1/2D drawing API, which can be used on a new canvas element to render images, game graphics, or other running visual graphics.
2/A API that promises a web application to register itself as a protocol or MIME type.
3/A API that introduces a new caching mechanism to support offline web applications.
4/ An API that can play videos and audio, can use new video and audio elements.
5/A History API, which can expose the history being browsed, and the promise page can better implement back button support in AJAX applications after adding it.
6/Message across documents, which provides a way for documents to communicate with each other without considering their source domains, 7/ To some extent, such design is designed to prevent cross-site scripting attacks.
8/A API that supports drag and drop operations can be associated with draggable features.
9/ An API that supports editing operations can be associated with a new global contenteditable feature.
10/A new network API that supports web applications to communicate with each other on the local network and maintain bidirectional communication on their source servers.
Use key/value pairs of JavaScript API to implement persistent storage of clients, and also support embedded SQL databases.
The events sent by the server can be associated with a new event-source element. The new event source element is conducive to persistent connection with remote data sources and greatly eliminates the need for polling in web applications.
At the same time, HTML 5 also introduced many new representation elements to support ordinary page components, such as headers, footers, figures (illustration), dialog (dialog, used to mark sessions) and navigation (navigation). In addition, there is a new datagrid element that supports interactive tables and trees, a datalist element provided for combo boxes, and a progress feature, which can show the completion of a long-running task. At the same time, page tags that support RSS seeds are added.
For forms, the type type of the input element contains new support for dates, time, emails and URLs, so that the browser can provide user interface elements, such as a calendar date selector or integration with user address book, and can also submit data to the server in a defined format.
HTML 5 also abandons support for some well-known features. The most notable of these is the abandonment of support for frames, because frameworks have long been considered to undermine accessibility and usability of web pages. It is worth noting that even if the browser fully supports the HTML 5 standard, it will continue to support these abandoned features, as support for older HTML versions will last for many years.
HTML 5 was developed under the guidance of the W3C's HTML Working Group, which was established in March 2007. The operation of the Working Group is fully public and includes members from Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Mozilla Foundation, Nokia and Opera among nearly 500 participants.
There is no doubt that HTML is a very important standard, said Tim Berners-Lee, the author of the first HTML version and W3C director. I am excited to see the developer community, including browser providers, working together to create the best trajectory of the web. It is a difficult task to integrate the ideas of so many people, and the challenge we face is to find a balance between innovation and success, ideals and pragmatism.
HTML 5 will gradually replace HTML 4, but the finalization of HTML 5 specifications is still a long way to go. The current plan is to initially use it as a candidate for recommendation during 2009, and then be implemented as the final official version in September 2010.
By Charles Humble
Translator Zhang Yi