digg

Join DiggAbout

The Digg Crew wants to hear your thoughts!
Please take our short survey about Digg and potential feature ideas.

Finally We Get New Elements in HTML 5

ibm.com — HTML 5 introduces new elements for the first time since the last millennium. New structural elements include aside, figure, and section. New inline elements include time, meter, and progress. New embedding elements include video and audio. New interactive elements include details, datagrid, and command.

show profanity settings
expand all
  • Pingspike, on 10/10/2007, -38/+13Do we really need so many new elements ? Simplifying the embedded video etc. yeah i can agree with that. but 'section' ?
    its looking a bit too strict to me. header here, section here, footer here. what if i dont want to lay it out like that ?
    Seems too restrictive and counter productive to the free and dynamic principles of current web entities frankly.
    just my 2 cents.
    • hambend, on 10/10/2007, -1/+23A fair comment, but I wouldn't trouble yourself too much over it. Divs aren't going anywhere, and if the any of the new markup doesn't prove popular it will just fall into disuse and we'll forget all about it.

      Blink tag, anyone?
      • DoMifer, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Hey. The blink tag will never be forgotten. It will always hold a place in our hearts...
        • texpundit, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Schrodinger's cat is [BLINK]not[/BLINK] dead.
    • danielphin, on 11/05/2007, -2/+24Layout and presentation is what CSS is for
      • tybris, on 10/10/2007, -6/+3In an ideal world. In the real world you need to structure your (X)HTML based on your styling.
    • sirsteveh, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13Agreed. And what happened to "HTML 5.0 isn't happening, learn XHTML"? I've obviously been under a rock without a digg feed for too long.
      • BladeMelbourne, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6There is also an XHTML5 - with the same new things as HTML5.
        • zwaldowski, on 10/10/2007, -10/+2No, there's not. It'll be XHTML 2. Can you count? Things don't jump four version numbers, unless you're competing.
      • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5I'm note entirely sure where/how/when it happened, but as they say in the HTML5 draft:
        "XHTML2 defines a new HTML vocabulary with better features for hyperlinks, multimedia content, annotating document edits, rich metadata, declarative interactive forms, and describing the semantics of human literary works such as poems and scientific papers.

        However, it lacks elements to express the semantics of many of the non-document types of content often seen on the Web. For instance, forum sites, auction sites, search engines, online shops, and the like, do not fit the document metaphor well, and are not covered by XHTML2.

        This specification aims to extend HTML so that it is also suitable in these contexts."

        Basically, it sounds like someone discovered that there is more out there than the standard (text)document-like content, and that XHTML2 had focused too much on providing proper semantics for this one type of content. HTML5 (I suppose) will provide better support for all kinds of content, but will not be as "sharp" an instrument for dealing with standard documents.

        Also, to expand on what BladeMelbourne said, HTML5 will come both in a plaintext and a XML syntax (the latter called XHTML5, with no relation to XHTML2). The WG's view on the whole thing is that the plaintext variant is generally a better choice since XML parsers are still a bit too immature, and because they put very high demands on the strictness of the document (and its creator).
    • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4It's not just about adding new elements, but also about deprecating some old ones:
      basefont, big, center, font, s, strike, tt, u, frame, frameset, noframe, acronym, applet, isindex, and dir.
      They've also done a (pretty huge) cleanup of the allowed attribues.

      Read more: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/diff/
      • jdoc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4They removed the frame tag?!??!?!? FINALLY!
  • MadMax3000, on 10/10/2007, -9/+48Welcome to HTML 5. Now we're going to move to Web 3.0
    • alexdemers, on 10/10/2007, -8/+7Don't say that, Kevin Rose will ban you!
    • brdude, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I'm pretty sure someone was giving a speech of that last week already. i just cant remember who it was.
    • toxicvarn90, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Yes....because the web is an evolving program, not a network of servers and computers like some "experts" say.
  • homesqua, on 10/10/2007, -4/+177now we need a faster blink tag
    • markdr123, on 10/10/2007, -6/+17and a faster marquee :P
    • jebudas, on 10/10/2007, -10/+5[blinkier]Good One![/blinkier]
      • bradpurchase, on 06/12/2008, -4/+11Buried for BBCode.
        • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Since <s and >s aren't allowed, [ and ] have become the standard representation around here. Nothing bbcode about it (well, I can't speak for jebudas, of course, but for how it's generally been used elsewhere on Digg).
    • kn0w1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15it could be an attribute.. <blink bpm=135> ... </blink>
      blinks per minute!
      then you could have it blink to the same techno bpm on myspace!
      • amadeusdemarzi, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3everyone knows you need to seperate layout and design from content. It would be better suited as a css attribute, blink-bpm:135; :p

        Or better yet, you could style on and off, blink: 36bpm 10bpm; for ultimate control!
    • sucks, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3epileptics, look out
    • Faasnat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Heh, just imagine a page where every word has a different blink rate .....
  • alamster, on 10/10/2007, -4/+9as long it's "standard", I try to follow :-)
  • Treshnell, on 10/10/2007, -7/+157How long until IE invents its own version?
    • markstory, on 10/10/2007, -2/+39forget invent its own version, how long has it taken IE to support current standards. Like 9 years and they still haven't gotten it fully down. So we can expect HTML 5 support in 2018?
      • zwaldowski, on 10/10/2007, -0/+20Hell, we'll be lucky if we have full XHTML and SVG support. We'll have to wait years to use any of these new elements.
        • pyry, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Solution: Stop using out of date "self-deprecating" browsers?
        • schoate09, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4^^tell it to the public
      • pyry, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6If IE supports it, you can bet there'll be hasLayout issues.
        • Trollhammaren, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8IE can hasLayout? No, kitteh.
        • armbar, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Not that I support IE, but all of the hasLayout issues were fixed in IE7, at least relating the relative positioning and floats.
      • TnTBass, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Wishful thinking markstory. As long as they have a monopoly on the web browser (pretty much if you have over 75% of the browser market, you have a monopoly), they have no need to improve their standard compliance. They are all about making money, and it costs money to improve their standards compliance.
      • whoadave, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Someone should just build a virus that replaces IE with FF on every Windows machine...
    • djrisc, on 10/10/2007, -4/+0***** IE, and ***** M$
  • earache, on 10/10/2007, -7/+88Just give us real freakin' columns already. Then the twits still using tables can quit laughing at the CSS people.
    • riklomas, on 10/10/2007, -1/+51Columns should be coming out with CSS3
      http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-multicol/
      • IbnDigg, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Awesome, when can we expect this to be a reality?
        • bepo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2They've been at it for 7 years already but if we assume it takes them another year to release it then we will have one generation of browsers that implement some of the specs then another generation where they implement most of them but does some incorrectly and finally they will have most of it working right in most browsers so we are looking at say 2012 or 2013.
    • digghasnoethics, on 10/10/2007, -16/+10Exactly. Why are they wasting time on things that don't matter, and ignoring things like true columns that do.

      HTML was supposed to be a simple and light formatting tool that enabled real people (scientists at the time) to create pages easily. Then the CS got hold and suddenly we have the mess that is CSS. A useful format is one that can be used by everyone, and that means style files being an addon, not a complex mess of a necessity. Extend HTML in the directions it needs to go, remove dependence on CSS and kick the CS who whine off the nearest cliff.
      • thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -11/+2Good point. CSS is a mess, because it's not intuitive and certainly next to impossible for your layman to use. It's self-defeating in this way. The article ends with :-

        "Div and span still have their places, but those places are much more restricted than they used to be. Many pages will no longer need to use them."

        I hope so. Making web pages should not be an abstract discipline, which it has become (to the layman).
        • brianary, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4CSS isn't a mess. What makes it hard for you? I can't imagine how it could be any more straightforward!
          • armbar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2I love CSS, but it's definitely missing a ton of stuff. And since when is using the float model straightforward?

            Things I'd like to see:
            Ancestor selectors, columns, constants, property support checking (if statements), expression evaluation
          • MagickCrafter, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0When I was learning CSS everything came easily to me.

            It was just the fixes for IE that ruined my fun..
      • GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8"A useful format is one that can be used by everyone"

        By that definition, there has never been a useful format ever.

        Formats are useful if they can do what you need in a relatively efficient manner. They don't need to be open to all to achieve this. In fact most formats are only viable to experts because most fields need some sort of knowledge. Web design is no different.
      • R2Bacca, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7I disagree.. there are plenty of crappy websites that still rely on tables (I still don't see how tables are any easier "to the layperson"). CSS isn't all that hard to learn, no more so than learning to program javascript or php. Besides that, the new tags only give the developer a form of "shorthand". Instead of using ' div id="header" ' you'll use ' header '. You're still going to have to style the thing! Continue dependence on CSS and kick the people who are incapable of learning CSS off the nearest cliff.
        • thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2"CSS isn't all that hard to learn, no more so than learning to program javascript or php."

          That made me laugh. Markup being compared to code.
          • armbar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Oh, you're one of the elitists that think that backend programming is somehow a higher level skill than frontend programming. That it takes more thought, training and effort. Is that why every backend programmer I've met or seen code of can't do HTML, CSS, or JS for *****?

            Don't be stupid; each requires plenty of skill to do correctly.
    • siebertm, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2please keep in mind that html is only for the structure, so if you want to have layout, use css.
      i too hope that there will be some kind of column support - in css3. but until then we'll have to go with those crappy, hard-to-implement floating-nested-div kind of stuff...

      if you dont separate structure from style, you got table layouts, font tags and inline css (and you may laugh at us, who use css for that... :)
    • tybris, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2Indeed, CSS is the problem, not (X)HTML.
    • Meep3D, on 10/10/2007, -3/+24Anyone who knows anything about web design knows that moving from table based layout and inline styles to CSS is a monumental improvement in terms of code cleanliness, maintainability, loading times and makes creating and maintaining a website an order of magnitude easier.

      Why on earth should web design be dumbed down and returned to table based hell simply because some people think it's easier? If CSS truly was inferior to HTML/Tables then nobody would be using it - it's that simple. But the fact is every single decent web designer uses CSS.
    • magic6435, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2"Just give us real freakin' columns already. Then the twits still using tables can quit laughing at the CSS people."

      You having problems making columns? its pretty easy... all you need are 3 divs and a few floats.
      • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Creating the columns isn't the hard part. Auto-flowing the text so that the columns remain balanced is.
        But then again, that problem exists for both tables and divs, and when CSS3 solves it, you still need to remake your layout to work, regardless of what technique you've been using so far.
    • asdfasdfasdfasd, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Crap, cant do html in these comments?
  • Goblinkiller, on 10/10/2007, -1/+66I didn't think that the lack of elements was the issue, rather the lack of support for them...

    IE doesn't support all of todays standars, why would it support tomorrows standard?
    • homesqua, on 10/10/2007, -2/+41The only solution is to destroy everyone that still uses IE
      • kds71, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13It can be done :) Just put Hatena's IE crasher on every page.
    • arjung, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4why doesnt the microsoft team just use the gecko engine? isn't it open source and wouldn't it get every single web developer off their backs?
      • RyanJones, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5The reason is simple, they'd have to make the changed version freely available too per the copy left clause. Seeing as Microsoft has an open source phobia its doubtful that would ever happen.
      • jsd8cc, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Pride.
      • Tetraca, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Microsoft doesn't care about web developers. As long as there are people who are afraid of installing "a new internet", they can pull off the whole poor standards shtick unless the web developers retaliate and force the use of standards on their website (application/xml+xhtml, CSS 3), so the users complain about sites not working, forcing Microsoft to cater to the web developers or be completely swept aside in the browser market.
        • LukeSkope, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The problem is, when a user complains about a site not working, they are likely to blame the site, not the browser, which means, us the webmasters, get the complaints, not Microsoft.
  • zizzy, on 10/10/2007, -16/+5One of the things that I think looks coolest is the ability to embed video and audio as simply as images, just by adding
    • davidbond, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Oooh - bug! Digg does not support "greater than" or "less than" signs.
      • mtheoryx83, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4More specifically: HTML tags are not allowed.

        It's been there by the comment box at the bottom for quite a while.
      • bradkovach, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I almost wet myself when i saw the video element.
  • zizzy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+25One of the things that I think looks coolest is the ability to embed video and audio as simply as images, just by adding [video src= or [audio src=.
    People will start to add them in comments and the like just like images. I just hope people don't use autoplay, because it will get really annoying having to hear random crap like Rick Astley every time you go to a site that has comments or a place where users can write stuff. Still, it'll be much easier to add audio and video all over the place.
    • zizzy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14Sorry about the double post, stupid digg ate my HTML.
      • Tetraca, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Try using entities. It works for me.
    • thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12The autoplay feature has web hosts shuddering.
      • igyigyigy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1web hosts get paid either way. if anything, they'll get paid MORE now :)
    • MrSunshine, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2I hope the tags will be abbreviated too like the "img" one. Or even completely out of context like "a" for anchor instead of "link".
  • Jugalator, on 10/10/2007, -1/+45Just in time for Internet Explorer 9 to implement.
    • zwaldowski, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2In 2016, at the current rate.
    • RyanJones, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Doubtful considering IE doesn't support the most basic HTML and CSS stuff yet.
    • zwaldowski, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Correct. By supporting it, we mean just barely enough for them to brag about it.
    • soopafly, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3And still by that time, 75% are still running IE6
  • n0va, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13Finally? I think this will only go mainstream once IE adopts it. So far, Opera has covered part of the HTML5 spec, Firefox hasn't done much, and IE, well let's just say it should get to where Firefox and Opera are now before thinking of anything more. I must admit that I don't know what IE8 has in store for the people though. Not optimistic about it either.

    For those who want to learn more about HTML5, and doesn't mind reading spec sheets: http://www.whatwg.org/
    • GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Firefox and Opera hold about 40% of the market between them and that number is increasing. IE is not the 800 pound gorilla it used to be. The alternatives show no sign of slowing down whatsoever.
  • keyo, on 10/10/2007, -12/+10let's just stick to xhtml 1.0
    • KillTheRhythm, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5Actually, you are better sticking to HTML 4.0 than XHTML 1.0...
    • grawity, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7XHTML 1.1 FTW.
  • MisterBozo, on 10/10/2007, -5/+13And since every decent website will want to remain compatible with IE6 these new elements will never be used.
  • DevDuck, on 10/10/2007, -2/+21Unfortunately it won't be until the next millennium until IE supports any of these.
  • b0er, on 10/10/2007, -8/+4It is unclear to at least me why do they want us to have a new version of HTML? XHTML ja CSS have long since obsoleted HTML and a new version is hardly going to change that. I would be very surprised if HTML 5 becomes widely adopted.
    • BladeMelbourne, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6HTML5 and XHTML5 both come with the same new elements. I would be very surprised if HTML5 doesn't become widely adopted down the road.

      By the way, CSS works with HTML and XHTML - it hasn't obsoleted HTML.
      • grawity, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5The newest version of XHTML is 1.1 (final) or 2.0. There is no XHTML 5.
        • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Actually, XHTML5 is simply the XML version of HTML5 -- it has nothing to do with XHTML 2.0, which serves a different purpose than HTML5... And yes, I think W3C has finally (again?) gone googaa with their naming conventions...
          http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#html-vs
        • BladeMelbourne, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You shouldn't comment about things you know nothing about.
    • anonym41414, on 10/10/2007, -7/+6Without special server-side configuration, XHTML has very little browser support. The only reason you think it works in your browser is because it's largely backwards-compatible with HTML 4, and your browser is resilient. Your browser just sees XHTML as malformed HTML and does the best it can.
      • mcmlxxii, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8xhtml is supported in most modern browsers - any alteration of headers + markup by the server is for older browsers such as IE6.
      • PugFish, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5I don't know why you're being dugg down, you're absolutely correct. To use true XHTML the document must be served and parsed as XML, which some browsers cannot do, so it is served as text/html and gets parsed as normal HTML. As far as your browser is concerned it's just seeing well structured HTML, not XHTML.
    • billyswong, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Html obsoleted by xhtml? Give us a feature unique in xhtml which helps us in hand-coding webpages, or helps us create a visibly better webpage. All the improvements of web design I saw this decade so far came from css and javascript, not xhtml.
      I wonder if most people who think xhtml is better have ever written a page of proper xhtml before:
      http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Properly_Using_CSS_and_JavaScript_in_XHTML_Documents
      You need to setup the webserver to emit application/xhtml+xml as the mime type or browsers treat your "xhtml" as a bunch of invalid html, with "/>" pollution . If you really tell the webserver to do the proper, IE fails. Almost always you need to warp javascript in _cdata_ for it to work in xhtml pages. If you warp css and javascript in comment tags like what you did in html, they will be, gasp, commented out.
      Wake up, b0er, virtually no site have ever been rendered in xhtml (for compatibility with IE) and thus virtually nobody has seen anything that makes xhtml superior to html. But of course, if you want to pollute your next generation html5 site with "/>", no one will mind that.
  • Chubakkaz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2now css3 is gonna be sweet!
  • Langford, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2New functionality should make me happy, but somehow I can only make myself think of the unpleasantness of having to support even more browsers.
  • fLUx1337, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Too many f**king hours have been wasted by me "hacking" the layout to get it to work in IE......so they better not f**k this chance to get everything working, eh Microsoft??
    • JoWiGo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You've got em on the run now!
    • thinsoldier, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Indeed. We spent several hours yesterday trying to understand how a div with a white background and a background image could show the background image above the content and not show the white background :(

      Every web developer the world over and all of their clients should get together and sue microsoft.
    • echolyean, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0For sure... sites I develop would no doubt be able to go live in about 1/2 the time if I didn't have to finagle it to work in IE. The bane of my web developer existence!
  • davidbond, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Nice, but where are the new types? I want:

    input type="slider"

    I'm sure diggers will have more suggestions...
  • donkeySays, on 10/10/2007, -8/+6I hope IE doesn't implement any of them. As developers, we SHOULD NOT provide an alternative or ie-fixes. Let people realize IE doesn't work at all. Our mission should be to kill off Internet ***** Explorer.
    • MV559er, on 10/10/2007, -1/+22If your website doesn't render properly in IE, most people (who use IE) will just think your website sucks and whoever programmed it is an idiot. They won't think, "Oh, maybe I should try this with Firefox/Opera instead!" Sad, but true.
      • DivisibleByZero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10The ironic thing is that I make the same assumption if your site doesn't render in Firefox.
      • xenlab, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1And you assume the users care about your design... guess what, they don't. Most sites that make money look like *****. I've seen hard data that in an A/B test of a fancy design vs. Ugly - Ugly wins every time (they were measuring conversions)
    • mtheoryx83, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14That's ridiculous. Obviously you have never done development work for a paying customer.

      A paying customer doesn't want to hear your rhetoric about the evils of IE as an excuse for why his IE-using customer's can't see the page.

      He pays you to make a site that works. Period. And IE support is part of your job at that point.
    • BigJ27, on 10/10/2007, -5/+3Some how, for some weird reason I don't know why, I can't imagine calling you a developer.
      Oh yeah, I know what it is, it's that "the e in explorer stands for evil" attitude. Sir, die.
    • lornefs, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4You must work for Apple, that's the only company that would hire a 'developer' with your kind of attitude.
      "Sir, I refuse to make our web page viewable by 60% of the population."
      Uh yeah.
      I agree that browsers should follow the standards but until Microsoft loses there stranglehold (and it will happen) then we must do our jobs and suck it up.
    • RayFinkle, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0http://skreened.com/iHateIE
    • xenlab, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I stopped supporting IE with all my heart a while ago. Don't get me wrong, I'll get it working, and not looking like ***** - but I don't worry about IE looking different any more... Sites still validate, Sites still perform, Lot less stress.

      I don't ignore IE, I just don't hack ***** to work in it - I find a way that works in both, and let it go.

      Unless its a corporate intranet app, and most users are locked into IE.
  • gartekh, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart!
    ...Aside, Figure, Section!
    When our powers combined, I am Captain Planet!

    (Hey, it could be worse, I could have made a joke about the periodic table of elements)
    • j0hnnyb, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1New elements? What would Mendeleyev think?
  • sekhui, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3

    this can only end in tears. or flashmute.
  • Grumps, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I like how we could easily embed media now. Compare to the traditional embed tag. Progress and meter is amazing as well.


  • sekhui, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11the autoplay attribute can only end in tears.

    signed,
    blink
    • svivian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Exactly. Forcing users to download several MB inline with a web page is a really bad idea.
  • smek2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Need. More. Taaaaags.
  • Acrion, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5I was hoping the time and meter tags would help in conversions of timezones and metric to imperial lengths and weights... Once standard, there will probably be a plug-in for most browsers, I guess.
    • wizgha, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1That's actually a very good suggestion, if you could somehow get it through to the people at the drawing boards.
  • tybris, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1As if anyone cares about tag semantics...
    • wheezy360, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The ones who write good websites do.
  • Veretax, on 10/10/2007, -12/+2IE doesn't spport? Asp.net has had DataGrids, LIsts, etc. for a long time now. Why does IE7 need these new elements when existing technology that MS has already can produce this stuff with hardly breaking a sweat.
    • MenthiX, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Because IE7 is supposed to be the product rendering HTML5, not Asp.net.
    • my8bird, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Because, Microsoft does not make the standards. They should comply with standards before just doing their own thing.
      • TheSabre, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1W3C does not own the web either. They are an independent body that creates their own standards that they feel are important. Microsoft DOES comply with standards - their own. In no way does W3C have proprietary ownership over webpage rendering, their standards are simply suggestions.
    • meechwings, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Why have standards if no one's going to follow them?
      • HsoKinees, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Seems everyone 'cept Microsoft follows the standards..
  • gazotem, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3no digg tag...what a shame.
  • ReneRuiz, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1You know what I find funny is that on occasion, I have been known to mess up an XHTML layout by subconsciously typing "."
  • OniDracula, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2I thought this line of HTML was dying and that XHTML was taking over? Like.... shouldn't this be XHTML 2.0?
    • PugFish, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2There is an XHTML version, but it's a little confusing. It's called XHTML5 but it's not related to XHTML 1.x/2.0. It's basically the XML version of HTML5 and both are being developed by another group alongside W3C. It's probably easier just to read the FAQ on www.whatwg.org

      From the FAQ:
      In 2004, after a W3C workshop, Apple, Mozilla and Opera were becoming increasingly concerned about the W3C’s direction with XHTML, lack of interest in HTML and apparent disregard for the needs of real-world authors. So, in response, these organisations set out to with a mission to address these concerns and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group was born.

      These days, the WHATWG is a growing community of browser vendors, web developers, and other people interested in the development of the the next generation of HTML and related technologies, specifically designed to allow authors to write and deploy applications over the World Wide Web.
      • BobArdKor, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1"It's called XHTML5 but it's not related to XHTML 1.x/2.0."

        damn... didn't know that... i find it quite stupid... jumping from 2 to 5 ? WTF ?
        • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It's not a jump -- it's more of a clash of names. The two aren't related to to each other.

          Basically, XHTML 2.0 is an attempt to wipe the slate clean and propose a *completely new* XML-based standard for document markup. It inherits some basic ideas and tags from XHTML1 (or 1.1, more specifically), but is in most aspects a completely new markup language.

          XHTML5 is simply the XML syntax for HTML5, which is an *evolution* of HTML4, rather than something completely new.

          Essentially, XHTML5 is the "real" step up from XHTML1.x, whereas XHTML2.0 is the philosophy of XHTML 1.1 taken to an extreme, and specialised towards one single style of content.
    • pnrl, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2XHTML5 is related to XHTML/1.x in the same way HTML 5 is related to HTML 4 -it's a new, but fully backwards compatible version.

      XHTML/2 is the odd one here, which isn't compatible with anything besides itself.
  • DivisibleByZero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9"The autoplay attribute tells the browser to begin playing as soon as the page is loaded, without waiting for an explicit user request."

    A POX ON THIS MAN! It's bad enough that your MySpace page has a big ugly static background that's primarily the same color as the text, but the fact that Marilyn Manson plays automatically just makes it even worse.

    They'd better make it mandatory that the audio tag provide a stop button.
    • thinsoldier, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1if you had RTFA you'd see that it's mandatory for user agents to provide a way to stop all media
      • DivisibleByZero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2"can and should" is not he same thing as "must".
  • JonLatane, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Progress bars are going to be really useful for designing Web applications that do a lot of server-intensive work. I always wondered why they hadn't been added long ago.
  • Ascendancy5, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Finally, HTML may start making some sense. I don't think this update addresses a lot of issues, but still good.
  • fahrvergnuugen, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3How about a TBODY that can scroll independently of it's THEAD and TFOOT? Is that too much to ask?
    • roinur, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Maybe datagrids will solve this.
    • svivian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1In theory it could be possible with current CSS. It would be cool if setting a height on the TBODY along with an 'overflow:scroll' rule did what you're asking.
  • jinxcy, on 10/10/2007, -4/+0Finally. Now maybe people will stop using apache 1.3
  • frobozz0, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3I'd be happy with implemented features like rounded corners and drop shadows. Everything could be a DIV for all I care. :-)
    • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2CSS3 takes care of that, as it should -- it has nothing to do with the semantics of the document (which is what the HTML is for).
  • rossnyc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1They have to start html 5 sometime...might literally be 5-10 years before we can actually use it safely but better late than never.
  • Dracos, on 10/10/2007, -5/+6HTML5 is bloated and broken. Most of these new tags pander to niche uses, some more obscure than <caption>. Don't get me started on how XML compliance (proper nesting, closing tags) is optional.

    Why does HTML5 get all the hype? I seriously don't get it.
    • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3XML compliance is optional because HTML is not XML -- it's SGML, where nesting is far less strict.
      You still have the option of going for XHTML5, which *is* XML, and therefore *does* require compliance, but then you run into the problem of (supposedly) poor user agent support and -stability.
  • gazotem, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2"
  • froggiestone, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0im in the process of making my own new site, and im cutting of IE 6 users, it simply dont read according to standard, and at the same time it sets my CSS and HTML know-how back several years, i wish more people would do the same, and maybe,MAYBE people would wake up.

    The problem is that its only developers that bitch about it, no "normal" people have a clue about it, since we comprimise and limit ourself, and make "work arounds"

    Digg of all site should step infront here, and take some actions, maybe not exclude people, but in some way making them aware..
    Anyway just my point of view :]
    • HigherLogic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Your point of view sucks. I guess you've never had to make a real website before that generated money. Good web design incorporates browsers up to 5 years after a new one is released, so get used to coding for IE6 until 2009.

      By the way, regarding testing of TML5 elements, the only browser that supports it (at least from my own tests) is Opera, and it's a good slug of elements too:

      http://www.operastumbler.com/html5/ (HTML5 forms test)
  • skankyBacon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3From the WHATWG FAQ:
    "When will HTML 5 be finished?

    It is estimated that HTML5 will reach a W3C recommendation in the year 2022 or later. This will be approximately 18-20 years of development, since beginning in mid-2004."
  • pyrates, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Let's hope that they enforce the idea that mistakes are not allowed and it forces lazy web developers who forget to use close tags etc to force them to put it all in properly.
    • billyswong, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0You want your site breaks uglily if the network connection breaks in the middle to transmission?
  • stevan2002, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I cant get IE to show render my page properly, I I always have to spend about an extra hour to make IE work with my site.
  • GeRviLM, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Who cares about IE, if IE doesn't play nice, I do the same, put a nice piece of JAVA script on your homepage which will redirect the user to a page where the user can download Firefox or Opera or any other decent browser if IE is detected.
    The type of sites I do is mostly for research purposes or to give feedback on my research and by blocking IE, I force the few people still using IE to use a proper browser if they want to see my work.

    This is just my way of making the world a better place!!
  • tyrione, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Publishing tags akin to LaTeX and DTP software instead instead of using DIV everywhere makes the code more
    transparent and correct. It makes maintenance for future devs to take over more intuitive and frees up the CSS to be utilized more abstractly. Now it is used to transforms DIVs into all sorts of structure that should never have been.
  • r3negadeX, on 08/11/2008, -0/+0Some of that stuff can already be done with javascript and CSS. If I were the W3C, I'd spend less time worrying about some new HTML version that will completely ***** up on older web browsers, and more time making a version of CSS that makes columns actually go to the bottom of your page.
  • BollHoward, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0What we need is a generation of peace.
  • yogastore, on 06/30/2008, -0/+0http://astore.amazon.com/flowtron.mosquito-20
    http://astore.amazon.com/flowtron.insect.killer-20
    http://astore.amazon.com/evaporative.air.cooler-20
    http://astore.amazon.com/air.swamp.cooler-20
    http://astore.amazon.com/braun.electric.kettle-20
    http://astore.amazon.com/cordless.electric.kettle- ...
    http://astore.amazon.com/canon.battery.charger-20
    http://astore.amazon.com/12.volt.battery.charger-2 ...
    http://astore.amazon.com/furniture.chaise.lounge-2 ...
    http://astore.amazon.com/outdoor.chaise.lounge-20
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.