Anything else you'd like to see?

The beta is out, and there’s still a lot to do. That said, what sort of things would you like to see covered? The goal of this book is to stay as close to the specifications as possible. and ideally, we’d only talk about stuff that we realistically can use right now. I’d love to hear about what you think is important.

I’m probably going to be picking this up shortly to look through the beta, and I know that you are talking about following the spec, but are you going to be highlighting browser differences for certain features? Or is it: “This is the way the spec rights, results may vary.”

Also, looking at the TOC, as the beta progresses are you going to be adding in more tips in each section as you go? For example eventually there will be a lot more than 2 “tips” under Canvas?

Each of the chapters lists where this stuff can be used, and I try very hard to provide solutions where we can use these things right now in browsers that don’t have great support yet.

As for the # of tips, I don’t see the # changing too much. I have a lot to cover in only 225 pages, so this book can’t get too deep in any one area. But I am open to suggestions.

I purchased the Book in beta version. It’s looking good from what I read through so far. Are you going to cover any js libraries in “1.2 Backwards Compatibility” like Moderizr, HTML5 shiv etc. that let you use HTML 5 tags like in browsers like IE that don’t have native support for the tag?

The only thing I found odd is the copyright notice to a basic HTML 5 document set-up on page 14, which is openly available and part of the HTML 5 spec and common knowledge. I understand adding that to samples of actual original code you provide though.

@David Friedberg:

Original draft did mention modernizer, but it’s no longer there. I will mention it in the book’s final draft because it is important, but most of the examples in the book show you how to do the backwards compatibility detection yourself. In the case of things like the “nav” element, you’ll see that in the first actual tip of the book, where you’ll use Javascript’s document.createElement to add support for styling those elements.

As for the copyright, it’s pretty standard practice from what I know, but the Pragmatic Bookshelf people will have to weigh in on that.

I hope you find the book helpful, and most of all, fun to read.

It’s been insightful so far, thorough detailed explanations and examples. I’m going to make my WordPress template in HTML5 so I’ll be using the information in your book right away. That’s why I asked about Modernizr, but a javascript graceful fail solution is the same I just wanted to be able to code my template entirely in HTML5 with no structural work arounds. I’m only in chapter two right now, but I’ll be going through it the next few days.

Your post is very impressive and informative. I have read it and agree with your views, ideas and opinions becasue it is the demand of the time. I am a web developer and working on a project of article directory, articleworlddb in these days. Therefore i am just putting short views here but after some days i shall go in details and provide complete information regarding the topic. Moreover i want to add some interesting things in my article directory as well.

Hello, I would like to know which HTML5 features you plan to cover. For instance, in the TOC I don’t see any mention to web workers, local devices and WebGL.
Also, I would like to know if you already wrote something in the web sockets tip.

Thank you.

Hi Stefano! Thanks for your interest. I’ll do my best to answer these:

• Websockets section is coming in the next two weeks.
• WebGL will be briefly mentioned, as will webworkers, in the last chapter. There’s no suitable fallback solutions for these and they are relatively new. WebGL isn’t even part of the W3C standard.

• Local devices – not sure what you mean by that. LocalStorage and Web SQL are covered already, we’re planning to release a section on working offline soon, and I’ll mention IndexDB in the last chapter.

I’m working to wrap up some CSS3 stuff for the next beta release, and then we’re moving to finish audio and video.

Hope that helps!

NaCL… I know it is a Chrome thing, but I believe this is going to catch on. ActiveX but more secure, and not dependent on your platform being Windows… Well maybe they make an app for windows. But there is nothing about NaCL that keeps it to one platform or another, like ActiveX could only be used on Windows machines only and IE.

NaCL isn’t going to make the cut. Sorry.

Was afraid you were going to say that, but had to try.
Glad there will be one section on WebGL at least though.

If we’re talking about designing web applications then maybe discussing more in-depth menus instead of just the couple of items you usually see on pages.

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-wo…

@David Mitchell

That’s not gonna make the cut. Menus aren’t part of HTML5 and aren’t supported yet in enough places… and as an app developer I really, really wish they were :)

So, is that link not the link to the spec? It says “HTML5 Draft Standard – 4 August 2010”

@David Mitchell

No, the link to the spec is this one:

http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#menus

And it looks like menus are in fact part of the W3C HTML5 specification, which is great and may be worth mentioning even if there’s no current support for them.

Thanks for bringing this up.