review of HTML5 differences from HTML4

General comment:
I'm confused as to the intended audience of this document. This
document is heavy on HTML5 jargon which would make it difficult for an
author to use without having to refer to the HTML spec itself. If this
document is intended for authors, then my opinion is that it needs a
lot of clarifications (which I've asked for below). If its intended
for implementers, I really don't see the point of this document.

I've reviewed this document with my "author" and "generally interested
in this stuff" hat on. I have been using HTML for 15 years now, so I
use that as my knowledge base.  I would like to see each of the
questions below answered in the document (i.e, I don't care for
responses to questions in this email, just an acknowledgment that the
things have been clarified in the document - but if you want to
include the new text that you add as part of the response, that's ok
with me)...

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:16 AM, Marcos Caceres <marcosc@opera.com> wrote:
> 1. Introduction
>
> HTML has been in continuous evolution since it was introduced to the
> Internet in the early 1990s.

Reference to the first draft of HTML would be nice here.

> Some features were introduced in
> specifications; others were introduced in software releases.

Like which? and why?

> In some
> respects, implementations and author practices have converged with
> each other and with specifications and standards, but in other ways,
> they continue to diverge.

The above is weak on it's own (it reads like a personal observation).
Can you expand on it and give concrete examples.

> HTML4 became a W3C Recommendation in 1997. While it continues to serve
> as a rough guide to many of the core features of HTML, it does not
> provide enough information to build implementations that interoperate
> with each other and, more importantly, with a critical mass of
> deployed content.

This may be generally accepted by some members of the community, yet
it does not let outsiders know what what actually wrong with the way
HTML4 was specified. This is really important, because it underpins
why HTML5 is such a large spec and why it covers so much stuff. Can
you please clearly list the deficiencies which HTML4 has and how HTML5
has attempted to overcome those (i.e., what processes are actually in
place to avoid the mistakes of HTML4 being remade in HTML5).

> The same goes for XHTML1, which defines an XML
> serialization for HTML4, and DOM Level 2 HTML, which defines
> JavaScript APIs for both HTML and XHTML. HTML5 will replace these
> documents. [DOM2HTML] [HTML4] [XHTML1]

What does it mean that HTML5 will replace these documents? Will those
documents all be marked as obselete? Will an authors be discouraged
from using HTML < 5?

> The HTML5 draft reflects an effort, started in 2004, to study
> contemporary HTML implementations and deployed content.

Where is this study published? What methodology was used to gather the
results and draw conclusions? Where is the data available?

> The draft:

Which draft?

>   1. Defines a single language called HTML5 which can be written in
> HTML syntax and in XML syntax.
>   2. Defines detailed processing models to foster interoperable
> implementations.

" to foster" > "that aims to foster"

>   3. Improves markup for documents.

In what way? point 3 seems out of context with the rest of the points
listed here.

>   4. Introduces markup and APIs for emerging idioms, such as Web applications.
>
> 1.1. Open Issues
>
> HTML5 is still a draft. The contents of HTML5, as well as the contents
> of this document which depend on HTML5, are still being discussed on
> the HTML Working Group and WHATWG mailing lists. The open issues
> include (this list is not exhaustive):
>
>    * De facto semantic definitions for some formerly presentational elements.

Why is this an open issue? Either describe it, or link to something
that describes it.

>    * Details of accessibility and media-independence features, such
> as the alt and summary attributes.

Why is this an open issue? Either describe it, or link to something
that describes it.

> 1.2. Backwards Compatible
>
> HTML5 is defined in a way that it is backwards compatible with the way
> user agents handle deployed content.

How does it achieve this?

> To keep the authoring language
> relatively simple for authors several elements and attributes are not
> included as outlined in the other sections of this document, such as
> presentational elements that are better dealt with using CSS.
>
> User agents, however, will always have to support these older elements
> and attributes and this is why the specification clearly separates
> requirements for authors and user agents.

s/this specification/the HTML5 specification/

> This means that authors
> cannot use the isindex or the plaintext element, but user agents are
> required to support them in a way that is compatible with how these
> elements need to behave for compatibility with deployed content.

The above is just an example of various possible strange elements, right?

> Since HTML5 has separate conformance requirements for authors and user
> agents there is no longer a need for marking features "deprecated".

Why is that, how does that work? (Although the document is nicely
written, your writing consistently assumes that the reader will be
able to deduce why a decision was taken - when you do this, and the
reader (me) cannot understand why a decision was made, it makes them
feel stupid. Please explain "clever" decisions like the author
requirements... for instance, authoring requirements make no sense as
authors are not products that can conform to the specification. I'm
sure there is a very clever answer to this, so I hope to read it in
the next draft! )

> 1.3. Development Model
>
> The HTML5 specification will not be considered finished before there
> are at least two complete implementations of the specification.

What does this mean in practice? How will completeness be shown?

> This
> is a different approach than previous versions of HTML had.

Change to:
This approach differs from previous versions of HTML.

>  The goal
> is to ensure that the specification is implementable and usable by
> designers and developers once it is finished.

How is that "assured" by the working group? What measure/means will be
used to see if the WG has met its goal.  Also, it sounds like you are
saying "implementable...by designers" which I'm not sure is what you
mean.

Also, I think it's better to use the more generic term author, instead
of "designers and developers" (this distinction is subject to a lot of
controversy, no need to remind the reader of it:)).

> 1.4. Impact on Web Architecture
>
> The following areas / features defined in HTML5 are believed to impact
> the Web architecture:

What is the "Web architecture" in this context? And what do you mean
by "impact"? does it change it in some fundamental way?

>    * The use of the DOM as a basis for defining the language.

How does this impact that architecture?

>    * The concept of browsing contexts.

What about them? How does this impact that architecture?

>    * The distinction between user agent requirements and authoring
> requirements.

How does a conformance requirement on authors impact the architecture
of the web?

>    * The use of imperative definitions rather than abstract
> definitions with the requirement of black-box equivalence in
> implementations.

As above. What's an imperative definition? What's an abstract
definition? Can you give some examples? Also, what's this whole
"black-box" thing; example please?

>    * The new content model concepts (replacing HTML4's block and
> inline concepts).

How doe this impact?

>    * The focus on accessibility as a built-in concept for new
> features (such as the hidden attribute, the progress element, et
> cetera) instead of an add-on (like the alt attribute).

Can you actually explain how someone benefits from this from an
accessibility point of view?

>    * The focus on defining the semantics in detail (e.g. the outline
> algorithm, replacing the vague semantics in HTML4).

How does this impact?

>    * The menu and command elements.


How does this impact?

>    * The origin concept.

How does this impact?

>    * Offline Web application caches.

How does this impact?

>    * The definition of the browsing context "navigation" algorithm
> and the related session history traversal algorithms.

How does this impact?

>    * The content-type sniffing and character encoding sniffing.

How does this impact?

>    * The very explicit definition of a parser.

How does this impact? And why use the relative word "very"? What are
you comparing it to?

>    * The contentEditable feature and the UndoManager feature.

How does this impact?

>    * The Drag and Drop and Copy and Paste architecture.

How does this impact?

>    * The new sandboxing features for iframe.

How does this impact?

> 2. Syntax
>
> HTML5 defines an HTML syntax that is compatible with HTML4 and XHTML1
> documents published on the Web, but is not compatible with the more
> esoteric SGML features of HTML4, such as processing instructions and
> shorthand markup.

Why is it not compatible?

> Documents using the HTML syntax are almost always
> served with the text/html media type.
>
> HTML5 also defines detailed parsing rules (including "error handling")

I would drop "detailed", though the may be "detailed", that is a
matter of opinion.

> for this syntax which are largely compatible with popular
> implementations.

Please reference the implementations on which the parsing is based.
And please explain why those implementations (be it browser or search
engine) were chosen as the basis on which the parsing algorithm was
based on.

>  User agents must use these rules for resources that
> have the text/html media type. Here is an example document that
> conforms to the HTML syntax:

I'm not sure why this example is here? What does this have to do with
parsing? How is the parsing of this document any different from HTML4?

> <!doctype html>
> <html>
>  <head>
>    <meta charset="UTF-8">
>    <title>Example document</title>
>  </head>
>  <body>
>    <p>Example paragraph</p>
>  </body>
> </html>
>
> HTML5 also defines a text/html-sandboxed media type for documents
> using the HTML syntax. This can be used when hosting untrusted
> content.

Be nice to say that HTML < 5 did not have this. What's untrusted
content? Can you go into some details about the usage or reason why
this is useful (e.g., how it affects scripting capabilities)?

> The other syntax that can be used for HTML5 is XML. This syntax is
> compatible with XHTML1 documents and implementations. Documents using
> this syntax need to be served with an XML media type

You should reference the XML or XHTML media type spec. Or link to it.

> and elements need
> to be put in the http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml namespace following the
> rules set forth by the XML specifications. [XML]

This seems redundant, given that it's all part of xhtml.

> Below is an example document that conforms to the XML syntax of HTML5.
> Note that XML documents must have an XML media type such as

s/must have/must be served with ?

> application/xhtml+xml or application/xml.
>
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
>  <head>
>    <title>Example document</title>
>  </head>
>  <body>
>    <p>Example paragraph</p>
>  </body>
> </html>
>
> 2.1. Character Encoding
>
> For the HTML syntax of HTML5

need a comma here (otherwise it reads like "HTML5-authors")

>authors have three means of setting the
> character encoding:
>
>    * At the transport level. By using the HTTP Content-Type header
> for instance.
>    * Using a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) character at the start of
> the file. This character provides a signature for the encoding used.
>    * Using a meta element with a charset attribute that specifies the
> encoding within the first 512 bytes of the document. E.g. <meta
> charset="UTF-8"> could be used to specify the UTF-8 encoding. This
> replaces the need for <meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
> content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> although that syntax is still
> allowed.


How is this different from HTML4?

> For the XML syntax, authors have to use the rules as set forth in the
> XML specifications to set the character encoding.

How is this any different from XHTML?

Seem that this whole section is explaining features, not differences.

> 2.2. The DOCTYPE
>
> The HTML syntax of HTML5 requires a DOCTYPE to be specified to ensure
> that the browser renders the page in standards mode.

What is this "standards mode"?

> The DOCTYPE has
> no other purpose and is therefore optional for XML. Documents with an
> XML media type are always handled in standards mode. [DOCTYPE]
>
> The DOCTYPE declaration is <!DOCTYPE html> and is case-insensitive in
> the HTML syntax. DOCTYPEs from earlier versions of HTML were longer
> because the HTML language was SGML-based and therefore required a
> reference to a DTD.

What did this longer DOCTYPE look like, so we can see the differences
from HTML4?

> With HTML5 this is no longer the case and the see
> DOCTYPE is only needed to enable standards mode for documents written
> using the HTML syntax. Browsers already do this for <!DOCTYPE html>.

So, basically, it's required to identify a document as HTML5? This is
unclear because the whole standards mode thing is undefined. You need
to expand this section to show how it actually works and explain that
an old doc type will still trigger HTML5 features if available
(presumably).

> 2.3. MathML and SVG

You should start with "Unlike HTML4," or something...

> The HTML syntax of HTML5 allows for MathML and SVG elements to be used
> inside a document. E.g. a very simple document using some of the
> minimal syntax features could look like:
>
> <!doctype html>
> <title>SVG in text/html</title>
> <p>
>  A green circle:
>  <svg> <circle r="50" cx="50" cy="50" fill="green"/> </svg>
> </p>
>
> More complex combinations are also possible. E.g. with the SVG
> foreignObject element you could nest MathML, HTML, or both inside an
> SVG fragment that is itself inside HTML.

Fancy.

> 2.4. Miscellaneous
>
> There are a few other syntax changes worthy of mentioning:
>
>    * HTML now has native support for IRIs, though they can only be
> fully used if the document encoding is UTF-8 or UTF-16.
>    * The lang attribute takes the empty string in addition to a valid
> language identifier, just like xml:lang does in XML.

So what? What does that mean in terms of difference with HTML4 in
terms of behavior?

> 3. Language
>
> This section is split up in several subsections to more clearly
> illustrate the various differences there are between HTML4 and HTML5.
> 3.1. New Elements
>
> The links in this section may stop working if elements are renamed
> and/or removed. They should function in the latest version of this
> draft.
>
> The following elements have been introduced for better structure:
>
>    *
>
>      section represents a generic document or application section. It
> can be used together with the h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 elements to
> indicate the document structure.


On what grounds was the addition of the section element made? what was
lacking in HTML4?

>    *
>
>      article represents an independent piece of content of a
> document, such as a blog entry or newspaper article.

On what grounds was the addition of the article element made? what was
lacking in HTML4?

>    *
>
>      aside represents a piece of content that is only slightly
> related to the rest of the page.

On what grounds was the addition of the aside element made? what was
lacking in HTML4?

>    *
>
>      hgroup represents the header of a section.

On what grounds was the addition of hgroup element made? what was
lacking in HTML4?

>    *
>
>      header represents a group of introductory or navigational aids.

On what grounds was the addition of the header element made? what was
lacking in HTML4?

>    *
>
>      footer represents a footer for a section and can contain
> information about the author, copyright information, et cetera.

On what grounds was the addition of the footer element made? what was
lacking in HTML4?

>    *
>
>      nav represents a section of the document intended for navigation.

On what grounds was the addition of the nav element made? what was
lacking in HTML4?

>    *
>
>      figure can be used to associate a caption together with some
> embedded content, such as a graphic or video:
>
>      <figure>
>       <video src="ogg"></video>
>       <figcaption>Example</figcaption>
>      </figure>
>
>      figcaption provides the caption.
>
> Then there are several other new elements:
>
>    *
>
>      video and audio for multimedia content. Both provide an API so
> application authors can script their own user interface, but there is
> also a way to trigger a user interface provided by the user agent.
> source elements are used together with these elements if there are
> multiple streams available of different types.

 what was lacking in HTML4? Why use this over object?

>    *
>
>      embed is used for plugin content.
>    *
>
>      mark represents a run of marked text.

What's "marked text"?

<snip/>

> 3.2. New Attributes
>
> HTML5 has introduced several new attributes to various elements that
> were already part of HTML4:
>
>    *
>
>      The a and area elements now have a media attribute for
> consistency with the link element. It is purely advisory.

What does "purely advisory" mean?

>    *
>
>      The a and area elements have a new attribute called ping that
> specifies a space-separated list of URLs which have to be pinged when
> the hyperlink is followed. Currently user tracking is mostly done
> through redirects. This attribute allows the user agent to inform
> users which URLs are going to be pinged as well as giving
> privacy-conscious users a way to turn it off.
>    *
>
>      The area element, for consistency with the a and link elements,
> now also has the hreflang and rel attributes.

What does it do?

>    *
>
>      The base element can now have a target attribute as well, mainly
> for consistency with the a element. (This is already widely
> supported.)

s/a element. (T/a element (t

And put the stop outside the ")".

> Also, the target attribute for the a and area elements is
> no longer deprecated, as it is useful in Web applications, e.g. in
> conjunction with iframe.
>    *
>
>      The value attribute for the li element is no longer deprecated
> as it is not presentational. The same goes for the start attribute of
> the ol element.
>    *
>
>      The meta element has a charset attribute now as this was already
> widely supported and provides a nice way to specify the character
> encoding for the document.

nice way? you mean more compact?

>    *
>
>      A new autofocus attribute can be specified on the input (except
> when the type attribute is hidden), select, textarea and button
> elements. It provides a declarative way to focus a form control during
> page load. Using this feature should enhance the user experience as
> the user can turn it off if he does not like it, for instance.

s/he/they/; please be gender neutral.

>    *
>
>      A new placeholder attribute can be specified on the input and
> textarea elements.
>    *

What does it do?

>      The new form attribute for input, output, select, textarea,
> button and fieldset elements allows for controls to be associated with
> a form. I.e. these elements can now be placed anywhere on a page, not
> just as descendants of the form element.

The above is confusing - I had to read it a few times to get it. Maybe
include an example.

>    *
>
>      The new required attribute applies to input (except when the
> type attribute is hidden, image or some button type such as submit)
> and textarea. It indicates that the user has to fill in a value in
> order to submit the form.

What's the purpose? Does it block the user from submitting?

>    *
>
>      The fieldset element now allows the disabled attribute disabling
> all its contents when specified.

What does it mean "disabling all its content"? Maybe this should say
something about being able to interface with the element?

>    *
>
>      The input element has several new attributes to specify
> constraints: autocomplete, min, max, multiple, pattern and step. As
> mentioned before it also has a new list attribute which can be used
> together with the datalist element.

Why were these added?

>    *
>
>      The form element has a novalidate attribute that can be used to
> disable form validation submission (i.e. the form can always be
> submitted).

What does this do? is this a script thing?

>    *
>
>      The input and button elements have formaction, formenctype,
> formmethod, formnovalidate, and formtarget as new attributes. If
> present, they override the action, enctype, method, novalidate, and
> target attributes on the form element.

Why is this significant?

>    *
>
>      The menu element has two new attributes: type and label. They
> allow the element to transform into a menu as found in typical user
> interfaces as well as providing for context menus in conjunction with
> the global contextmenu attribute.

Why is this significant? You should probably talk a little about the
contextmenu attribute, as you have not yet discussed it in the
document. At least say you talk about it later.

>    *
>
>      The style element has a new scoped attribute which can be used
> to enable scoped style sheets. Style rules within such a style element
> only apply to the local tree.

What's a "scoped style sheet"?

>    *
>
>      The script element has a new attribute called async that
> influences script loading and execution.

How does it influence it? what for?

>    *
>
>      The html element has a new attribute called manifest that points
> to an application cache manifest used in conjunction with the API for
> offline Web applications.

What's an "application cache manifest"?

>    *
>
>      The link element has a new attribute called sizes. It can be
> used in conjunction with the icon relationship (set through the rel
> attribute) to indicate the size of the referenced icon.

What? icons in HTML? what's are these "icons"?

>    *
>
>      The ol element has a new attribute called reversed to indicate
> that the list order is descending when present.

s/present/presented ?

>    *
>
>      The iframe element has three new attributes called sandbox,
> seamless, and srcdoc which allow for sandboxing content, e.g. blog
> comments.

What does this do?

> Several attributes from HTML4 now apply to all elements. These are
> called global attributes: class, dir, id, lang, style, tabindex and
> title.
>
> There are also several new global attributes:

<snip>

>
> HTML5 also makes all event handler attributes from HTML4 that take the
> form onevent-name

s/that take the form onevent-name global/, which  take the form onevent-name,

> global attributes and adds several new event handler
> attributes for new events it defines,

Break the sentence here. It's too long.

> such as the play event which is
> used by the API for the media elements, video and audio.
> 3.3. Changed Elements
>
> These elements have slightly modified meanings in HTML5 to better
> reflect how they are used on the Web or to make them more useful:
>
>    *
>
>      The a element without an href attribute now represents a
> "placeholder link". It can also contain flow content rather than being
> restricted to phrase content.

What's a "placeholder link"? What's flow content?

>    *
>
>      The address element is now scoped by the new concept of sectioning.

scoped? What does that mean?

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      The b element now represents a span of text to be stylistically
> offset from the normal prose without conveying any extra importance,
> such as keywords in a document abstract, product names in a review, or
> other spans of text whose typical typographic presentation is
> emboldened.
>    *
>
>      The hr element now represents a paragraph-level thematic break.

"paragraph-level thematic break"? What's that? Is that a restriction?
Can't I user it wherever I want?

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      The i element now represents a span of text in an alternate
> voice or mood, or otherwise offset from the normal prose, such as a
> taxonomic designation, a technical term, an idiomatic phrase from
> another language, a thought, a ship name, or some other prose whose
> typical typographic presentation is italicized. Usage varies widely by
> language.

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      For the label element the browser should no longer move focus
> from the label to the control unless such behavior is standard for the
> underlying platform user interface.

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      The menu element is redefined to be useful for toolbars and context menus.

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      The small element now represents small print (for side comments
> and legal print).

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      The strong element now represents importance rather than strong emphasis.

What was it before (in HTML4)?

> 3.4. Changed attributes
>
> The following attributes are allowed but authors are strongly
> encouraged to not use them and instead use an alternative solution:

Better to say "strongly discouraged"? Strongly encouraging someone to
not do something seems strange to me.

>    *
>
>      The border attribute on img. It is required to have the value
> "0" when present. Authors can use CSS instead.

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      The language attribute on script. It is required to have the
> value "JavaScript" (case-insensitive) when present and cannot conflict
> with the type attribute. Authors can simply omit it as it has no
> useful function.

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      The name attribute on a. Authors can use the id attribute instead.

What was it before (in HTML4)?

>    *
>
>      The summary attribute on table. The HTML5 draft defines several
> alternative solutions.

Solutions to what? Please list them.

>
> 3.5. Absent Elements
>
> The elements in this section are not to be used by authors. User
> agents will still have to support them and various sections in HTML5
> define how. E.g. the obsolete isindex element is handled by the parser
> section.
>
> The following elements are not in HTML5 because their effect is purely
> presentational and their function is better handled by CSS:

(It's nice when you give clear rationale for decisions :) More like
the above would make this doc really useful )

<snip>

>
> The following elements are not in HTML5 because their usage affected
> usability and accessibility for the end user in a negative way:

In what negative way?

>    * frame
>    * frameset
>    * noframes

So what happens to these guys in a HTML5 UA?

> The following elements are not included because they have not been
> used often, created confusion, or their function can be handled by
> other elements:
>
>    * acronym is not included because it has created a lot of
> confusion. Authors are to use abbr for abbreviations.

Booh! jokes:)

>    * applet has been obsoleted in favor of object.
>    * isindex usage can be replaced by usage of form controls.
>    * dir has been obsoleted in favor of ul.
>
> Finally the noscript is

s/the noscript is/the noscript element is

<snip>

> 3.6. Absent Attributes
>
> Some attributes from HTML4 are no longer allowed in HTML5. If they
> need to have any impact on user agents for compatibility reasons it is
> defined how they should work in those scenarios.

Defined where? (e.g., as part of the parsing model?)

>    * rev and charset attributes on link and a.
>    * shape and coords attributes on a.
>    * longdesc attribute on img and iframe.
>    * target attribute on link.
>    * nohref attribute on area.
>    * profile attribute on head.
>    * version attribute on html.
>    * name attribute on img (use id instead).
>    * scheme attribute on meta.
>    * archive, classid, codebase, codetype, declare and standby
> attributes on object.
>    * valuetype and type attributes on param.
>    * axis and abbr attributes on td and th.
>    * scope attribute on td.

Why were all these dropped? I would like to know the rationale for each one.

<snip>

>
> 4. APIs
>
> HTML5 introduces a number of APIs that help in creating Web
> applications. These can be used together with the new elements
> introduced for applications:
>
>    * API for playing of video and audio which can be used with the
> new video and audio elements.

Be nice to link to it, or at least say what the interface is?

>    * An API that enables offline Web applications.

Be nice to link to it, or at least say what the interface is?

>    * An API that allows a Web application to register itself for
> certain protocols or media types.

Be nice to link to it, or at least say what the interface is?

>    * Editing API in combination with a new global contenteditable attribute.

Be nice to link to it, or at least say what the interface is?

>    * Drag & drop API in combination with a draggable attribute.

Be nice to link to it, or at least say what the interface is?

>    * API that exposes the history and allows pages to add to it to
> prevent breaking the back button.

Be nice to link to it, or at least say what the interface is?

> 4.1. Extensions to HTMLDocument
>
> HTML5 has extended the HTMLDocument interface from DOM Level 2 HTML in
> a number of ways. The interface is now implemented on all objects
> implementing the Document interface so it stays meaningful in a
> compound document context. It also has several noteworthy new members:
>
>    *
>
>      getElementsByClassName() to select elements by their class name.
> The way this method is defined will allow it to work for any content
> with class attributes and a Document object such as SVG and MathML.
>    *
>
>      innerHTML as an easy way to parse and serialize an HTML or XML
> document. This attribute was previously only available on HTMLElement
> in Web browsers and not part of any standard.
>
>    *
>
>      activeElement and hasFocus to determine which element is
> currently focused and whether the Document has focus respectively.
>    *
>
>      getSelection() which returns an object that represents the
> current selection(s).

Just text? or markup too?

> 4.2. Extensions to HTMLElement
>
> The HTMLElement interface has also gained several extensions in HTML5:
>
>    *
>
>      getElementsByClassName() which is basically a scoped version of
> the one found on HTMLDocument.

What does it mean, "a scoped version"?

>    *
>
>      innerHTML as found in Web browsers today. It is also defined to
> work in XML context (when it is used in an XML document).
>    *
>
>      classList is a convenient accessor for className. The object it
> returns exposes methods, has(), add(), remove() and toggle(), for

typo: returns exposes?

> manipulating the element's classes. The a, area and link elements have
> a similar attribute called relList that provides the same
> functionality for the rel attribute.

What is that used for?

> 5. HTML5 Changelogs
>
> The changelogs in this section indicate what has been changed between
> publications of the HTML5 drafts. Rationale for changes can be found
> in the public-html@w3.org and whatwg@whatwg.org mailing list archives
> and to some extent in the This Week in HTML5 series of blog posts.

And don't forget the "last week in HTML5" one too!;) I mean, if you
are plugging blog posts and all...

Kind regards,
Marcos



-- 
Marcos Caceres
http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Friday, 5 March 2010 11:34:53 UTC