HTML5: The New Black?

Apr 26, 2012 by Jennergy    No Comments    Posted under: Other Jennergy Tips

Lately, the buzz word in the world of web design is HTML5. Why all the hype? Well, we thought we’d share with you some features of this new version of HTML, and why this has caught some interest.

HTML5 isn’t exactly one program, system, or platform. It’s the result of many different companies and people coming together to make the web a better place for all of us. Because of this cooperation, HMTL5 is more simple, comprehensive, and organized than it has ever been before. Some great features of HTML5 include improved platform capabilities, storage on and offline, graphics performance and even better security.

The new, more uniform web makes it much easier to create websites and apps that work on many different platforms with very little effort. More specifically, instead of having completely separate coding for each platform (Windows, Mac OS, Unix and its variants — Chrome OS, iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, etc.), programmers can make one basic version, and add small tweaks for each platform, saving time, money, and the frustration of having a site that may not work well on all platforms. In addition to this, HTML5 has some new features for programmers which make things a little less frustrating. Tags that are redundant, such as the “type” tag for CSS have been removed, and will simply be implied by the browser. Several new tags, such as the <figure> element, which allows the programmer to associate a caption with an image, (something that wasn’t possible in the previous version of HTML), and some existing tags, such as the <small> tag, have been re-purposed to make them more useful.

In HTML5, online apps and websites will be able to store information locally, which means that once a person visits a site or app, they will be able to access it offline, without the use of the internet. This means more people will have more opportunities to visit your website or application at any time. Also, users will be able to download big files (greater than 1 GB) for offline viewing.

Because of these incredible storage capabilities, apps and sites will now be able to process more information at a faster rate, as they’ll be able to pre-load pages before the user even clicks on a link. Also, super fast Javascript engines allow enhanced performance on even the most complex of graphics and animations. This means that animated backgrounds are now possible, smooth graphic transitions can be implemented, and rich, animation-heavy imagery can be used without slowing the system. Additionally, new technologies such as WebWorkers allow you to run multiple processes in the background, without disrupting the part that your users see.

We’re all worried about security on the internet these days, and the creators of HTML5 have considered this heavily when creating it. First, because HTML5 has been designed by many different companies across many different platforms, it’s new standards will be used across the board. This leaves less room for fragmentation, less plugins needed to run websites, so there’s less room for phishing, clickjacking and XSS attacks. Of course, HTML5 does have some new safety features that make surfing the web safer than ever. One of these is called “sandboxing,” which allows a site or application to run within the sandbox area but will not allow any malicious web apps from creeping into it. Others include multi-process architecture, which was first used by Chrome, but has now been implemented by many other browsers. It’s also in development for HTTP, the current protocol for web applications.

What are your thoughts? Let us know what you think about the new features of HTML5 by commenting below.

Oh, and p.s.: Want to see some in action? Check out these sites that were created using HTML5:

-http://eve-ro.com/en/index.php

-http://clickedbycarol.com/#

-http://www.pixelbender.ca/

Resources for HTML5:

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/

http://html5doctor.com/

http://html5examples.org/

Got anything to say? Go ahead and leave a comment!