W3C Open Source Software – News for 2026

html-xml-utils 8.8

2025-06-09 Version 8.8 of the HTML-XML-utils fixes a bug in hxindex where a function read beyond the end of a string, potentially leading to a crash or to spurious index terms being added.

hxindex now also allows to change the delimiters for alternative terms (“|”) and subterms (“!!”) via command line options -A and -S.

hxwls now recognizes the <embed> element and outputs the URL in the src attribute.

b6+ version 1.173

2026-06-04 B6+, the slide framework, has some minor bug fixes:

• Handle the case that the slide deck doesn't have a URL (because it is running in an iframe with a srcdoc attribute).
• Don't exit when an exception occurs when trying to capture the Escape key.
• When a slide deck contains dulicate ID attributes, don't replace them, but just append a unique number to them. This should make debugging easier for authors.
• The documentation now mentions the existance of tools for authors: prezento (reStructuredtext), md-editor (MarkDown) and b6+ slide editor (WYSIWYG)

b6+ version 1.166

2026-01-24 B6+, the slide framework has some improvements:

• By default, b6+ does not set role=application anymore. In most screen readers, this results in better accessibility, while still allowing b6+'s keys to work.
• Still for users of screen readers: The N key now cycles through speaking the speaker notes, the next slide, the current incremental item (if any), and the current slide.
• B6+ now tries to avoid that invisible elements in a live region accidentally get focus.
• When a table of contents (ToC) is opened (with the C key), the current slide is highlighted in the ToC.
• When a ToC is open, the Escape key now closes that ToC, rather than exiting full-screen mode and stopping the slide show. (So far only on recent Firefox and Chrome.)
• Keys to navigate the slides now work even if an element on a slide has the focus (unless the key has a function in that element).
• The duration of automatic slide shows can now be a fractional number of seconds, minutes or hours (e.g.: “10.3s”).
• Automatic font size reduction (class “textfit”) and image scaling (class “autosize”) now work also if the styles for slide mode and index mode differ.
• A new custom property “--progress0” is available for style sheet writers. It is similar to the “--progress” property, but starts at 0 for the first slide.