HTML5
HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final[4] major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML Living Standard. It is maintained by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), a consortium of the major browser vendors (Apple, Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft).
Filename extension
.html, .htm
TEXT
public.html[1]
- WHATWG
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C; formerly)
22 January 2008[2]
14 December 2017[3]
Yes
HTML5 was first released in a public-facing form on 22 January 2008,[2] with a major update and "W3C Recommendation" status in October 2014.[5][6] Its goals were to improve the language with support for the latest multimedia and other new features; to keep the language both easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices such as web browsers, parsers, etc., without XHTML's rigidity; and to remain backward-compatible with older software. HTML5 is intended to subsume not only HTML 4 but also XHTML1 and even the DOM Level 2 HTML itself.[7]
HTML5 includes detailed processing models to encourage more interoperable implementations; it extends, improves, and rationalizes the markup available for documents and introduces markup and application programming interfaces (APIs) for complex web applications.[8] For the same reasons, HTML5 is also a candidate for cross-platform mobile applications because it includes features designed with low-powered devices in mind.
Many new syntactic features are included. To natively include and handle multimedia and graphical content, the new <video>, <audio> and <canvas> elements were added; expandable sections are natively implemented through <summary>...</summary> and <details>...</details> rather than depending on CSS or JavaScript; and support for scalable vector graphics (SVG) content and MathML for mathematical formulas was also added. To enrich the semantic content of documents, new page structure elements such as <main>, <section>, <article>, <header>, <footer>, <aside>, <nav>, and <figure> are added. New attributes were introduced, some elements and attributes were removed, and others such as <a>, <cite>, and <menu> were changed, redefined, or standardized. The APIs and Document Object Model (DOM) are now fundamental parts of the HTML5 specification,[8] and HTML5 also better defines the processing for any invalid documents.[9]
The W3C proposed a greater reliance on modularity as a key part of the plan to make faster progress, meaning identifying specific features, either proposed or already existing in the spec, and advancing them as separate specifications. Some technologies that were originally defined in HTML5 itself are now defined in separate specifications:
Some features that were removed from the original HTML5 specification have been standardized separately as modules, such as Microdata and Canvas. Technical specifications introduced as HTML5 extensions such as Polyglot markup have also been standardized as modules. Some W3C specifications that were originally separate specifications have been adapted as HTML5 extensions or features, such as SVG. Some features that might have slowed down the standardization of HTML5 were or will be standardized as upcoming specifications, instead.
Features[edit]
Markup[edit]
HTML5 introduces elements and attributes that reflect typical usage on modern websites. Some of them are semantic replacements for common uses of generic block (<div>) and inline (<span>) elements, for example <nav> (website navigation block), <footer> (usually referring to bottom of web page or to last lines of HTML code), or <audio> and <video> instead of <object>.[91][92][93]
Some deprecated elements from HTML 4.01 have been dropped, including purely presentational elements such as <font> and <center>, whose effects have long been superseded by the more capable Cascading Style Sheets.[94] There is also a renewed emphasis on the importance of client-side JavaScript used to create dynamic web pages.
The HTML5 syntax is no longer based on SGML[95][96] despite the similarity of its markup. It has, however, been designed to be backward-compatible with common parsing of older versions of HTML. It comes with a new introductory line that looks like an SGML document type declaration, <!DOCTYPE html>, which triggers the standards-compliant rendering mode.[97]
Since 5 January 2009, HTML5 also includes Web Forms 2.0, a previously separate WHATWG specification.[98][99]
Digital rights management[edit]
Industry players including the BBC, Google, Microsoft, Apple Inc. have been lobbying for the inclusion of Encrypted Media Extensions (EME),[135][136][137][138][139] a form of digital rights management (DRM), into the HTML5 standard. As of the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, 27 organizations[140] including the Free Software Foundation[141] have started a campaign against including digital rights management in the HTML5 standard.[142][143] However, in late September 2013, the W3C HTML Working Group decided that Encrypted Media Extensions, a form of DRM, was "in scope" and will potentially be included in the HTML 5.1 standard.[144][145] WHATWG's "HTML Living Standard" continued to be developed without DRM-enabled proposals.[145]
Manu Sporny, a member of the W3C, said that EME would not solve the problem it was supposed to address.[146]
Opponents point out that EME itself is just an architecture for a DRM plug-in mechanism.[147]
The initial enablers for DRM in HTML5 were Google[148] and Microsoft.[149] Supporters also include Adobe.[150] On 14 May 2014, Mozilla announced plans to support EME in Firefox, the last major browser to avoid DRM.[151][152] Calling it "a difficult and uncomfortable step", Andreas Gal of Mozilla explained that future versions of Firefox would remain open source but ship with a sandbox designed to run a content decryption module developed by Adobe,[151] later it was replaced with Widevine module from Google which is much more widely adopted by content providers. While promising to "work on alternative solutions", Mozilla's Executive Chair Mitchell Baker stated that a refusal to implement EME would have accomplished little more than convincing many users to switch browsers.[152] This decision was condemned by Cory Doctorow and the Free Software Foundation.[153][154]
As of December 2023, the W3C has changed their opinion on EME, stating: "Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) brings greater interoperability, better privacy, security, accessibility and user experience in viewing movies and TV on the Web".[155]