A List Apart Comments for Article: A Preview of HTML 5

HTML 5 has been a bit of a roller coaster ride

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:39:52 GMT

... if you read Roger Johansson's blog http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/categories/html_5/ It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:40:05 GMT

You know, I really don't understand the point. What was *really* wrong with the example using divs? Surely developing such specific tags (as article, aside, nav etc) is only going to end up limiting the scope in future - and once again we will be back to square one - trying to get around the limitations of the spec. I would think the better approach would be to create a spec that provides better support for microformats, while using a bare minimum of tags.

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10-15 years?

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:07:43 GMT

Did I read that right? The HTML 5 spec isn't expected to be done for another 10-15 years? And then how long until browsers support it? A decade is an incredibly long time in web-years -- I don't see how this spec can even hope to still be relevant if it won't see the light of day for that long.

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:24:30 GMT

Ditto #2. If ease is the purpose of the HTML 5 spec, clearly it should have come… last century (the XHTML 1.0 spec officialized in 2000). It is also interesting to note that HTML 5 will be a rather major step in “devolution,” eschewing the abstraction of structure and the implementation of microformats for neatly named tags and pseudo-embeds. I doubt web designers are going to adapt backwards in 2007 A.D.

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:26:41 GMT

I'm really wondering, is this possible?

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hardly worth it

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:32:44 GMT

I agree with #3.... just doing the math, html 4 has been around for 10 years and another 15 for html 5? Plus time for all the browsers to catch up, with the rate of other devices besides desktop computers coming into play, having the same html version for near 30 years seems, well I'm just wondering. How will these things possibly apply in 15 years?

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SGML vs. XML

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:10:06 GMT

I'm still not happy with the SGML version that allows unclosed tags. This burdens people with having to learn which elements need a closing tag and which ones don't. With XHTML, it's clear-cut: all of them need one. Also, you can at least check an XHTML file for well-formedness without a DTD. SGML requires a DTD for any sort of validation.

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:15:41 GMT

Another one who's slightly worried about the time frame being proposed.

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Time Frame

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:54:57 GMT

I'm of two minds on this ten to fifteen year time frame thing. First, I assume that includes time for the implementation, testing, & feedback cycle, so that the end result of 10-15 is interoperable cross-browser implementations. Part of me thinks that will be too little too late, that if the various parties involved hadn't been off doing their own thing came together as a unified group a little earlier, having 2010 or so as an end point would have been easy to stomach. By 2017, development habits will have had time to become firmly entrenched (IE6 only had 5 years, look how that went), and transitioning to a newer non-backwards-compatible HTML dialect will be a huge uphill battle. To draw a comparison, XHTML2 is (to be euphemistic) somewhat lacking in relevancy to those of us building web sites day to day because it doesn't solve enough problems and it abandons the past. Since the new stuff in HTML5 is basically just codifying what we're already doing in other ways, could that which looks promising today suffer the same fate, given enough time? But the other part of me wonders, what's the hurry? At this point we're not exactly being held back by the lack of these elements in the current drafts. Progress isn't breakneck anymore, and the rhetorical "web years" from back in the 90's don't apply. We can afford to take some time and do it right. Still. 10 years? That is a rather lot of time. It better really be worth the wait.

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Lowest common demoniator still holding us back

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:46:04 GMT

First, to be snarky, who needs "section" when we've got this little section DIVider already? What is the point of adding new elements such as section, header, aside, et al? If one browser (ahem) still isn't supporting simple things like :before, why would be expect its dominant 800-pound monkey ass to jump now? I want to be using things that are available to me *now* through *approved* specs, that other browsers already support; but I'm stuck with over-verbose methods or out-and-out hacks to bring the previously mentioned ugly gorilla into line so its users get a "modern" experience.

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10-15 Years...

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:18:42 GMT

The 10-15 year time frame includes the time required stabilize the spec, produce the test suite containing thousands of tests and achieve interoperable implementations. Browsers are expected to implement HTML5 during this time, not wait until after. Indeed, they have already begun, which is why we're already seeing early implementations of video, audio, and we have had canvas for a long time already. For comparison, look at CSS 2.1. It's been 10 years since CSS2 was started and that's still only a candidate recommendation. However, it's been relatively stable for a few years now, while still being updated based on implementation feedback.

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DIVs are better

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:22:55 GMT

Programming is going more dynamic, generic based. Divs can be anything, I am not sure about the new header, footer, section tags. It is really about typing HTML in HTML5 and I think at that level it is not really needed. Flexibility, the ability to control context for the user (back/forward/navs) and textual goodness make the web fun. I think XHTML and HTML are fine as a base now. I really like the video and audio tags but again, typed... object, embed are much more generic. What about flash? flash tag? what about silverlight? ria tag to fit both. You see the dilemma. if you just keep it to divs, maybe clean up object and embed to one widget tag or object tag. Not sure I like much in the HTML5 spec especially possibly calling SQL right from html, what the eff?

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:35:38 GMT

http://www.crockford.com/html/ I really liked the things in this article.

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:02:45 GMT

I'm quite surprised by the negative reactions towards the new elements. div elements are indeed more generic, and thus fail to add much semantic meaning to the document. A header is not much different from a div. Except it adds semantic meaning to a certain portion of your document. This is really a good thing, not a bad thing. I've written a more complete reaction "here":http://www.onderhond.com/blog/onderhond/html5-prospects as I believe these type of comments deserve some extra attention.

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:40:28 GMT

Finally the browser vendors focused on browser features like tabs and RSS readers. Now, the web designers started learning CSS/JavaScript language to build their own nice applications on top of the existing frameworks using Ajax. But HTML itself grew hardly at all in the next eight years. I think that from now one, this controversial subject can be more discussed.

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Good news

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:07:22 GMT

This is good news. HTML was lagging behind a little, compared to the other vast improvements made with other web technologies. The additions look good. It'll make life easier for many designers and developers. I look forward to it.

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Other features

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:38:46 GMT

While this article was nice, I was hoping for a list of features that were already being implemented, such as Opera's new "Google Suggests":http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/an-html5-style-google-suggest/ like feature. This looks pretty danged cool, and I've implemented it in one section of our code base. Are there ANY HTML 5 features being implemented in Firefox 3? I haven't been able to find any mention of such and that leads me to believe that nothing will be coming. One feature I would like to see in HTML 5 is the ability to mark elements as cacheable for the browser. For many people, headers, footers, navigation, etc. do not change from page to page. Why can't we tell the browsers to cache those elements?

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HTML is for markup

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:49:34 GMT

From this article (I still need to dig deeper into HTML 5), I can generally support the current proposed changes because it seems it deals with markup. A lot of suggestions for "HTML 5", such as Radoslav Stankov linked to crockford.com always seem to forget they're talking about HTM(arkup)L and instead go off on a tangent talking about how client side scripting (JavaScript) or CSS should have improvement 'x' or 'y'. But that's not HTML, that's scripting and styling respectfully and needs to be addressed separately. Though, I'm not sure of the importance or need for new tags such as "section", "header", "footer" and "aside", but I really like the "Nav" tag. In general, I guess guess it won't hurt anything as long as said tags don't become required attributes where people start adding them for the same of adding them. Cheers!

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Aside - some quick thoughts

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:09:27 GMT

About tags like

... This tag should be used to define elements related to the main content. Usually this is the right column in most site designs. Which is pretty nice, as you can now have your content and related content separately marked. It becomes even nicer when there is a vertical navigation. Putting the

tag in the

I'm torn, but...

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:44:56 GMT

One one hand, having specialized header, footer, etc. tags seems a bit bloated, but on the other hand, having headers and footers render in a rational way, as a sort of "scaffold" before the CSS is plugged in, sure would be nice.

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Normalizing numbered headings will cause confusion

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:47:25 GMT

Lachlan, please help me understand why you don't think HTML 5 will seriously confuse authors by redefining the semantics of numbered headings. In HTML 5, H1 will have the same semantic meaning as H6. 1. This means lower value headings can be used before higher value headings. For example, this will be valid in HTML 5: [body] [h6]heading[/h6] [h1]heading[/h1] [/body] 2. Skipping heading levels will be valid in HTML 5. For example: [body] [h1]heading[/h1] [h3]heading[/h3] [/body] (Using [ ] instead of < > in above examples. Sorry, I have no clue how to do code examples using Textile syntax.)

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I don't know...

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:48:05 GMT

bq. A header is not much different from a div. Except it adds semantic meaning to a certain portion of your document. Does it? What does "header" actually _mean_? What does it tell me? It tells me, "This is a bunch of stuff that goes at the top". That's all header means. I'm not sure that's terribly helpful. If we're going to muck around with new markup, it should actually be meaningful and not just convenient. I want my markup to give additional clues about the content itself, both informational and emotional, not merely support page layout convention. That doesn't help anyone.

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Normalizing numbered headings will cause confusion (corrected)

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:51:39 GMT

heading

2. Skipping heading levels will be valid in HTML 5. For example:

heading

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user power

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:58:40 GMT

I'm also torn - it's generally a great thing that divs and spans have no semantic meaning - it allows us designers more flexibility... but what about the user? If every website were marked up with consistent header and footer tags it would empower the average user (or the _disabled_ user) to apply their own custom stylesheets with much more predictable results - there are plenty of accessibility benefits there.

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Headers

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:10:57 GMT

Headers tell you more than "stuff that goes on the top". A header gives you information about the content which is usefull to know before starting the actual content. It contains all elements that should best be known before starting the content. Same with the footer, which contains all information related to the content but is useful only as an after-thought. As we read from top to bottom, a header is usually positioned at the top and a footer at the bottom, but the semantic meaning is of course more detailed. A header is always an intro to content, while a footer is an outro. Same goes with site headers, which display all info relevant to travelling around the site and giving the user info about the site. It has more semantic power than a

, which is just a box. For all other elements, the

element is still available, so I don't really see how we'll lose flexibility. We're just given some common element a more detailed name and semantic meaning.

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about the timeline

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:16:33 GMT

The "charter":http://www.w3.org/2007/03/HTML-WG-charter.html calls for 3 years, not 10. We'll see which plan is closer to reality when we get there, I suppose, but I'm betting it's closer to 3 than 10.

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If the time spent on this spec...

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:19:07 GMT

... were spent getting all the browser manufacturers to get their _presently existing browsers_ to follow the _presently existing spec_, the life of every web designer out there would be made 10x better. I think there's plenty to be said both ways regarding HTML5, but it doesn't change the fact that if ie6 was not a part of my life, id get 3x more done. Surely there's more that can be done to get users off this and other older browsers. Thats where I'd like to see some more effort (another NYT ad, maybe, moz?). The web world does an awful good job of making new problems before properly fixing old ones.

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:55:47 GMT

How about equal time for XHTML 2? Further reading: X/HTML 5 Versus XHTML 2

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Untitled

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:33:11 GMT

bq. The HTML 5 spec isn’t expected to be done for another 10-15 years? And then how long until browsers support it? I believe Dave’s right: the spec won’t be considered finished until there are two (complete?) interoperable browser implementations. The 15 year period includes browser support. You should be able to use some of its new features before then. Indeed, with the backwards-compatibility stuff, you can start serving documents that are technically HTML 5 already: I believe Daring Fireball is published in HTML 5. You just won’t see any benefit to using elements like <section> yet.

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New HTML? Waste of time...

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:45:42 GMT

Developing a new version of just HTML seems like a waste of time to me. In 10-15 years (assuming the writer of this article wasn't being sarcastic) I imagine that XHTML will be more of a standard than HTML will be. XHTML is so much more powerful, both in potential and how it's currently used... in 10 years, I can't really imagine anyone really wanting to use HTML when you think of all the potential XHTML has.

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Semantic DIVs

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:53:18 GMT

I agree that aside, header, footer, etc. are useful, but do we need new elements for these? What about a role attribute? For example:

. The role attribute (unlike class or id) could have a defined set of allowed values (aside, header, footer, etc.). This would add the semantics of the proposed elements while maintaining backwards compatibility with user agents that only understand div.

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HTML5 sounds nice but

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:05:26 GMT

what about the browsers catching up to the current specifications? I agree with #27 on that. More focus should be on browser compatibility with the current markup of both HTML and CSS.

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HTML 5 is being implemented

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:21:41 GMT

A number of comments suggest that we'll never see the benefits of HTML 5 but that's simply not true. #

lowest common denominator (revisited)

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:51:58 GMT

Look, I'm all for advancing the Web. But we're *currently* held back by IE on *today's* approved standards. I would love to use some things available to me now – but I usually can't because I have to support the 70+% user out there on it. Until that turd is flushed (as in dead) or polished (as in catching up with the rest of the kids), we're stuck with the stink of old ways.

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Re: HTML 5 IS BEING IMPLEMENTED

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:23:56 GMT

Thank you, Shawn! Folks, please read "Shawn's comment":http://www.alistapart.com/comments/previewofhtml5?page=4#33 and think about it.

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What forest? All I see are trees.

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:57:45 GMT

I have to say, I'm rather disappointed. Not at the amount of work which has gone into this (which is commendable), but rather the short-sightedness of those involved. Listen to people like Bert Bos & you'll hear them say that *13 years ago* (!), they couldn't even dream of how CSS would be used by people. They can't even believe that it *still exists*. If CSS had been built to solve the problems of 1994 and only those problems, he probably would have been right. 13 years later, the HTML working groups involved in HTML5 have decided to approach things differently. The introduction of new elements like "header", "footer", "aside" and "section" reek of this, let alone the "article" element. Extolling the virtues of "semantic markup" (as a general concept du jour) doesn't cut it as an argument for these new elements. What real world benefits can we derive from their meaning? More critically, what exactly is the _goal_ of HTML5. I've heard some people say that the goal is: bq. more interoperability when recovering from errors [1] That's fair enough, but mixed in with those frothing at the mouth over these new elements, things are becoming more and more hazy as to what HTML5 is trying to solve. I'd like to hear a clear statement on that. fn1. Karl Dubost in "Why HTML 5 Specification Matters?":http://www.w3.org/QA/2007/07/why-html-5-matters.html

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So, when will HTML 4.01 arrive?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:51:08 GMT

I am all for HTML V. It will give us Web coders and, of course, the browser makers, more tags to misinterpret and misapply. For sure, having the *aside* tag will allow me to _semantical-up_ my pages where I have no possibility for that now. I hope the HTML V spec takes a long time to put together because it will keep a certain class of person off the streets, safe from wandering dreamily, in mortal danger from passing vehicles. Meanwhile, I am still waiting for a leading or non-leading browser to implement HTML 4.01. Fixed table headers / footers? Column alignment on language-specific decimals? Object? Cite? Char? And so on. Not that this matters much. HTML is simply structure and our job is to keep structure as simple as possible. CSS, JavaScript, and other technologies build best upon simplicity. Usability, an ultimate goal, builds upon convention and repetition. Anyone complaining that an old spec or a particular browser is holding up progress should really be careful of passing vehicles.

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Clarification re WebKit commitment to HTML5

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:52:44 GMT

Sean Medero writes: bq. The WebKit team has told the HTML WG that they want to implement the entirety of the HTML 5 spec in the very near future. (I wish I could give you a citation URL for this but I can’t find the transcript of the face-to-face meeting in Boston where Maciej Stachowiak talked about the WebKit team’s commitment to HTML 5.) Just to be clear, I didn't make specific date or scope commitments, as Apple does not comment about future product releases. But I *can* say that we've implemented many aspects of the spec in WebKit nightlies, and we are interested in many other parts of it. In any case I couldn't make a statement one way or the other about 100% support until the spec is final.

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HREF, SRC?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 02:11:16 GMT

Here's what I'd love to see in the new version of HTML: 1. The href= attribute available for use on any element. If I want to make an element linkable, why do I either have to use javascript or put use an anchor? 2. An easy way to tie the height/width of an element to another element - the way table rows and columns tie height and width to groups of table cells. Some thing like: div {height: #header;}, which would grab the height of the #header element. 3. An easy way to vertical center in block elements (DIVs, etc.). How come table cells can do this, and but DIVs require give and take with padding and height/width? Also, like a lot of other people in this board, It feels to me that the new elements

All I want is readable code and effective, beautiful pages

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 02:20:06 GMT

I think that the code, discussion and techniques discussed here in ALA ultimately mean more and have more beneficial effect than this HTML5 thing ever will. I do understand that there is a syntactic difference between

and

but for the life of me I do not see what desirable behaviors I cannot do with the second. And since divs share some behaviors, I find the second *more* understandable. In my cranky pseudo-object terminology, it means that _header_ as defined in css inherits from _div_. So what if one is a tag and the other is an attribute value. Although I am a student of language structure, I require meaningful application to my work which, in this context, is making web sites. I also am guessing that there is going to be some paradigm shift, sea change, aha discovery or mere 'this changes everything' event that makes much of the hard work of HTML5 for naught. As others have mentioned (3,10,15) years is a long time. OTOH, construction of "The Cathedral of St. John The Divine":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_John_the_Divine,_New_York was started in 1892 and it is still not yet completeted, yet it functions fully. Maybe HTML5 will be the St. John's of the web.

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Thank you

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 03:11:41 GMT

It's likely I'll be retired before HTML 5 is THE way, but I can already see the potential. It'll be interesting to watch the progress. For the time being I would like to say thank you, Lachlan. That was a well written and informative article.

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Solutions to all the problems you don't have!

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:51:36 GMT

Seems to me that ought to be the subtitle for the HTML5 specification. I did read Shawn's comments (#33) _and_ I even took a look at the committee's so-called "Design Principles" and parts of the HTML5 spec. Personally, I found the "Design Principles" to be the most telling: This is arguably the most important part of the standards process and yet this document is devoid of substantive goals and expectations. I was expecting such things as: What specific problems do we intend to solve? How do we envision the production _and_ consumption of future HTML _and_ the issues posed by each? All I was able to gather is that we "need" to have a new spec. and so let's go create one and incorporate some of these general/techie ideas along the way. There are very good reasons to choose Flash over HTML/CSS/Javascript and also good reasons to choose PDF over HTML, and so on. Certainly HTML has many benefits to it and the benefits are quite compelling. But the shortcomings...oh, the shortcomings. Coming from the developer side of the camp, I agree with everyone's comments that precede mine regarding the problems developers face: vertical alignment, column alignment without tables, varying degrees of standards compliance, different/unexpected renderings, accessibility, dealing with browser bugs/quirks/incompatibilities, maintaining colors across platforms with differing gamma corrections--to name but a few! Structuring the general layout of a page? Not a problem. Dealing with h1,h2,h3,... in some crazy fashion? Not a problem. Even dealing with audio/video is not a problem, really, but I'm open to improving that nonetheless. I do believe there is a place for something that comes after HTML 4.01, but this HTML5 in its current form is not it--and is not going to be it, either. If the W3C wants to lay an egg, go ahead (curious how the graphic that accompanies this article is an egg in a box, no?). If the W3C wants to produce something that will actually get used, the HTML working group needs to start over. Finally, I understand this process is new so although I am beating up the working group/W3C, I'm really more interested in seeing them improve. I'm not sure what the right forum is for some of my other thoughts and ideas but I'll spare everyone from more of my ranting! Besides, I have to go figure out why MSIE6 is displaying my stuff in a peculiar way!

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BTW--Link Busted

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:42:18 GMT

Forgot to add that if you go to the HTML Working Group's "main page":http://www.w3.org/html/wg/ you'll find that under the _Current_ _News_ sidebar, the "Design Principles" link at the top is completely messed up. So if even the _HTML_ _Working_ _Group_ can't get the XHTML right....

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“Folks, please read Shawn’s comment and think about it.”

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:00:33 GMT

Okay I will: bq. Microsoft hasn’t quite joined the implementation game yet but is involved (Chris Wilson is the chair of the W3C’s HTML Working Group which is working on HTML 5 along with WHATWG.) And that's what's got my pessimism all worked into a froth. Microsoft has helped write standards before (CSS anyone?) and then (not-so-)promptly failed to ever implement them adequately. I'm dying to move forward. But I feel like one of those cartoon characters running in place while the ghost of Explorer has a hold of my suspenders from behind. Not only am I not gaining any ground, but the ghoul will be the death of me. Until Microsoft proves they can jump ahead of where they've been, I will withhold my optimism. They did that once with IE5 on the Mac - before they let it whither, get passed up and officially die. The large, but not giant, step they took forward with IE7 hardly catches up to where WebKit, Gecko and Presto were years ago.

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Curly quotes

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:30:31 GMT

Even though it's not code, just an illustration, the use of curly-quotes in the top schematic around the ids and classes is a bit grating.

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Don't see the usefullness

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:07:28 GMT

Count me in along with the others who don't grasp the necessity of the new tags. OTOH I can see some usefullness in CMSs where things like "header" and "article" might make it easier for authors. Maybe. One could always treat this as xml and translate to div's with id or class names for production. Interesting that the example html has 'div id="sidebar"' whereas the html 5 version has 'aside'. To me, 'aside' seems more like a stage direction. What's wrong with 'sidebar'? As for 'section', I've been using that lately (as 'div class="section"') as specified in xhtml 2.0 spec, where 'section' serves to associate a heading (along with level) with the following content. (Along with transclusion that's pretty much it for my xhtml 2 interest) I'd much rather see crossplatform support for math equations, alignment to decimal in columns, and namespaced attributes. 15 years is a long time, perhaps most of the web then will be for ARGs taking place within an augmented reality googleverse (ok, now I see the proper use for an 'aside' tag)

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Huh

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:52:39 GMT

I'm really surprised at the negative reaction here. I've been really excited by HTML 5 (and the XHTML variant) for a while, and this article just increased that.

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Backwards compatibility

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:57:07 GMT

What about backwards compatibility of new elements (HEADER, NAV, ARTICLE, SECTION, FOOTER, ASIDE)? Even pretty new browsers like Firefox 2 and 3b or IE 7 can't style these new elements. Opera 9 and Safari 3 can, but what to do with others? Maybe some attribute for DIV element is better idea from compatibility point of view. I just think that nobody will use new elements for compatibility until Firefox 2 will not become Netscape 3 in developers' minds. BTW, try it yourself: "HTML 5":http://rusrestaurant.com/tests/html5/test1/html5.html , "HTML 4":http://rusrestaurant.com/tests/html5/test1/html4.html

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The benefits of the new elements

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:39:49 GMT

For people who don't understand the use of

over

(e.a.) - the benefits for you as the author will be limited. You _already_ know what meaning that element will have on your site, so really, all that's left for you is having an easier styling hook and saving a few keystrokes. But the thing is, _everyone else_ doesn't **know** what id="nav" means. There is no standard which specifies this, and no way to rely on it. (Plus, other developers will use id="menu", "id="navigation", id="navmenu", or one of a hundred other variations.) And the real benefit will be exactly for all these other people; probably including benefits we can't even begin to imagine yet... What I can imagine is, for example, that screen readers could provide a standardized function to skip straight to the navigation menu (or to skip it altogether), now finally **knowing** exactly what part of the site _is_ that navigation. Search engines could take all this extra information into account in their ranking algorithms and provide us with ever more useful results. And that's probably just scratching the surface... The desire to label these common parts of our sites is there already; we all do it (if we didn't, it wouldn't have been considered for inclusion in HTML5). HTML5 is just providing an easier mold for this behaviour, minutely helping us, and potentially greatly helping the world.

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Addendum

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:49:45 GMT

Oh, and one other real benefit for us as authors: the new elements will severely reduce the clutter of all the divs blurring together on our pages. - With thanks to Sam Ruby for mentioning that point in his email to the public-html list just now; check out the effect by viewing source on the "html5 version of his site":http://intertwingly.net/blog/index.html5

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Other HTML5 features?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:51:17 GMT

Thanks for the excellent preview! Looking forward to it. I was surprised however that there was no mention of things like Web Forms 2.0 and the Canvas element. Don't they fall under HTML 5 too? Or do they just fall outside the scope of this particular preview?

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Re: Other HTML5 Features

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:11:26 GMT

Alexis (comment 51), there are far too many features in HTML5 to discuss in one article. I decied to focus on just 2 major features to keep the article short. I picked these features specifically because they would be of interest to a lot of people and haven't been discussed much before. Other features like Web Forms and canvas have been discussed many times over the years.

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Re: Other HTML5 Features

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:37:18 GMT

@Lachlan Understood, thanks for the clarification. My concern is that the people going "is that all?" may not be all be aware of how many more (and familiar) features HTML 5 includes. Would be nice to seeing more of these developer-friendly articles on HTML 5 features appear as the specification matures.

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Still: What are the Goals?

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:27:34 GMT

I don't wish to pick on Sander (comments 49, 50) but his comments do serve to illustrate the point I was trying to make. For example: is "improved readability of HTML source" a goal of the HTML5 effort? The "Design Principles" document makes no mention of this as a goal and I'm sure there are lots of different opinions regarding its merits as a goal. If we're considering people who do mostly hand-coding of HTML, this is probably a greater concern. People using server-side includes or another templating system may or may not be concerned. People who just want a flashy web site to impress potential clients...who knows? So the point here is two-fold: 1) is this a goal? 2) which group of people deserves more/less weight when evaluating the possible solutions? To the last part, there are other ways to improve readability. Consider this if you will:

...text text text...

Clearly the 'startof' and 'endof' would be new attributes that could be implemented tomorrow without any impact to existing browsers (they should already know to ignore something unfamiliar). However, if I build an application that is aware of the attributes, the application could do special highlighting or tabbing or whatever to help me out as I compose or review the source. Obviously this is only an example, but considering that there would be a way to meet the goal with no impact to the vast majority of the installed base (as opposed to introducing new tags), does this idea deserve any more/less consideration? What about resolving conflicts between people who love the idea and people who hate it? The HTML working group does not appear to have answers to these questions. As far as I'm concerned, they _need_ to have such answers so that discussions like this can take place. Without the discussions, the risk is high that HTML5 will be neither particularly relevant nor particularly useful.

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Hmmmmm...

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:30:53 GMT

...formatting goof. The example was supposed to look like: <div class="example" startof="something new"> ...text text text... </div endof="something new">

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Um...why?

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:49:21 GMT

I really, really want to understand why so many people are working so hard to justify HTML. Unfortunately, this article did nothing to enlighten me. I'm now left with three possibly (probably) incorrect perceptions: 1. There are folks out there who want to ensure that IF browsers drop support for HTML 4 (no, please...don't...zzzzzz) there will be a spankin' new DOCTYPE that will not only continue support for these broken pages but will also make their authors feel good about supporting a "new" specification. 2. There are folks out there with severely overblown phobias of closing tags (really, guys, they're not that hard to type in). 3. There are folks out there who think that all websites in 10 years will be blogs. Did I leave anything out? Probably. Please... Instead of focusing your efforts on HTML 5, how about nailing down updates to CSS, or working toward better, more consistent cross-browser support for web standards, or figuring out a bulletproof way to achieve vertical centering without hell, or... I don't know, SOMETHING. HTML 5 just doesn't seem to be useful enough to warrant its brain trust.

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HTML 5 - Header in a strange direction

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:51:54 GMT

The header and footer tags are not particular useful as they do not describe their content but rather they describe their position on the page. Any content in the header, for instance, would therefore always be restricted to the top of the page. And as others have said what actually is the "header" and what should it contain? Does apple.com have a "header" or a navigation bar or is it some strange combination - a naveader?

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Some good bits

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:33:23 GMT

I like the header, nav and footer tags. They seem useful for behind the scenes coding at least. But the article and section do seem a bit limited where using a div seems to make more sense. Perhaps there will be more "article" type tags to come? Cheers for the article though Lachlan. Must admit I found it interesting but then to read it would be 15 years away took the wind out of my sails.

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Headings

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:41:44 GMT

@Vlad: bq.1. This means lower value headings can be used before higher value headings. For example, this will be valid in HTML 5:

heading

I don't think that is the case, unless I've misread the spec. If the [h1] is within a [section] or other such block-level element, it _will_ be allowed, but within each block, [h_x_] elements must still be in the correct order. What this means is that you can dynamically include sections into a document without having to worry about whether each of the headings is at the right level for where you have included it. bq. 2. Skipping heading levels will be valid in HTML 5. For example:

heading

That's fine with me. Sometimes you might be working to a framework, where each [h_x_] heading represents a particular level - there might be some sections that _do_ miss out a heading level. It makes more sense to the overall structure to keep, for example, all the base-level headings as [h4] rather than promoting some of them to [h3] in some sections only.

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Headers

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:45:54 GMT

@Amber: bq. Does it? What does “header” actually mean? What does it tell me? It tells me, “This is a bunch of stuff that goes at the top”. That’s all header means. I’m not sure that’s terribly helpful. It's more than that, it's like a summary or strapline to the document or section. For example, search engines could extract any text in a [header] tag and use it on results pages to give a summary description of the page if the [meta] description is either irrelevant or absent. Assistive technologies could use [header] sections to summarise the page and allow the user to home in on the section they need more quickly - this would give more context than users currently get by just going through the [h...] elements. It also provides a handy way to mark up a strapline. At the moment, a lot of people are torn between using an [h2] for the line of text that goes immediately under the [h1], because it's important, and using a [p] or [div] because it's ordinary text. The [header] element will neatly resolve this.

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Step aside!

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:54:19 GMT

@Michael: bq. Interesting that the example html has ‘div id=”sidebar”’ whereas the html 5 version has ‘aside’. To me, ‘aside’ seems more like a stage direction. What’s wrong with ‘sidebar’? The key difference is that 'sidebar' is a presentational, positional term. It implies a vertical division with the content on the narrower side of it - and that may not be how you want it laid out. 'Aside' is a more generally descriptive term, and could easily be presented in a different way without it being self-contradictory.

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TEN TO FIFTEEN YEARS!!!!

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:42:56 GMT

I've not read all 7 pages of comments so I don't know if this time frame has been explained... but 15 years, the web barely existed 15 years ago and look how far we've come now. I'm _guessing_ 99% of what was being done/used to build the web back then is no longer relevant and I'm willing to bet that in 15 years time (with browser technology advancements, etc) the HTML5 spec will be irrelevant. MS could have released 2 new browser versions by then! I'm all for better tools, API's, user experiences but surely the minds/companies involved can work quicker than that! Crikey, I'll be looking to retire then!

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Untitled

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:49:22 GMT

@Stephen bq. For example, search engines could extract any text in a [header] tag and use it on results pages to give a summary description of the page if the [meta] description is either irrelevant or absent. Perhaps it's just me, but I didn't take the use of header to be another tag to represent metadata. The way I understand it, "header" is just as positional as "sidebar" is or would be. I'm all for increasing/improving ways to assign metadata to web documents; I'm not sure a header tag would be the way to go to do that. I suspect that when most people think of header they're thinking of the top of the wrapper that establishes the brand, the title of the site, etc., not the metadata that classifies what we're looking at.

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Untitled

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:45:17 GMT

@amber I'd have to agree looking at the new tags they seem to be there as a hint to layout rather than semantic meaning - from what I can understand I see no benefit from using

Really, we need to do this?

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:14:57 GMT

10 to 15 years and they are basing tags off of what's being used right now. I dislike div-itis as much as the next guy, but the flexibility of DIVs sounds like something I'd rather use than canned layout based tags.

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Sorry, kill this test comment, please!

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:37:27 GMT

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum.

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Kill This also

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:38:45 GMT

Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

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The train now arriving at platform 8 is miraculously on time.

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:59:01 GMT

I can't believe the 5 to 10 to 15 year time scale being discussed on here. I'm mindful of how train operators increase their timetabled journey times to make it appear that delayed services are actually running on time. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/2978349.stm) If the HTML 5 working group are saying this is the timescale before it can be adopted as an everyday, usable technology, imagine how overjoyed we'll be when it's done a year quicker. I'm sure there is a lot of good work going into HTML 5; however, I personally don't see any real justification for this amount of time and energy. Web designers are dealing with frustrating real world problems on a daily basis due to incorrect or incomplete implementations of specs in (some) current browsers and this doesn't seem to be getting any better. Forgive my cynicism, but I see little to be hopeful about in HTML 5 when the current state of play is still far from ideal. I'm more interested in being able to write code ONCE that works across all browsers NOW, than the dubious benefits that will come from some future-distant unnecessary spec.

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bad stuff

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 23:21:59 GMT

sounds fine but way to slow. I cant seriously evaluate something that will come in 15 years. This cant be serious. apar from that the fixed tags like head and article is a bad idea. Pople will put non-nav content in nav-tags. Bad start... I am a content producer (writer, editor, photographer) I will look more into this. maybe I dont understands all thi techstuff, but my overall feeling is negative because of the timeline.

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Fix the browsers first

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:41:48 GMT

HTML 5 sounds great on paper, but the time table is entirely way too long, and it's all completely pointless unless each of the browser vendors will support it in full. No browser that I am aware of even supports CSS 2 fully. There's no excuse for that. CSS 2 has been around for a long time. And of course the one browser that gets it wrong the most is also the most used. IE 6 needs to hurry up and die, and all current browsers should be given full support of CSS 2.1 and even parts of CSS 3 as a minimum. Think about all the wasted man hours spent fixing CSS bugs just so web pages will render relatively consistently. We should all bill Microsoft for the time wasted.

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Too late

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:46:51 GMT

I suppose that HTML 5 will appear "a bit" too late. If it appeared now, situation would be different, but even if standard will be ready it will take years when users will use it.

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Attributes without value..

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:07:15 GMT

.. look wrong, to me. Why did they choose to make that a standard? .. The CONTROLS attribute describes nothing. Is it a boolean? Does it "control" something obscure? Simply adding a value would clear up a lot of potential confusion.

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Controls Attribute

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:01:14 GMT

M. Hageman (comment 72), the controls attribute is boolean. It's exactly like the checked attribute: In XHTML, it would be controls="controls". For convenience, controls="" will work too.

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Labels in Lists

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:26:12 GMT

When are they going to include a way to label a list?

Home
Contact Us
About

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-

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:53:41 GMT

Generally those new elements suppose HTML 5 will make easier to developer/designer, though it wouldn't much help. (Or i just didn't realized of its shakes)

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Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:12:54 GMT

this is crap and today the html world is sinking

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Numbered headings

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:04:29 GMT

@ Stephen (comment 59) My statement that, in HTML 5, lower value headings can be used before higher value headings, is correct. Below is an example taken from the spec: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#headings0

Apples

Apples are fruit.

Taste

They taste lovely.

Sweet

Red apples are sweeter than green ones.

Color

Apples come in various colors.

Headings are one of the most important constructs in making Web pages accessible. But virtually nobody is using numbered headings correctly. Changing the semantics of numbered headings in HTML 5 will only serve to confuse people further and will not fix the problem. By contrast, XHTML 2 uses the h element instead of numbered headings, which is a much easier construct for people to understand and use. But the HTML 5 Working Group is reluctant to "borrow" constructs from XHTML 2.

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TO ALA EDITORS

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:09:15 GMT

Please fix your commenting system. It's not clear how to post code examples in comments. The preview does not reflect the actual posted comment.

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Divided we Fall...

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:51:43 GMT

Hello - Interesting article and dicussion. I am a a college instructor for XHTML. It's a sorry shame that the HTML 5 folks can't get together with the XHTML 2 folks and just combine the best features of both. Then... let's call it COOL 2.0. COOL? Yeah... because it would then be real Cool for students to learn just ONE language, and ONE standard that worked on ALL browsers. Fat chance. Instead, I'll just tell them "Close your tags -- No. Wait. Maybe you don't have to." C'mon people. Doesn't anyone see the "Tower of Babel" problem here? God help me, it almost makes me wish for a Dictatorship of web standards. An article comparing the competing standards, linked to and cited earlier, states: "Indeed, the X/HTML 5 spec actually says 'generally speaking, authors are discouraged from trying to use XML on the Web', even though W3C continues to herald XML as the future of the Web?" HUH? Great, now we can have a new web editor with FIVE WINDOWS: HTML5, XHTML2, XML, CSS, and BROWSER VIEW. Wait... we'll have to have a tab for different browser views for the different standards. What the H--- is going on here? What the H--- should be taught in college so students can excel? Yours - Scott

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HTML 5 is a waste of time

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:26:10 GMT

Talking about a technology that's not expected to work until 2017 (or even as late as 2022) is ridiculous. The web moves far too quickly for us to rigidly define a language for use a decade in the future -- the best we can do is embrace extensible technologies, so that things can develop naturally. The new features HTML 5 are very underwhelming: for example, there's the possibility for automatic client-side validation of e-mail addresses etc. -- but that's something I'd rather just do now with JavaScript than wait 10 years for _some_ web browsers to do it for me. It's laughable. I've read that HTML 5 is supposed to be better for automatic indexing etc. -- but if we're concerned about making the web better for robots, then furthering XML is the way to go. And for developers, XHTML 2.0 is really clever, tight, elegant and intuitive. It's not as backward compatible as HTML 5... but I'm beginning to think that maybe a 'new start' is what the web needs: we'll see better levels of compliance after browser vendors are forced to start afresh. Anyway, it's not as if you can't adopt XHTML 2.0 without also serving old (X)HTML to old browsers until they die out. And, if XHTML 2.0 becomes a W3C recommendation soon (the "XHTML2 Working Group Roadmap":http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/xhtml-roadmap/ seems hopeful), it's likely to have been well-supported for years by the time HTML 5 arrives to sort out little issues that only affect decade-old software.

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I Agree With Comment 79

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:53:14 GMT

I have to say, I've only recently heard about HTML 5. I thought that as of HTML 4.01, HTML itself was no longer going to be developed or standardized, and that XHTML 1.0 and 2.0 were the way forward. The biggest drawback for XHTML 2.0 as far as I can see is backward compatibility, but there's nothing to say that browsers themselves cant process both current HTML/XHTML standards and that of XHTML 2.0. And if XHTML 2.0 solves many of the problems we see in HTML today, but 10 years sooner than HTML 5 will, then why even bother with HTML 5? As people have repeatedly said in this discussion, 10 - 15 years is just too long to wait for a new markup language for the web. My personal opinion is that the people developing HTML/XHTML in general aren't thinking outside the box enough. At the moment, websites are primarily text-based, and everyone conforms to the usual standard when designing their sites - ie. most websites are columns-and-rows based layouts, filled with text. Search engines love text, but hate multimedia elements such as Flash and SVG graphics. But when are things going to change? When are we going to move away from the "anything-more-than-text-on-a-site-will-make-it-less-usable-for -someone" attitude? I'm not saying that accessibility and usability aren't important, and I know this is probably a discussion for another time, but it seems pointless to me that the W3C (and others) are working so hard (and for so long) on developing the next great standard markup language for the web, when in the end it just wont deliver what we'll all want it to 10 - 15 years from now. We need a completely new language for the web. Sure, it'd be fine to keep it XML-based (certainly not SGML-based) but if the web is going to evolve at the same pace that it has been, then we're going to have to find a way of breaking the restrictions that current markup languages have - and in my eyes HTML 5 or XHTML 2.0 just aren't going to do that.

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Semantics

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:30:41 GMT

I like the article oriented semantics of html5, article could be a video, a sound interview or piece of text... which seems good. Maybe there should be a way to denote "Main Article"? In this way you have a way to separate one article pages from pages with many of them (like homepages).

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Untitled

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:39:33 GMT

Not sure why we need this article when HTML5 is not finished. Who's to say the elements won't change again? Yet it's generating some good discussion here. 10-15 years is a joke. I assume this is to allow time for Microsoft to implement it. :-) Talking of whom: _"Until Microsoft proves they can jump ahead of where they’ve been, I will withhold my optimism. They did that once with IE5 on the Mac – before they let it whither, get passed up and officially die. The large, but not giant, step they took forward with IE7 hardly catches up to where WebKit, Gecko and Presto were years ago."_ Good news. Rumours are rife that IE8 will be based on a new engine such as WebKit. _"Oh, and one other real benefit for us as authors: the new elements will severely reduce the clutter of all the divs blurring together on our pages."_ Sadly I doubt this. What will happen is that we'll end up with the new elements *and* a bunch of divs surrounding them to ensure backwards compatibility. How else will we render our sites in browsers like IE6? (Either that or serve different code from the server. Sigh.)

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More on IE8

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:32:40 GMT

I spoke too soon. Looks now like IE8 will be based on the old Trident after all. (Check out this "interview":http://www.sitepoint.com/article/ie-standards-chris-wilson with Chris Wilson.)

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More symantic is good

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:36:59 GMT

If you're a designer who wants to make your semantically correct (x)html page just look right, you probably won't need elements like

and

. But these can surely make your content more usable and accessible for users of non display browsers. As Lachlan Hunt said: bq. assistive technology can help the user to more easily navigate the page. For example, they can easily skip over the navigation section or quickly jump from one article to the next without the need for authors to provide skip links A specific advantage of the

tag would be to me, that I can preserve the use of

for the first heading above my text, instead of displaying the name of the site. But I agree with most commentors that the development cycle of html and other web standards is too long. Not sure who to blame though.

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Edit comment #84

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:29:11 GMT

I'm sorry. Did I say 'symantic'? I meant 'semantic' of course.

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Back to Basics...

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 13:46:19 GMT

The HTML 5 specification should also include tags that extend the basic structure of documents. Block-level elements such as: - - <subtitle> - <byline> - <abstract> And an inline element of <author>. Or, as suggested by others, rather extend the XHTML specification with a _content="keyword"_ attribute to convey meaning to the UA. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>Greetings</h1> <p>Sat, 15 Dec 2007 16:03:08 GMT</p> Thanks for very interesting article. btw. I really enjoyed reading all of your articles. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view… makes you think more. Keep up the good work. Greetings <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>SUMMARY</h1> <p>Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:10:54 GMT</p> So, in summary: - there are better ways to implement semantic meaning and metadata by using the structures designed for that: attributes instead of new tags - everything in HTML 5 (or XHTML 2, for that matter) is useless, unless MS is on board. - SGML development is a waste of time, because XML is better (try writing an SGML Parser from scratch, versus an XML parser). - The web needs current standards implemented before moving on to newer (and XML-based) solutions. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>CSS</h1> <p>Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:36:14 GMT</p> Where does this leave CSS? <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>CSS</h1> <p>Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:36:57 GMT</p> Where does this leave CSS? <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>time and closing</h1> <p>Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:05:41 GMT</p> It does sound like a long time. Still, it has been almost ten years and the major browsers still can't get on board with XHTML and CSS. Talk about XHTML, wasn't that one of the major reasons to have everything closed; to clean up the markup and make it XML friendly all at the same time. Seems like removing half the code now, it's moving right back to HTML. Which, by the way, was supposed to be completely replaced by XHTML? Perhaps if they want to improve on it they could just figure out how to include an "if" statement. Personally I like the closing tags. I can imagine the browsers now, each with its own interpretation of where the closing should be; don't throw out the hack book yet. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>The King's New Clothes?</h1> <p>Mon, 24 Dec 2007 09:57:42 GMT</p> Why do we need HTML 5 when we all ready have XML, with which We can define our own tags? Wouldn't it be easier to persuade browser vendors to support 'application/xml' and then the possibilities will be endless. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>Hypertext Markup Language</h1> <p>Mon, 24 Dec 2007 22:47:28 GMT</p> Title emphasis are on *hypertex* and *markup*. It feels like there is just too much confusion on this particular topic. Seems that we have almost forgotten what is a job of HTML(as it is) thanks to an overwhelming number of other web-techs flying around our heads. We shouldn’t discuss the difference between the <header> and <div id=”header”>, cause the last one shouldn’t exists on a page at all. Say, you have to build a page which will be viewed in the default form, why on earth would you use a <div> or <span> tag? It tells absolutely nothing to the browser or other software about its content. *How a parser sees the ideal HTML page*? <body> - beginning of the content <h1> - heading <h2> - subheading <p> - paragraph <q> - quote <a> - link ... *How a parser sees practical page*? <body> beginning of the content <div id=”container”> ...a block <div id=”wrapper”> ...a block <div id=”header”> ...a block <h1 id=”logo”> A Heading! ... So, now... how we can improve the later *without* introducing new tags? If we say that, new tags are irrelevant, then we should all go back and remove half of the existing tags as well, cause we don’t use them semantically anyway. Personally I think that the *goal* of a *HTML 5* shouldn’t be something ground-breaking or that it should reduce designers coding work by half. It just has to make a page little less complicated and a little bit more semantical, that alone would be just great. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>ridiculous</h1> <p>Tue, 25 Dec 2007 19:45:19 GMT</p> What a mess. The people developing HTML 5 clearly don't care about what a muddle the web is in (or if they do, they're going the wrong way about fixing it). I read somewhere that HTML5 does have one little advantage that other languages can't provide: it allows you to specify that an input should contain an e-mail address, so browsers with proper support could (1) validate e-mail addresses, and (2) have a form control that allows a user to select an e-mail from their address book. The second benefit is, apparently, not possible without HTML5. But that's not true, it would be better to do that sort of thing with microformats. I really don't think that sort of thing should be built into a markup language. People who think it's a good thing to have elements like "footer" and "article" have completely lost the plot - semantics is not about coming up with more and more restrictive tags. I mean, what the hell does an "article" tag actually achieve? It makes absolutely no difference to users. It's not even very convenient for robots, because it's part of a shoddy, badly-formed language that's difficult to parse. If you want to achieve infinite flexibility (not just a few more tags), and you want the web to be more semantic and more understandable by bots (and therefore more interelational) you need to make the world embrace application/xml. And the step on the way to that is XHTML 2.0. HTML5 is an ugly, backward mess and I hope to God I never have to code in it. It's not elegant and not consistent. And it doesn't help the world adopt XML, it's just delaying progress. Please, A List Apart, do an article on XHTML 2.0 and show everyone how great it is. Oh, and XHTML 2.0 will have XForms. Enough said. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>I'm excited.</h1> <p>Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:15:26 GMT</p> I'm sure there will be very little we can't do in html5 that we can do now. To escape the limitations of the form tags such as "header" it seems there would be no reason we couldn't still make custom CSS classes within div tags. The time-line is worrisome, however, I think getting this spec into production quickly is important; Otherwise, we may get stuck in a quagmire of proprietary web technologies again. Standards must prevail, or we will be living in web-dev-hell. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>Stricter implementations</h1> <p>Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:11:53 GMT</p> I think the biggest advantage of the new standards that are currently in development are the stricter definitions. We've learned from the past that many things were interpretable in different ways. Hopefully HTML5 and other future standards will bring a more standardized web, as in every browser will render it the same. With no space for your own interpretation it *should* be easier to implement it for the browser vendors. Let's hope the best! <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>Untitled</h1> <p>Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:32:46 GMT</p> please be open minded and look at this link http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/ <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>Ew, a troll</h1> <p>Tue, 01 Jan 2008 04:44:45 GMT</p> Bill, such evangelical, condescending religious text is not helpful to anyone, least of all yourself or your website. Everyone knows never to trust such a self-righteous (and poorly coded) page as a religious resource. You ask for open mindedness, while saying that you hold the "ONLY way to God"; that is called hypocrisy, which makes you a hypocrite, which according to your very own text, makes you a hellbound rebel. No amount of exegesis will get you out of the non-tolerant hell you made for yourself. PWNT! <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>What about other languages?</h1> <p>Wed, 02 Jan 2008 01:59:46 GMT</p> I can see how <header> <nav> <article> make sense to someone who is writing in English. If you are writing in another language, wouldn't something like this be more readable? <div id="Cabecera">Header in Spanish</div> Isn't the above example more understandable for the someone trying to understand the code if the content is in Spanish? <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>Untitled</h1> <p>Wed, 02 Jan 2008 07:28:31 GMT</p> Thanks for this great post. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> <article> <h1>Untitled</h1> <p>Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:04:11 GMT</p> I don't like the new "semantic" tags, because meaning is murky. I think that the proposed "section" tags don't need to exist, and we can just give semantic meaning to layers of "div" tags, each indicating the beginning of a section. We can rank headings on a page by how many layers in they are. <p> </p><p><em><strong>Hide Your Shame:</strong> The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. <a title="The A List Apart store" href="http://www.alistapart.com/store/">Come shop with us</a>!</em></p> </article> </main></body></html>

A List Apart Comments for Article: A Preview of HTML 5

HTML 5 has been a bit of a roller coaster ride

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10-15 years?

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hardly worth it

SGML vs. XML

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Time Frame

Lowest common demoniator still holding us back

10-15 Years...

DIVs are better

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Good news

Other features

HTML is for markup

Aside - some quick thoughts

I'm torn, but...

Normalizing numbered headings will cause confusion

I don't know...

Normalizing numbered headings will cause confusion (corrected)

heading

heading

heading

heading

user power

Headers

about the timeline

If the time spent on this spec...

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New HTML? Waste of time...

Semantic DIVs

HTML5 sounds nice but

HTML 5 *is* being implemented

lowest common denominator (revisited)

Re: HTML 5 *IS* BEING IMPLEMENTED

What forest? All I see are trees.

So, when will HTML 4.01 arrive?

Clarification re WebKit commitment to HTML5

HREF, SRC?

All I want is readable code and effective, beautiful pages

Thank you

Solutions to all the problems you don't have!

BTW--Link Busted

“Folks, please read Shawn’s comment and think about it.”

Curly quotes

Don't see the usefullness

Huh

Backwards compatibility

The benefits of the new elements

Addendum

Other HTML5 features?

Re: Other HTML5 Features

Re: Other HTML5 Features

Still: What are the Goals?

Hmmmmm...

Um...why?

HTML 5 - Header in a strange direction

Some good bits

Headings

heading

heading

heading

heading

Headers

Step aside!

TEN TO FIFTEEN YEARS!!!!

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Really, we need to do this?

Sorry, kill this test comment, please!

Kill This also

The train now arriving at platform 8 is miraculously on time.

bad stuff

Fix the browsers first

Too late

HTML 5 is being implemented

Re: HTML 5 IS BEING IMPLEMENTED