How to store website data with HTML5

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Throughout your web browsing careers I’m sure you’ve come across the notion of cookies, pieces of text stored by the browser to be retrieved and used at a later date. These vary from simply remembering your name to welcome you personally next time you visit, to more complicated storage of authentication and shopping-cart contents.

Cookies generally work well but can be fiddly to implement, as they are set to be deleted by default once the browser is closed. If a website owner needs the data to be stored for a longer period, a cookie can be given an expiry date. Again this isn’t as clean as it could be: how far into the future do you set the date, for example? And what happens when a user flushes out their cookies?

HTML5 attempts to clean this up with the introduction of web storage.

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Adding audio to your website with HTML5

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

With all the furore around the HTML5 video element, the poor audio element sits in the background wondering what it’s done wrong to receive so little attention. So in an attempt to redress the balance, I’m going to show you how you can stream audio to your website visitors without any additional plugins.

As with the video element, in the past the only method of embedding audio files into a web page was to use Flash or another third-party plugin. There simply was no other way. With the introduction of the audio element, this has changed.

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Seven of the best HTML5 resources

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

There are plenty of articles out there that explain the principles of HTML5, including Davey Winder’s Everything you need to know about HTML5.

But how do you actually go about using it? This article introduces my recommended list of HTML5 resource websites, where a large number of tutorials, experiments, information and examples on using the various bits and pieces of HTML5 can be found.

HTML5 Doctor is a collaboration featuring some of the top advocates of HTML5, notably Bruce Lawson, Remy Sharp, and Rick Clark.  On the site you’ll find articles relating to HTML5, its semantics, and most importantly, how to use it right now. In addition, they also invite users to ask questions which they answer at regular intervals.

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The fundamental differences between Flash and HTML (and the real reasons that Steve Jobs wants to kill it)

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Recently I’ve been making the case that Steve Jobs’ refusal to allow Flash near the iPhone, iPod and iPad isn’t an inconsequential squabble but rather a fundamental attack on the very future of web-based design and development.

At first sight, the argument may well look perverse. After all, everyone knows that Flash is a proprietary and binary add-on format for web pages that has led to some appalling design excesses and is increasingly, and rightly, being flushed out of common web page usage (as when Flash rollovers were replaced by CSS). OK the format has currently found a niche delivering video, but really it’s an outdated technology ready to be put out to pasture by the brand-new, open standard, video-enabled, “Flash-killing” HTML5.

In this version of the story, Steve Jobs is simply doing everyone a favour by speeding the take-up of HTML5 and the inevitable purging of Flash from the Web. However underlying Job’s anti-Flash argument and most people’s thinking on the subject is a mistaken assumption (or carefully calculated deception in the case of Jobs). Most people assume that HTML will inevitably evolve to be able to do everything that Flash can; simply make HTML and the browser more powerful and the need for add-ons like Flash evaporates. Why do it in the player with a closed format when you can do it in the browser with open standards?

In fact Flash is a fundamentally different technology to HTML and can do things that HTML can’t and never will.

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The confusion surrounding HTML5

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

There seems to be a lot of confusion lately with regards to what HTML5 actually is. Those in the web development community generally have a good idea of what it entails, if not the nitty-gritty, at least what it may contain. Not so outside of the web development world.

As generally tends to happen, external parties grab hold of these new phrases, half-heartedly look into what they mean, jumble them together and cause a wave of confusion. The latest wave is the lumping together of HTML5 and CSS3 into the general heading of HTML5. (more…)

The top 10 HTML5 sites dissected

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

HTML5 might be a new and emerging technology – heck, the specification isn’t even completely decided yet – but there are plenty of websites out there that are already taking advantage of HTML5 features, and have been for some time. I converted my personal site to be HTML5 compliant back in December 2009.

There are several HTML5 gallery sites currently knocking about (HTML5 Gallery and 101 Best HTML5 Sites to name just two). Here, I’m going to examine 10 HTML5 websites and briefly describe what new  features they are using. Some of these sites are favourites of mine, others have been included because of the new HTML5 features they take advantage of.

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Adding video to your website with HTML5

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

In the first of his blogs for PC Pro, web developer Ian Devlin reveals how to embed video into your website with HTML5

Probably the biggest and most talked about feature of HTML5 is embedded video. Currently, the only method of adding video content to your website is with a third-party plugin such as Flash, QuickTime or RealPlayer. With the dawn of HTML5 and the video element this will all change, with video support being handled by the web browser, doing away with the need for any third party support.

Several web browsers already offer support for HTML5. Here we’re going to reveal how you can embed plugin-free video into your site and the issues you’ll face.

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