This Week in HTML 5 - Episode 1
August 6th, 2008 by Mark Pilgrim, Google
Welcome to a new semi-regular column, "This Week in HTML 5," where I'll try to summarize the major activity in the ongoing standards process in the WHATWG and W3C HTML Working Group.
The biggest news is the birth of the Web Workers draft specification. Quoting the spec, "This specification defines an API that allows Web application authors to spawn background workers running scripts in parallel to their main page. This allows for thread-like operation with message-passing as the coordination mechanism." This is the standardization of the API that Google Gears pioneered last year. See also: initial Workers thread, announcement of new spec, response to Workers feedback.
Also notable this week: even more additions to the Requirements for providing text to act as an alternative for images. 4 new cases were added:
Additionally, the spec now tries to define what authors should do if they know they have an image but don't know what it is. Quoting again from the spec:
If the src attribute is set and the alt attribute is set to a string whose first character is a U+007B LEFT CURLY BRACKET character ({) and whose last character is a U+007D RIGHT CURLY BRACKET character (}), the image is a key part of the content, and there is no textual equivalent of the image available. The string consisting of all the characters between the first and the last character of the value of the alt attribute gives the kind of image (e.g. photo, diagram, user-uploaded image). If that value is the empty string (i.e. the attribute is just "{}"), then even the kind of image being shown is not known.
See also: revision 1972, revision 1976, revision 1978, revision 1979, Images and alternate text.
Other interesting changes this week:
window.top revision 1956: "User agents must not run executable code embedded in the image resource." revision 1958: more notes on what is a valid image (a surprisingly difficult question) revision 1965: allow <a> elements to straddle paragraphs revision 1998: define what happens when you set onclick='' on a document outside a Window revision 1999: define javascript: in Window-less environments revision 2001: define 'directionality' in terms of the dir='' attribute for cases where the 'direction' property has no computed value revision 2002: define processing for the second argument to getDataURL() for image/jpeg revision 2004: specify how to handle transparent images in the toDataURL() method revision 2008: make patterns required in the <canvas> API revision 2016: when <script type=''> is given, it must match the type of the script, even if the script is Javascript revision 2019: remove autosubmit='' from the <menu> elementTune in next week for another exciting episode of "This Week in HTML 5."
August 6th, 2008 at 22:22
A nice summary for those of us who haven’t got enough time to keep up with the mailing lists. Thanks
Marcos Says:August 7th, 2008 at 06:28
Yeah, thanks Mark! this is great.
Andy Says:August 7th, 2008 at 08:27
Thanks Mark
Ajaxian » This Week in HTML 5: Mark Pilgrim’s new blog series Says:August 7th, 2008 at 13:24
[...] Open Web, writer extraordinaire, and creator of Google Doctype) has started the series This Week in HTML 5 which aims to keep us up to speed on the spec, and progress across the board (what are browsers [...]
Peter Says:August 7th, 2008 at 16:12
Separate feed for this series please Mark?
Lachlan Hunt Says:August 7th, 2008 at 16:46
Peter, it’s certainly possible to create a separate feed for this series. We could add a new category specifically for this series, in which case, you just subscribe to the feed
/category/whatever/feed.Mark, you should be able to create a category for them called whatever you like if you want to do it that way. If not, I can set it up for you.
Brad Fults Says:August 7th, 2008 at 16:51
This series is a great idea. Thanks for the first installment.
Peter Says:August 7th, 2008 at 20:15
Lachlan, thanks very much. I’d like to follow what’s happening but don’t have the time to read all posts (so a weekly roundup will be great!)
html5 « Cyberer’s Weblog Says:August 7th, 2008 at 21:11
[...] im Blog der WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) eine Serie angefangen: This Week in HTML 5. Jetzt ist auch mir klar, dass das noch ein ganzes Stück dauern wird. Veröffentlicht [...]
bruce Says:August 8th, 2008 at 10:50
Seconding request for new category so I ca subscribe to the feed.
Jason Says:August 8th, 2008 at 17:45
{} is for unknown stuff? very dogdy sounding. What if someone actually has an image of {} or {captcha} etc — yes, ideally text should not be in graphics, but what if this is needed where say someone is showing how this text looks in a new font they are designing or whatever?
Surely an additional attribute to the image element is the best structural way to do this? Something like an attribute called purpose? or rel? Or is this another case of the xml haters trying to avoid more xml-based solutions to these problems!
Kroc Camen Says:August 9th, 2008 at 06:35
Nice to find this, I’ve got an HTML5 website and need to keep up with the times.
Derek O'Brien Says:August 9th, 2008 at 21:37
I also call for requesting new category so I can subscribe to the feed.
Jacob Rus Says:August 10th, 2008 at 13:55
Peter, Bruce, Derek: try http://pipes.yahoo.com/jrus/this_week_in_html5?_render=rss
The WHATWG Blog » Blog Archive » This Week in HTML 5 - Episode 2 Says:August 14th, 2008 at 15:40
[...] continuing saga of the alt attribute, the new syntax for alternate text of auto-generated images (which I covered in last week’s episode) has generated some followup discussion. Philip Taylor is concerned that it will increase [...]
Mark Pilgrim Says:August 14th, 2008 at 16:39
A series-specific feed is now available: http://blog.whatwg.org/category/weekly-review/feed
Ajaxian » This Week in HTML 5: Navigator standardization, Worker, and more Says:August 14th, 2008 at 16:58
[...] continuing saga of the alt attribute, the new syntax for alternate text of auto-generated images (which I covered in last week’s episode) has generated some followup discussion. Philip Taylor is concerned that it will increase [...]
Bookmarks about W3c Says:September 21st, 2008 at 04:15
[...] - bookmarked by 6 members originally found by durf on 2008-08-28 This Week in HTML 5 - Episode 1 http://blog.whatwg.org/this-week-in-html5-episode-1 - bookmarked by 3 members originally found by [...]