This section is non-normative.
The World Wide Web's markup language has always been HTML. HTML was primarily designed as a language for semantically describing scientific documents, although its general design and adaptations over the years has enabled it to be used to describe a number of other types of documents.
The main area that has not been adequately addressed by HTML is a vague subject referred to as Web Applications. This specification attempts to rectify this, while at the same time updating the HTML specifications to address issues raised in the past few years.
This section is non-normative.
This specification is intended for authors of documents and scripts that use the features defined in this specification, and implementors of tools that are intended to conform to this specification, and individuals wishing to establish the correctness of documents or implementations with respect to the requirements of this specification.
This document is probably not suited to readers who do not already have at least a passing familiarity with Web technologies, as in places it sacrifices clarity for precision, and brevity for completeness. More approachable tutorials and authoring guides can provide a gentler introduction to the topic.
In particular, readers should be familiar with the basics of DOM Core and DOM Events before reading this specification. An understanding of WebIDL, HTTP, XML, Unicode, character encodings, JavaScript, and CSS will be helpful in places but is not essential.
This section is non-normative.
This specification is limited to providing a semantic-level markup language and associated semantic-level scripting APIs for authoring accessible pages on the Web ranging from static documents to dynamic applications.
The scope of this specification does not include providing mechanisms for media-specific customization of presentation (although default rendering rules for Web browsers are included at the end of this specification, and several mechanisms for hooking into CSS are provided as part of the language).
The scope of this specification does not include documenting
every HTML or DOM feature supported by Web browsers. Browsers
support many features that are considered to be very bad for
accessibility or that are otherwise inappropriate. For example, the
blink element is clearly presentational and authors
wishing to cause text to blink should instead use CSS.
The scope of this specification is not to describe an entire operating system. In particular, hardware configuration software, image manipulation tools, and applications that users would be expected to use with high-end workstations on a daily basis are out of scope. In terms of applications, this specification is targeted specifically at applications that would be expected to be used by users on an occasional basis, or regularly but from disparate locations, with low CPU requirements. For instance online purchasing systems, searching systems, games (especially multiplayer online games), public telephone books or address books, communications software (e-mail clients, instant messaging clients, discussion software), document editing software, etc.
This section is non-normative.
Work on HTML5 originally started in late 2003, as a proof of concept to show that it was possible to extend HTML4's forms to provide many of the features that XForms 1.0 introduced, without requiring browsers to implement rendering engines that were incompatible with existing HTML Web pages. At this early stage, while the draft was already publicly available, and input was already being solicited from all sources, the specification was only under Opera Software's copyright.
In early 2004, some of the principles that underlie this effort, as well as an early draft proposal covering just forms-related features, were presented to the W3C jointly by Mozilla and Opera at a workshop discussing the future of Web Applications on the Web. The proposal was rejected on the grounds that the proposal conflicted with the previously chosen direction for the Web's evolution.
Shortly thereafter, Apple, Mozilla, and Opera jointly announced their intent to continue working on the effort. A public mailing list was created, and the drafts were moved to the WHATWG site. The copyright was subsequently amended to be jointly owned by all three vendors, and to allow reuse of the specifications.
In 2006, the W3C expressed interest in the specification, and created a working group chartered to work with the WHATWG on the development of the HTML5 specifications. The working group opened in 2007. Apple, Mozilla, and Opera allowed the W3C to publish the specifications under the W3C copyright, while keeping versions with the less restrictive license on the WHATWG site.
Since then, both groups have been working together.
This section is non-normative.
This specification represents a new version of HTML4, along with a new version of the associated DOM2 HTML API. Migration from HTML4 to the format and APIs described in this specification should in most cases be straightforward, as care has been taken to ensure that backwards-compatibility is retained. [HTML4] [DOM2HTML]
This section is non-normative.
This specification is intended to replace XHTML 1.0 as the normative definition of the XML serialization of the HTML vocabulary. [XHTML10]
While this specification updates the semantics and requirements of the vocabulary defined by XHTML Modularization 1.1 and used by XHTML 1.1, it does not attempt to provide a replacement for the modularization scheme defined and used by those (and other) specifications, and therefore cannot be considered a complete replacement for them. [XHTMLMOD] [XHTML11]
Thus, authors and implementors who do not need such a modularization scheme can consider this specification a replacement for XHTML 1.x, but those who do need such a mechanism are encouraged to continue using the XHTML 1.1 line of specifications.
This section is non-normative.
XHTML2 defines a new vocabulary with features for hyperlinks, multimedia content, annotating document edits, rich metadata, declarative interactive forms, and describing the semantics of human literary works such as poems and scientific papers. [XHTML2]
XForms similarly defines a new vocabulary with features for complex data entry, such as tax forms or insurance forms.
However, XHTML2 and XForms lack features to express the semantics of many of the non-document types of content often seen on the Web. For instance, they are not well-suited for marking up forum sites, auction sites, search engines, online shops, mapping applications, e-mail applications, word processors, real-time strategy games, and the like.
This specification aims to extend HTML so that it is also suitable in these contexts.
XHTML2, XForms, and this specification all use different namespaces and therefore can all be implemented in the same XML processor.
This section is non-normative.
This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use this language.
The in-memory representation is known as "DOM5 HTML", or "the DOM" for short.
There are various concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this abstract language, two of which are defined in this specification.
The first such concrete syntax is "HTML5". This is the format
recommended for most authors. It is compatible with all legacy Web
browsers. If a document is transmitted with the MIME type text/html, then it will be processed as an "HTML5"
document by Web browsers.
The second concrete syntax uses XML, and is known as
"XHTML5". When a document is transmitted with an XML MIME type, such
as application/xhtml+xml, then it is processed
by an XML processor by Web browsers, and treated as an "XHTML5"
document. Authors are reminded that the processing for XML and HTML
differs; in particular, even minor syntax errors will prevent an XML
document from being rendered fully, whereas they would be ignored in
the "HTML5" syntax.
The "DOM5 HTML", "HTML5", and "XHTML5" representations cannot all
represent the same content. For example, namespaces cannot be
represented using "HTML5", but they are supported in "DOM5 HTML" and
"XHTML5". Similarly, documents that use the noscript
feature can be represented using "HTML5", but cannot be represented
with "XHTML5" and "DOM5 HTML". Comments that contain the string
"-->" can be represented in "DOM5 HTML" but
not in "HTML5" and "XHTML5". And so forth.
This section is non-normative.
This specification is divided into the following major sections:
There are also a couple of appendices, defining rendering rules for Web browsers and listing areas that are out of scope for this specification.
This specification should be read like all other specifications. First, it should be read cover-to-cover, multiple times. Then, it should be read backwards at least once. Then it should be read by picking random sections from the contents list and following all the cross-references.
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