Now that HTML 5 has been declared victorious over XHTML 2, the last six to eight weeks have yielded a bouquet of tutorials, introductions, cheatsheets, and blog postings about it. I guess we’re so excited about anything new in markup we’ll even cheer a draft proposal. I can’t excuse myself from the mob, having joined it on a recent project for a future-minded client who encouraged me to take up the fashion for <!DOCTYPE html>.
On first and even second glances, the HTML 5 element list seems conservative, not much of a change. There are the intriguing new tags like <canvas>, but with limited cross-browser support. <menu>returns from, what, HTML 3.2?, but this time dressed up as a way to group form inputs (easy to confuse with how we’ve been using <fieldset>). Other elements, such as <header>, <footer>, and <section>, are good substitutions for the over-worked <div>, which lingers in HTML 5 for your block element needs. <article> is interesting–it’s supposed to enclose “standalone” content. <nav> is easy to type and remember.
However, some of these tags seem to presume usage in rather old-fashioned situations. For instance, which of the navigational blocks on your application screen will you exalt with <nav>? No fair using it more than once–it’s supposed to designate your primary navigation. And which of your content blocks are <section>s and which are <aside>s, especially if the user can rearrange them?
Where HTML 5 seems more ambitious, seems to pose more of a learning curve, is on attributes and APIs. Form elements seems especially enriched in this specification. I didn’t use any of these on this project, but I’m eager to try them when the browser support is sufficient. Many of the proposals will remove tedious DHTML chores, if ever supported; for instance, this block will replace all those unordered lists distorted by CSS and JavaScript into popup menus:
<menu type="popup">
<command label="Check messages" icon="messages.gif"/>
<command label="Logout" icon="logout.gif"/>
</menu>
By now I expect you’re asking, “But what about IE?”
Yeah, what about that? Hmmm.
I was blessed to have a client who’d discarded concern for IE 6. Problem solved, you think?
Not at all. IE 7 ignored even the most basic HTML 5 tags–even <section> proved uncharismatic. To the rescue, JavaScript; more specifically, the “HTML5 Shiv” (love the name, which captures the mood of destructive exasperation IE inspires) script popularized by John Resig and Remy Sharp.
Overall, it was an enjoyable stroll through HTML 5′s more accessible areas. Maybe XHTML 2 would’ve been a more thrilling excursion, but I’m content. Shiv or not, it looks to be sunny ahead.