News Release: World Wide Web Consortium Issues DOM Level 2 HTML as a W3C Recommendation

Today, W3C announces the completion of DOM Level 2 HTML, a platform- and
language-neutral interface that will allow programs and scripts to
dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of HTML
and XHTML 1.0 documents. For more information, please contact Janet
Daly, +1 617 253 5884, janet@w3.org.

Web Resources

    Press Release
	http://www.w3.org/2003/01/doml2html-pressrelease

    Testimonials from ATSC, Corel, Konqueror, Netscape and NIST
	http://www.w3.org/2003/01/doml2html-testimonial

    DOM Level 2 HTML Specification
	http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-DOM-Level-2-HTML-20030109/


World Wide Web Consortium Issues DOM Level 2 HTML as a W3C Recommendation

New Technology Delivers Standard API and Dynamism to HTML and XHTML 1.0

http://www.w3.org/ -- 9 January 2003 -- Leading the Web to its full
potential, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today published the
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 HTML as a W3C Recommendation. The
specification reflects cross-industry agreement on a standard API
(Application Programming Interface) for manipulating HTML and XHTML 1.0
documents and data through a programming language (such as Java or
ECMAScript). A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is
stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by
the W3C Membership, who favor its adoption by the industry.

DOM Level 2 HTML Makes Scripting Easier, More Reliable

"Dynamic HTML" is a term used by some vendors to describe the
combination of HTML, style sheets and scripts that allows documents to
be animated. The Document Object Model - abbreviated as DOM - is a
platform- and language-neutral interface that will allow programs and
scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and
style of documents.

Over the years, W3C has developed a uniform way in which the object
model of HTML documents should be exposed to scripts. The W3C DOM
Working Group makes sure interoperable and scripting-language neutral
solutions are agreed upon, beginning with a suite of initial work on DOM
Level 1, in 1998. The majority of DOM Level 2 was completed in 2000, but
DOM Level 2 Model for HTML and XHTML 1.0 documents required further
work. With the publication of the W3C DOM Level 2 Recommendation, that
work is now complete.

DOM Level 2 HTML provides the interface that gives programs and scripts
a standard way to navigate, transform and update both HTML and XHTML 1.0
documents. Wherever you use HTML or XHTML 1.0, you can use the DOM to
manipulate it.

DOM Level 2 HTML Has Vigorous Implementation Experience and Test Suites

To ensure the usefulness and viability of W3C specifications, W3C
Working Groups are required to provide both implementation reports and
test suites which can be used by developers to begin to test their own
software. In the case of DOM Level 2 HTML, the Working Group produced a
test suite with well over 500 individual tests, launched jointly with
the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),
which are free for any developer to use.

The DOM Test Suites, which include significant developer community
contributions, give browser authors the opportunity to test their
software against the developing set of tests and make adjustments to
code. More changes to the test suites are forthcoming, now that the DOM
Level 2 HTML Recommendation is complete.

Industry and Developer Support Key to DOM Level 2 HTML

Key industry players currently bringing their expertise to the W3C DOM
Working Group include Arbortext, Corel, IBM, Netscape, Oracle, and
X-Hive. W3C Members and other implementors are already providing support
for DOM Level 2 HTML, as indicated in the testimonials. The DOM Working
Group is currently at work developing DOM Level 3, the next layer of
functionality for DOM.


Testimonials from ATSC, Corel,Konqueror, Netscape and NIST are also
available on the Web at
http://www.w3.org/2003/01/doml2html-testimonial

Testimonials for DOM Level 2 HTML
These testimonials are in support of the W3C DOM Level 2 HTML
Recommendation.

ATSC | Corel Corporation | Konqueror/KDE | Netscape/AOL | NIST

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is an international,
non-profit organization developing voluntary standards for digital
television. We are very pleased to see the successful finalization of
the DOM Level 2 HTML Specification as a W3C Recommendation. This
specification completes the set of functionality envisioned for DOM
Level 2, providing valuable features to support XHTML based document and
user interface manipulations. The ATSC has normatively adopted a core
subset of the DOM Level 2 HTML Specification for use in our DASE (DTV
Application Software Environment) Standard, and we expect to see
significant implementation activity and deployment of this technology in
the terrestrial, cable, and satellite television markets. The ATSC was
pleased to make a number of contributions to this work, and we will
continue to contribute as this technology is deployed and evolves.

-- Mark S. Richer, President, Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC)

The DOM Level 2 HTML recommendation is a significant event in the
development of key specifications for interacting with XML information.
As members of the working group, we are pleased to have played a role in
authoring this specification, enabling common approaches that
applications can use to work with XML content. Standards such as DOM are
highly beneficial and complementary to Corel's philosophy -- promoting
open standards and XML as the ideal format for easily creating, re-using
and distributing content.

-- Dr. Bruce Sharpe, Executive Vice President of XML Content Solutions,
Corel Corporation

The Konqueror team is delighted to see DOM Level 2 HTML evolving to a
standard. We believe in the need for such standards and have always
tried to support them. For our upcoming release of Konqueror, which will
be shipping with KDE 3.1, our goal is to be 100% compliant with DOM
Level 2 HTML.

-- Lars Knoll, Konqueror Development Team, Konqueror

The W3C DOM HTML Level 2 standard represents important advances
including better description of existing browsers, support for XHTML,
and a much higher-quality standard than has been produced before thanks
to a compliance test suite. Netscape is strongly committed to supporting
this new level of standard along with other web standards because they
are the foundation for interactive web content. We will continue to work
within the W3C to define fundamental web standards such as the DOM Level
2 HTML and to support these standards in the Mozilla browser as well as
in products based upon it such as the recent Netscape 7 browser.

-- Laura Yecies, Vice-President of Client Product Development, Netscape

NIST is very pleased to see the release of DOM Level 2 HTML. As the lead
architect of the DOM Level 2 HTML test suite, we're proud of the fact
that, not only is this recommendation being implemented by browser
developers, but it is being implemented correctly. As a result of using
the test suite, implementers are discovering their errors at an early
stage, and releasing subsequent versions, that implement these features
correctly. Consequently, the public gets to use higher quality software.

-- Mark Skall, Chief of the Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing
Division, NIST

For more information about the World Wide Web Consortium, see
http://www.w3.org/


Contact Americas, Australia --
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613Contact
Europe --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94Contact Asia --
Saeko Takeuchi <saeko@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170





About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing
common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run
by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the USA, the
European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM)
headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided
by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World
Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample
applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, nearly 450
organizations are Members of the Consortium. For more information see
http://www.w3.org/

--

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Janet Daly, Head of Communications
MIT/LCS NE43-363
200 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA

voice: +1.617.253.5884
fax:   +1.617.258.5999
http://www.w3.org/
janet@w3.org

Received on Thursday, 9 January 2003 10:00:42 UTC