HTML 5 –The future of the web

Nov. 5, 2010 - PRLog -- Nowaday, the technology of mobile devices has a rapid development. In the past, you must use a bulky desktop with Internet Explorer to surf the web. Now, only with a laptop (notebook) or smart phone (handheld device) using many different browsers (Firefox, Opera ...), you can easily access the Internet everywhere. However, contents displayed on the screen may be different depending on the devices or web browsers. For example, a Web site may look excellent on your desktop’s browser, but on your handset, its interface and structure can be disturbed. Or you can watch movies very well with IE but Firefox is reverse.

So the question is which solution can help users to view the full content and get information from the internet with any browsers on any devices. HTML5 allows developers and programmers to create web sites loaded well on many different browsers of any devices - desktops, laptops or the handsets.

New elements

HTML5 retains the basic structure for instance , , but new elements have been added, such as , .

Elements in the new structure:

• : contains introductory information of a part or a page, about the title of the document or contents.
• : contains links to other sites or elsewhere on the same page. It is unnecessary to contain all the links, just require the main redirect link.
• : represents a document or an application, similar to the function of .
• : represents a part of the site, which can stand alone, such as blog, forum entry ... or any content standing alone.
• : represents the content relating to the main document or quotations.
• : marks not only the end of the current page but also each section of the site. So  can be used many times in one page.
• :represent the beginning, the ending of not only the current page but also a document. Moreover, you can use , < TFOOT> in the data sheet. Using structure with these new elements will bring much more convenience.

New features

With innovative contributions of browser developers like Google (Chrome), Apple (Safari), Mozilla (Firefox), ...; HTML5 is now gradually improving and has some subtle features:

Offline storage: storing data continuously or in parts without plug-ins, akin to Google Gears.

Canvas drawing: allows direct interaction with images, charts, objects... (Game components) through the code and user interaction - without Flash or other plug-ins.

Lively images (video) and sound (audio) transference: is currently in the process of finalizing and unifying standard formats. In someday, YouTube and Pandora would bring you interesting videos without Flash.

Geolocation: HTML5 can help to determine your position and uses it for a certain task, such as performing search results, updating Twitter, or locating. HTML5 doesn’t limit API of suppliers or browsers.

Smarter form: search box, form, the valid field of information... will be controlled better and avoid annoyance for users when they fill in the form.

Access web applications easily (web application focus): for instance composing wiki page, drag and drop tools, discussion boards in real time. The implementation of these applications will be quicker and they can work well on all browsers.

Benefits of HTML 5

The greatest benefit brought by HTML5 is the ability of supporting API (Application Programming Interface) and DOM (Document Object Model).


HTML5 allows an easy expansion to the API. This will give developers more freedom in creating more user-friendly applications while they still depend on the Flash platform - data storage and video performance. Along with support for application cache and offline capabilities, HTML5 will open up many opportunities for future web applications. Offline capabilities can be envisioned as the Thunderbird, Outlook allows you to check email even when you work offline, but with HTML5 you can do it with your browser. This is an important factor to connect personal computers and web environment in near future. Google Gears gives us the ability to store data offline, Flash gives users the experience of memory applications’ power (Pandora use it to store user information.) With HTML5, these capabilities are now available and can be easily extended with JavaScript.

Moreover, with HTML5, developers need only a one-time programming for an application used on different systems. It’s in contradistinction to Flash or other plug-ins which always have various versions for each platform.

Although Flash, Silverlight ... are good plug-ins, but developers still strive for supporting HTML5. Because: firstly, Flash still works well but sometimes it causes memory leak (memory leak) or blocking system (crash); secondly, HTML5 helps to concentrate and manage the same elements working on site in a natural way, basing on the 3rd code. HTML5 also helps JavaScript to be realized more easily. Besides, HTML5 can be converted from XHTML.

If there are more and more browsers and developers supporting the HTML5’s standards interaction for video and audio, a store of applications used on various devices, platforms - handset, desktop, notebook, Windows, Mac, Linux - will come true.

Applications

HTML5 is currently being used on several phones with browsers basing on Webkit platform such as Palm Pre, iPhone 3Gs, Google Android. Recently, Google has integrated HTML5 in Wave to create applications all in one (including blog, wiki, IM (instant messaging), e-mail and synchronous communication). Firefox 3.5 has also supported HTML5 with   tags, in the format .Ogg.

HTML5 is still a draft, but with strong support from the browser developers such as Google, Apple, Mozilla ... it will attack web application market and become an official standard of web soon. Some browsers supporting HTML5 (depending on level) are Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera.

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