HTML 5 for Desktop and Mobile

First day at Web 2.0 Expo in New York - Alex Russell from Google presented HTML5 for the Desktop and Mobile. Cool presentation, I think this is the way of seeing and doing things for the new generation of Web applications.

Today's browsers have a lot of problems related to HTML rendering: compatibility, slow requests, JavaScript execution flow. We have to find a way to optimise everything.

Most modern browsers are implementing a set of HTML5 tools for improved overall performance and fast rendering, ultimately improving user experience. Most problems are coming from IE (versions 6 to 8), in order to move forward we have to be develop for modern browsers (including IE9 and IE<=8 with Chrome frame plugin). If we continue to support old technologies the user experience will not be better.

HTML5 comes to the rescue, significantly reducing requests and scripting:

• semantic tags (header, footer, nav section etc.)
• new input tags (slider, search input, masked input)
• canvas tag and canvas JavaScript API allowing all kind of animations and complex drawing

CSS3 helps a lot also:

• rounded corners
• animations
• multiple backgrounds
• gradients
• shadows

A lot can be done using the latest version of JavaScript (EC5), including improved selectors using querySelectorAll.

More to come about this topic in the following days!