A lot of the new features of HTML center around creating a better platform for web-based applications. From more descriptive tags and better cross-site and cross-window communication to animations and improved multimedia support, developers using HTML5 have a lot of new tools to build better user experiences.
More Descriptive Markup
Each version of HTML introduces some new markup, but never before have there been so many new additions that directly relate to describing content. You’ll learn about elements for defining headings, footers, navigation sections, sidebars, and articles in Chapter 2, New Structural Tags and Attributes, on page 24. You’ll also learn about meters, progress bars, and how custom data attributes can help you mark up data.
Multimedia with Less Reliance on Plug-ins
You don’t need Flash or SUverlight for video, audio, and vector graphics anymore. Although Flash-based video players are relatively simple to use, they don’t work on Apple’s mobile devices. That’s a significant
market, so you’ll need to learn how to use non-Flash video alternatives.
Better Applications
Developers have tried all kinds of things to make richer, more interactive applications on the Web, from ActiveX controls to Flash. HTML5 offers amazing features that, in some cases, completely eliminate the
need for third-party technologies.
Cross-Document Messaging
Web browsers prevent us from using scripts on one domain to affect or interact with scripts on another domain. This restriction keeps end users safe from cross-site scripting, which has been used to do all sorts
of nasty things to unsuspecting site visitors.
However, this prevents all scripts from working, even when we write them ourselves and know we can trust the content. HTML5 includes a workaround that is both safe and simple to implement.
Web Sockets
HTML5 offers support for Web Sockets, which give you a persistent connection to a server. Instead of constantly polling a back end for progress updates, your web page can subscribe to a socket, and the back end can push notifications to your users.
Client-Side Storage
We tend to think of HTML5 as a web technology, but with the addition of the Web Storage and Web SQL Database APIs, we can build applications in the browser that can persist data entirely on the client’s machine.
Better Interfaces
The user interface is such an important part of web applications, and we jump through hoops every day to make browsers do what we want. To style a table or round corners, we either use JavaScript libraries or add tons of additional markup so we can apply styles. HTML5 and CSS3 make that practice a thing of the past.
Better Forms
HTML5 promises better user interface controls. For ages, we’ve been forced to use JavaScript and CSS to construct sliders, calendar date pickers, and color pickers. These are all defined as real elements in HTML5, just like drop-downs, checkboxes, and radio buttons. Although this isn’t quite ready yet for every browser,
it’s something you need to keep your eye on, especially if you develop web-based applications. In addition to improved usability without reliance on JavaScript libraries, there’s another benefit—improved accessibility.
Screen readers and other browsers can implement these controls in specific ways so that they work easily for the disabled.
Improved Accessibility
Using the new HTML5 elements in HTML5 to clearly describe our content makes it easier for programs like screen readers to easily consume the content. A site’s navigation, for example, is much easier to find if
you can look for the nav tag instead of a specific div or unordered list. Footers, sidebars, and other content can be easily reordered or skipped altogether. Parsing pages in general becomes much less painful, which
can lead to better experiences for people relying on assistive technologies. In addition, new attributes on elements can specify the roles of elements so that screen readers can work with them easier.
Advanced Selectors
CSS3 has selectors that let you identify odd and even rows of tables, all selected check boxes, or even the last paragraph in a group. You can accomplish more with less code and less markup.
Visual Effects
Drop shadows on text and Images help bring depth to a web page, and gradients can also add dimension. CSS3 lets you add shadows and gradients to elements without resorting to background images or extra markup. In addition, you can use transformations to round corners or skew and rotate elements.