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 will allow the web browser to become a development platform. A primary goal for HTML 5 is to ensure interoperability among browsers so that Web applications and documents behave the same way no matter which HTML 5 complaint browser is used to access them.
HTML5 is a W3C specification that defines the fifth major revision of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). One of the major changes in HTML5 is in respect to how HTML addresses Web applications. Other new features in HTML5 include specific functions for embedding graphics, audio, video, and interactive documents. New elements also allow you to define sections of your Web page using new tags such as < article > which defines an article, < nav > which defines navigation links, < source > which defines media resources, and many others. For example, the navigation section of your page would be enclosed in the < nav > tags.
HTML 5 is expected to offer numerous improvements over HTML 4, including:
- New parsing rules for enhanced flexibility
- New attributes
- Elimination of outmoded or redundant attributes
- Immediate-mode drawing
- Drag and drop
- Back button management
- Timed media playback
- Offline editing
- Messaging enhancements
- Detailed rules for parsing
- MIME and protocol handler registration
- Numerous APIs
- Ability for visitors to edit sections of web pages.
- Offline data storage.
HTML 4 has been tweaked, prolonged and increased beyond its initial scope to bring high levels of interactivity and multimedia to Web sites. Plug-in like Flash, Silverlight and Java have added media integration to the Web, but not without some cost. In search of a "better user experience" and battery life, Apple has simply dropped support for some of these plug-in entirely on mobile devices, leaving much of the media-heavy Internet inaccessible on iPads and iPhones. HTML5 adds many new features, and streamlines functionality in order to render these processor-intensive add-ons unnecessary for many common functions.
An HTML5 (text/html) browser will be flexible in handling incorrect syntax. HTML5 is designed so that old browsers can safely ignore new HTML5 constructs. In contrast to HTML 4.01, the HTML5 specification gives detailed rules for lexing and parsing, with the intent that different compliant browsers will produce the same result in the case of incorrect syntax. Although HTML5 now defines a consistent behavior for "tag soup" documents, those documents are not regarded as conforming to the HTML5 standard.
Currently, the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group estimates the end of 2010. HTML5 will of course be backwards compatible with HTML4 and all web pages are expected to work as normal. HTML5 integration will not happen overnight. Browsers are expected to be ready to handle it upon its release, and some intrepid developers have already started bulking up their HTML code with HTML5 codes that don’t affect anything currently visible to the user.
Overall HTML5 is definitely going be the future of web design, but as of now we need to wait for the full functionality of HTML and we hope soon popular web browsers like Mozilla and IE will provide full support for HTML5.
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