by Tom Miller
22. November 2009 17:32
It's been nearly ten years since HTML has seen a major update. Introducing HTML 5. HTML 5 has been in development since 2004 and adds some new interesting and useful features for the website designer or developer.
What's New?
<video />
The video element is new in HTML 5 and as the name suggests it makes it easier to embed videos within your web pages. The video element includes an src attribute as well as the autoplay and loop attributes.
<canvas />
The canvas element allows you to specify a drawing area on a web page controlled using Javascript.
Context Menus
HTML 5 provides methods to define context menus. This functionality will be most welcomed by the web application developers.
New inline elements
<progress />
The progress element is used to display a progress bar. The element has a value attribute as well as a max attribute which can be omitted.
<meter />
This attribute is used to display a scalar measurement within a known range or a fractional value. Usage could include the amount raised during fundraising activities.
<time />
Use this element to represent times or dates within a block of text.
<mark />
Use the mark element as a way to highlight text to indicate its relevance to the user.
New structural elements
<section />
A section, or section of a chapter of text.
<header />
The page header.
<footer />
The footer of the page.
<nav />
Navigation links to other pages.
<article />
A blog article could be nested in this element.
<aside />
The aside element can be used to define some content apart from the content it’s placed in.
<figure />
The content inside a figure element is stand-alone content, typically used to explain parts of a document, but also able to move from the document and put somewhere else.
New input elements
- datetime
- datetime-local
- date
- month
- week
- time
- number
- range
- email
- url
Dropped or replaced elements
- acronym
- applet
- basefont
- big
- center
- dir
- font
- frame
- frameset
- isindex
- noframes
- noscript
- s
- strike
- tt
- u
New interactive elements