HTML 5 is a markup language that is used for creating structure and presentation of content within a web page. HTML 5 is the fifth version of the HTML markup language.
HTML 5 provides a set of rich features which aim to help the design and development of websites for the latest multimedia devices such as smartphones and tablets.
HTML 5 can also be used to design and develop websites for traditional desktop computers and laptops. In essence, HTML 5 is a single markup language that can be used to develop websites for multiple platforms. The majority of smartphones and tablets now support HTML 5 out-of-the-box.
Previously a large number of websites used Adobe Flash plug-in to display animated content and videos. Although Flash provides an effective video streaming solution it also is a proprietary plug-in.
HTML 5 now supports video and audio streaming. The advantage of streaming video using HTML 5 is that your user is not required to install any third-party plug-ins.
HTML 5 has introduced some new syntax features such as the <canvas>, <video>, <audio> elements and also support for SVG (scalable vector graphics).
You can view the following link which can help you to understand some of the new elements and attributes of HTML 5:
HTML 5 has simplified the doctype declaration. Below is a simple example of an HTML 5 document with the minimum required elements:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>This is the location of your title</title>
</head>
<body>
This is the location of your web page content
</body>
</html>
As you can see from the above example only a small amount of syntax code is required to create a basic HTML 5 document.
HTML 5 is now a fully standardised model so the majority of browsers now support HTML 5 and continue to update new HTML 5 features in their latest versions.
As stated above HTML 5 is used for creating structure and presentation of content. HTML 5 cannot be used to create animations directly, a combination of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript can be used to create compelling animations.
Many of the current tablet and mobile smartphones do not support Adobe Flash plug-in and in November 2011 Adobe announced that it is going to discontinue the development of Flash for mobile devices and focus on developing the next generation of animation tools based around HTML 5.
Listed below are some useful resources if you wish to find out more about HTML 5:
Article created by: DCP London Web Designers
