Shubelal Kumar

HTML5

HTML was developed by the W3C until 2004, when members of the HTML working group grew disturbed with the direction the W3C was going with HTML. They felt that the W3C was not paying enough attention to the real-world development needs of the language and focusing too much on XML and XHTML. So they formed a new group called WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) devoted to evolving the Web. They started by working on a new specification of HTML - HTML 5. HTML 5 is a new version of HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 focusing on the needs of Web application developers as well as evolving HTML and addressing issues found in the current

You Can Use HTML 5 Right Now

While the HTML 5 specification (also on the W3C as a Working Draft) is not finalized yet, you can use it with any browser that supports it or any part of it. For example, many Web browsers currently support the [a href='http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-canvas-element.html]canvas element. This element is used to draw graphics with scripting. It is currently supported by Safari, Firefox, Opera, and IE 8.

Why Should You Learn HTML 5

HTML 5 is the newest specification for HTML, and many browsers are going to start supporting it in the future. One nice thing about HTML 5 is that it attempts to stay backwards compatible. So if you don't want to learn it just yet, you don't need to.

If you build Web applications you will eventually want to learn HTML 5. There are a lot of new attributes and tags built just for Web applications. For instance, there are a number of new event handlers for drag and drop:

• ondrag
• ondragstart
• ondragend
• ondrop

At this point in time, there is not a lot of support for HTML 5, but that support is growing all the time. By staying abreast of the changes you'll be prepared when they become widely available for use.

CSS3

he biggest change that is currently planned with CSS level 3 is the introduction of modules. The advantage to modules is that it (supposedly) allows the specification to be completed and approved more quickly, because segments are completed and approved in chunks. This also allows browser and user-agent manufacturers to support sections of the specification but keep their code bloat to a minimum by only supporting those modules that make sense. For example, a text reader wouldn't need to include modules that only define how an element is going to display visually. But even if it only included the aural modules, it would still be a standards-compliant CSS 3 tool.

Some New Features of CSS 3

Selectors
Selectors in CSS 3 are going to be very interesting. They will allow the designer/developer to select on much more specific levels of the document. One of the nice things about this module is that many browsers are already starting to support the advanced CSS 3 selectors, so you can start trying them out now. For example, some new selectors are:

• matching on attributes and attribute values, including partial matches
• structural pseudo-classes, such as the nth-child
• a target pseudo-class to style only elements that are targetted in the URL
• a checked pseudo-class to style any element that is checked such as radio or checkbox elements

• Text Effects and Layout
  Making changes to the hyphenation, whitespace, and justification of text in documents.
  
  
• First-Letter and First-Line Pseudo-Classes
  CSS 3 should allow properties to affect kerning and alignment of drop-caps.
  
  
• Paged Media and Generated Content
  CSS 3 will now support more options in paged media, such as running headers and footers and page numbers. Plus there will be advanced properties for printing generated content including properties for footnotes and cross-references.
  
  
• Multi-Column Layout
  Right now, the multi-column layout working draft provides properties to allow designers to display their content in multiple columns with definitions like the column-gap, column-count, and column-width.
  
  
• Ruby
  CSS will now support the ability to add small annotations on top or next to words, most often used in Chines and Japanese. They are generally used to give the pronunciation or meaning of difficult ideograms.

CSS 3 Will Be Fun

Once it's fully adopted as a standard and Web browsers and user-agents begin using it, CSS 3 will be a powerful tool for Web designers. The new features listed above are only a small sub-set of all the additions and changes to the specification.