What is HTML5?

HTML5 is the next generation of HTML.

HTML5 will be the new standard for HTML, XHTML, and the HTML DOM.

The previous version of HTML came in 1999. The web has changed a lot since then.

HTML5 is still a work in progress. However, most modern browsers have some HTML5 support.

HTML5 is a cooperation between the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG).

WHATWG was working with web forms and applications, and W3C was working with XHTML 2.0. In 2006, they decided to cooperate and create a new version of HTML.

Some rules for HTML5 were established:

• New features should be based on HTML, CSS, DOM, and JavaScript
• Reduce the need for external plugins (like Flash)
• Better error handling
• More markup to replace scripting
• HTML5 should be device independent
• The development process should be visible to the public

New Features

Some of the most interesting new features in HTML5:

• The canvas element for drawing
• The video and audio elements for media playback
• Better support for local offline storage
• New content specific elements, like article, footer, header, nav, section
• New form controls, like calendar, date, time, email, url, search

Browser Support

The latest versions of Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera support some HTML5 features. Internet Explorer 9 will support some HTML5 features.

New Elements in HTML5

The internet has changed a lot since HTML 4.01 became a standard in 1999.

Today, some elements in HTML 4.01 are obsolete, never used, or not used the way they were intended to. These elements are deleted or re-written in HTML5.

To better handle today's internet use, HTML5 also includes new elements for better structure, drawing, media content, and better form handling.