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HTML 5 has brought lots of changes to the specifications of HTML. Doctype is the one thing that can be remembered easily. Apart from doctype, in order to build websites, HTML 5 has brought 25 new tags. Some of the new tags are a long time coming to the HTML and there are some others and they are complicated. However, the complicated tags are very useful.

Layout Tags

In HTML 5, the new layout tags will allow you to define all the sections of the WebPages as a layout area even without the need of div tag to define them. Header tag surrounds the header and nav tag surrounds navigation. Just use these tags normally just like div tags.

Article – is the main content in WebPages

Aside – extra content

Footer – is a footer for a page

Figure – is a peripheral content along with the caption

Header – header of the page

Section – any portion or section of the page

Nav – page navigation

Multimedia Content

HTML 5 attempts to make the both audio and video to add to a webpage. By providing the specific tags for both the video and audio, it can be put on the WebPages.

Audio – audio stream is denoted

Source – source files for both audio and video

Video – video stream is denoted

Web Applications and DHTML or Ajax

The HTML 5 adds some of the tags to the language specifically for the Web applications, DHTML and Ajax. More hooks are given to the scripting languages by these tags and for the browsers, it provides framework in order to deliver the application data.

Canvas – it is a place where dynamic graphics could be drew

Command – This denotes a command button, which has the information sent to the script or server

Datagrid – it is a references dynamic data in tabular data form or in a tree form

Datalist- list of data is referenced in the drop-down list

Details- this provides additional details of any page element

Output – this references the output or calculation of a script

Progress – this represents a progress bar

Ruby Annotations

Ruby is a short run of the text alongside a base text and is typically used in the East Asian documents in order to indicate short annotation or to indicate pronunciation. Through the help of three tags, HTML 5 provides access to ruby.

rp – this is a Ruby parenthesis for the user-agents that cannot handle ruby

rt- it is a Ruby text,

ruby –this is a span of the ruby annotation

Some of the other new tags

There are some new tags that will help you to mark the HTML effectively. These tags help the browsers to know exactly what different elements are there on the page.

Dialog – people talking or a conversation

hgroup – it is a grouping of header tags that must stay altogether

Mark – it is a text that has been marked for many reference purposes

Meter – it is a scalar gauge of a measurement

time – time or date

Since the last millennium HTML 5 has introduced new elements to HTML. Aside, figure and section are the new structural elements. Time, meter and progress are the new inline elements. Video and audio are the new embedding elements. Details, data grid and command are the new interactive elements.

In 1999 the development of HTML had stopped with HTML4. The world wide website consortium’s (w3c) changed its focus in the underlying syntax of HTML to XML (extensible markup language) from standard generalized markup language(SGML) and it also focused on languages like Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG),X Forms and MathML. Browser features like tabs and RSS readers were focused by browser vendors. The languages like CSS and JavaScript came in handy to the web designers to build their own applications on top of the existing frame work using Asynchronous XML (Ajax) + JavaScript, but in the next eight years HTML grew itself very hardly.

Recently the 3 browser vendor major’s – Apple, Opera and Mozilla foundation came together as the web hypertext application technology working group(whatwg) to develop the classic version of HTML to an updated and upgraded version. With Same members, w3c started developing its own upgraded version of HTML taking note of the developments of the three major browser vendors. These two upgraded versions are likely to be merged, but many details are left to be argued, the next version of HTML outlines is becoming clear.

HTML5 the new version of HTML known usually, though it goes under the name web application1.0, it is recognizable by a web designer frozen in the year 1999 and today thawed. It includes no namespaces and schemas. Elements need not be closed. Errors will be forgiven by browsers. Desk is still a desk and TV is still a TV.

At the same moment some new and confusing elements would encountered by the unfrozen caveman Web designer. Now HTML includes new elements like section, header, footer, and nav with old elements like div.But now it includes audio and video and also em,code and strong are still present with meter, time, and m. img and embed which are continued to be used. Closer inspection by caveman designer however would reveal that all these elements are not different. Back in 1999 the designer might have needed these things, but wasn’t developed. The designer can understand all these new elements by simple analogy where he might have learned earlier. Than Ajax or CSS it is lot easier to learn.

At last, laptop running on windows 98 with 300 MHz was fired by caveman which was frozen way back in 1999, they might have astonished to know that the display of the new pages are fine in Netscape 4 and Windows® Internet Explorer® 5. Page still displays and all the contents are present, and the browser does anything or wouldn’t recognize with new elements.

It’s not a happy feature, HTML was designed explicitly to degrade browsers gracefully that won’t support it. The reason behind this is simple, as we all are cave people. Browsers now have XmlHttpRequest, tabs and CSS, but in 1999 their renderers of HTML stuck. Without accounting the installed base, web cannot move forward and HTML5 understands it.