“HTML5- An Evolution, not the Revolution”, W3C

HTML(Hypertext Markup Language), has been the paradigm as well as the most popular language for website development with 5 successful versions already under its hood. HTML5 is the latest and a more progressed version considered in this series, with some modifications and new features incorporated into it. With newer version upgrades popping out with time, the users feel tormented with the mere thought of switching to the upgrade. This time tasking action eventually holds them back from opting for the upgrade.

What is HTML5 and What is it Used For?

The World Wide Web Consortium(W3C), the developer of the HTML series, understands this and has consequently tailed it in its latest development which is HTML5, promising to make the switch easier. HTML5  has not only improved the structure of code but also facilitated you with many other features and tags such as Cross-Browser compatibility, Multimedia related tags, Animation tags, Offline browsing, etc. With these features, HTML5 has become even more versatile and the best pick for emerging technologies in this field.

The language itself is an updated HTML with new elements and features. There are a great set of other technologies with which this new version of HTML works – like a new video format – and enables you to build more complex and powerful websites and applications. HTML5 was designed to reduce the need for those non-standard proprietary technologies. With this new version of HTML, you can build web applications that work offline, support high-definition video and animations, and know where you are in a geographic location.

Remember, HTML is not a programming language, but a markup language.

6 Important Benefits of HTML5 to Choose for Your Project:

  1. Cleaner Code Structure
  2. Cross-Browser Compatibility
  3. Audio and Video Tags
  4. Offline Browsing
  5. No More Cookies 
  6. Canvas for Animation and Game Development

1. Cleaner Code Structure

HTML5, with so many altered as well as new tags, has improved the code structure making it cleaner and lucid for both programmers and non-programmers. Like, <div> tag, that is one of the most extensively used HTML tag has been supplanted by various tags such as <article>, <section>, <figure>, <header>, <footer>, and <nav>, preventing you from getting lost in code.

For Example:

“div#header, div#footer{…}“  is written as “header, footer{…}“
“div#content{…}” is written as “section{…}”
“div.article{…}” is written as “article{…}”
“div#menu ul{…}” is written as “nav ul{..}”

2. Cross-Browser Compatibility

Instead of restricting to a single platform/browser, HTML5 has introduced a new cross-browser compatibility feature, being supported by popular versions of multiple web browsers. To include this feature on your website, list down the elements of the target browsers and then address them individually through fallback and graceful degradation. Let’s say if a feature of your website is not supported by a browser, better to display a customer-friendly text to make the problem comprehensible, creating the fallback, thus gracefully degrading the website as per the browser elements.

3. Audio and Video Tags

Playing media files on a browser was a bit complex task with the previous versions of HTML, requiring you to install supporting multimedia software such as Flash and use some complex tags like <embed> and <object>, to play it. 

HTML5 liberates you from this with its <audio> and <video> tags, which is used just like the other HTML tags. You can use these tags and modify their attributes such as controls, loop, autoplay, muted, src, height, width, etc, accordingly.

 For Example: 

<audio controls>

 <source src=” ” type=” “>

</audio>

4. Offline Browsing

The availability of the internet cannot be promised 24*7, which can sometimes hinder your work as well. HTML5, with its manifest attribute included in the <html> tag, enables the users to continue browsing the webpages and web applications even in the offline state. 

The manifest attribute directs the Uniform Resource Identifier to a ‘manifest’ consisting of the files that should and shouldn’t be cached, to avail them to the user when offline. The structure of the manifest consists of 2 sections:

  • CACHE MANIFEST: includes the files that have to be cached like index.html, CSS file, logo and background images, etc.
  • NETWORK: includes the files that shouldn’t be cached and misused such as server.cgi.

5. No More Cookies

Cookies, a secret weapon of the website to track its users and deliver personalized services to them, have been an important thing for the websites throughout. But its setback cannot be denied, making your data risk-prone and increasing the server load as well. HTML5 Web Storage, by replacing the cookies, has addressed all these problems. It provides 5 MB storage space at the client-side to store the data, which is not sent over the server making it more secure than the previous versions and hence, reducing the server overhead. 

6. Canvas for Animation and Game Development

Flash, a software used for dynamic websites and applications, has become deprecated due to its limited functionalities and setbacks. Being an external software embedded in the HTML code, Flash cannot interact directly with the HTML elements and requires the browser to install a dedicated plugin to function. 

To reduce the hassle and bring the animation to another level, HTML5 came up with a new tag called <canvas>. Canvas, a feature embedded in HTML5 and a part of Document Object Model(DOM), opens multiple animation options, enabling you to draw graphs, add visual effects, develop games both online as well as offline, etc. on the web page. 

Additional Perks — What’s new in HTML5?

HTML5 is designed with the main objectives in mind, including:

  • Make the code easier to read for users 
  • Reduce the overlap between HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
  • Promote responsiveness and design uniformity across browsers
  • Support multimedia without the need for Flash or other plugins

Conclusion

Website Designing has never been so innovative yet simple.

HTML5, with its so many astounding features as mentioned above, has transformed the entire website development process. HTML5 has gained a lot of popularity since its introduction and has become the choice of many popular organizations for their websites.

Without much ado, it is favorable to shift to HTML5 and forget about the difficulties associated with your website like browser compatibility, complex codes, etc. You can hire an HTML5 developer from Ace Infoway to help you in this transformation and develop an ideal website. For any further queries,  feel free to Get In Touch with us.

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