well-formed" code.
In 2004, WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) was formed in response to slow W3C development, and W3C's decision to close down the development of HTML, in favor of XHTML.
WHATWG wanted to develop HTML, consistent with how the web was used, while being backward compatible with older versions of HTML.
In the period 2004-2006, the WHATWG initiative gained support by the major browser vendors.
In 2006, W3C announced that they would support WHATWG.
In 2008, the first HTML5 public draft was released.
In 2012, WHATWG and W3C decided on a separation:
WHATWG will develop HTML as a "Living Standard".
A living standard is never fully complete, but always updated and improved. New features can be added, but old functionality can not be removed.
The WHATWG Living Standard was published in 2012, and is continuously updated.
W3C will develop a definitive HTML5 and XHTML5 standard, as a "snapshot" of WHATWG.
The W3C HTML5 recommendation was released 28 October 2014.