W3C is pleased to launch a new edition of its JavaScript online course, to help Web developers master good JavaScript practices and avoid the pitfalls of the language. The course is 4 weeks long, to start on 17 March 2014. This course is a condensed set of tricks, advice, tools and good practices built around JavaScript, with a logical flow that is always illustrated by examples and assignments. JavaScript is one of the three major Web developer tools, along with HTML5 and CSS3, so register before February 27 to benefit from the early bird rate.

Register now to the upcoming W3C HTML5 online course, to start 27 March 2014. Acclaimed trainer Michel Buffa will cover the techniques developers and designers need to create great Web pages and apps. This course edition features additional advanced sections on time based animation, 2D geometric transformations, Web Audio API, etc., all illustrated by numerous examples. Register before February 27 to benefit from the early bird rate.

Learn more about W3DevCampus, the W3C online training for Web developers.

The CSS Working Group and the SVG Working Group have published a Working Draft of CSS Masking Module Level 1. CSS Masking provides two means for partially or fully hiding portions of visual elements: masking and clipping. Masking describes how to use another graphical element or image as a luminance or alpha mask. Typically, rendering an element via CSS or SVG can conceptually be described as if the element, including its children, are drawn into a buffer and then that buffer is composited into the element’s parent. Luminance and alpha masks influence the transparency of this buffer before the compositing stage. Clipping describes the visible region of visual elements. The region can be described by using certain SVG graphics elements or basic shapes. Anything outside of this region is not rendered. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Learn more about the Style Activity and the Graphics Activity.

The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 (Second Edition). This document is the specification of the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) format. EXI is a very compact representation for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Information Set that is intended to simultaneously optimize performance and the utilization of computational resources. The EXI format uses a hybrid approach drawn from the information and formal language theories, plus practical techniques verified by measurements, for entropy encoding XML information. Using a relatively simple algorithm, which is amenable to fast and compact implementation, and a small set of datatype representations, it reliably produces efficient encodings of XML event streams. The grammar production system and format definition of EXI are presented. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Math Working Group has published two Proposed Edited Recommendations today:

• Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0 2nd Edition. This specification defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. MathML is a markup language for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. Comments are welcome through 11 March.
• XML Entity Definitions for Characters (2nd Edition). This document defines several sets of names, so that to each name is assigned a Unicode character or sequence of characters. Each of these sets is expressed as a file of XML entity declarations. Comments are welcome through 11 March.

Learn more about the Math Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Shapes Module Level 1. CSS Shapes describe geometric shapes for use in CSS. For Level 1, CSS Shapes can be applied to floats. A circle shape on a float will cause inline content to wrap around the circle shape instead of the float’s bounding box. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Comments are welcome through 04 March. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Device APIs Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Vibration API. This specification defines an API that provides access to the vibration mechanism of the hosting device. Vibration is a form of tactile feedback. Comments are welcome through 04 March. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

The SVG Working Group has published a Working Draft of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2. This specification defines the features and syntax for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Version 2, a language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics. Although an XML serialization is given, processing is defined in terms of a DOM. Learn more about the Graphics Activity.

The Web Application Security Working Group has published a Working Draft of Content Security Policy 1.1. This document defines a policy language used to declare a set of content restrictions for a web resource, and a mechanism for transmitting the policy from a server to a client where the policy is enforced. Learn more about the Security Activity.

The Web Performance Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Navigation Error Logging. This specification defines an interface to store and retrieve error data related to the previous navigations of a document. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Protocols and Formats Working Group (PFWG) today published Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 and the WAI-ARIA 1.0 User Agent Implementation Guide as Proposed Recommendations. WAI-ARIA is a technical specification for making dynamic, interactive Web content accessible to people with disabilities. WAI-ARIA and supporting documents are described in the WAI-ARIA Overview. Comments are welcome by 7 March 2014. More information is provided in the WAI-ARIA 1.0 is Proposed Recommendation e-mail. Read about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

The XML Processing Model Working Group has published a Working Group Note of XML processor profiles. This specification defines several XML processor profiles, each of which defines how any given XML document should be processed, both operationally and in terms of what information must be made available to applications. It is intended as a resource for other specifications, which can by a single normative reference establish precisely what input processing they require as well as what information they require. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

W3C announced today a workshop on digital annotations for the Web, part of our ongoing effort on enhancing the Web experience.

Annotating is the act of creating associations between distinct pieces of information. Annotation is a ubiquitous activity online in many guises: comments on articles, footnotes, sticky notes, “hot spots” on images, timestamped notes on video or audio tracks, highlighted text passages in ebook readers, evocative pictures attached to song lyrics, quotes and links on social media, and even tagged bookmarks, are all forms of annotation. One of the most common and engaging Web activities for the average person is discussion of a document or piece of media.

Many projects and companies are now turning to annotations to solve a variety of issues with communication on the Web, and is of particular interest to the education, research, and digital publishing industries. To address these needs, W3C’s Web Annotations workshop will focus on identifying standardization priorities for chartering a potential Web Annotations Working Group, on such topics as:

• Robust anchoring to dynamic third-party documents
• Styling selections and annotations
• Data models
• Federation and syndication
• Web storage and management of annotations
• Client side APIs and methods for the implementation of annotation systems
• Practical experience with annotation systems
• Annotation of data

W3C membership is not required to participate. The event is open to all, but all participants are required to submit a position paper or statement of interest by 28 February 2014.

The HTML Working Group has updated a Candidate Recommendation, published two Last Call Working Drafts, updated a Working Draft and a Working Group Note today:

• Updated Candidate Recommendation of HTML5. This specification defines the 5th major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web: the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In this version, new features are introduced to help Web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability.
• Last Call Working Draft of Polyglot Markup: A robust profile of the HTML5 vocabulary. A document that uses polyglot markup is a document that is a stream of bytes that parses into identical document trees (with some exceptions, as noted in the Introduction) when processed either as HTML or when processed as XML. Polyglot markup that meets a well-defined set of constraints is interpreted as compatible, regardless of whether it is processed as HTML or as XHTML, per the HTML5 specification. Polyglot markup uses a specific DOCTYPE, namespace declarations, and a specific case—normally lower case but occasionally camel case—for element and attribute names. Polyglot markup uses lower case for certain attribute values. Further constraints include those on void elements, named entity references, and the use of scripts and style. Comments are welcome through 25 February 2014.
• Last Call Working Draft of W3C DOM4. DOM defines a platform-neutral model for events and document nodes. Comments are welcome through 4 March 2014.
• Updated Working Draft of HTML 5.1. This specification defines the 5th major version, first minor revision of the core language of the World Wide Web: the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In this version, new features continue to be introduced to help Web application authors, new elements continue to be introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention continues to be given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability.
• Working Group Note of W3C HTML Ruby Markup Extensions. The ruby markup model currently described in the HTML specification is limited in its support for a number of features, notably jukugo and double-sided ruby, as well as inline ruby. This specification addresses these issues by introducing new elements and changing the ruby processing model. Specific care has been taken to ensure that authoring remains as simple as possible.

Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3 for the purpose of updating the previous Candidate Recommendation. This module replaces two earlier drafts: CSS3 Backgrounds and CSS3 Border. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. This draft contains the features of CSS level 3 relating to borders and backgrounds. It includes and extends the functionality of CSS level 2, which builds on CSS level 1. The main extensions compared to level 2 are borders consisting of images, boxes with multiple backgrounds, boxes with rounded corners and boxes with shadows. Comments are welcome through 3 March 2014. Learn more about the Style Activity.