W3C Moves HTML 5 Standard to ‘Last Call’

Earlier this week the W3C announced that it had extended the charter of the HTML Working Group, including clear milestones for HTML5. HTML 5 is the next version of the platform-neutral HyperText Markup Language standard used worldwide for rendering Web pages, and the cornerstone of W3C's Open Web Platform for application development.

Peter Galli reports on what this means to developers in his posting HTML5 Moves Forward.

Next Steps with HTML 5

Peter reports:

(1) Under the milestone timetable announced this week, the W3C said the Working Group will advance, in May 2011, HTML5 to "Last Call," the point at which the W3C thinks the standard's features are set. Last Call is also essentially a call for all communities to confirm the technical soundness of the specification, after which the group will then shift focus to gathering implementation experience and building a comprehensive test suite.

(2) The W3C expects no new features to be added after the Last Call. After Last Call is completed the group will take feedback only from implementers and through trials of the test suite.

(3) Microsoft is pleased with this time table, especially with Last Call in just three months.

(4) Even as innovation continues, advancing HTML5 to Recommendation by 2014 provides the entire Web ecosystem with a stable, tested, interoperable standard.

(5) This latest timetable doesn't mean interested parties won't be able to employ the new technology until 2014.

(6) Because HTML5 anchors the Open Web Platform, the W3C has also started work on a comprehensive test suite to ensure the high levels of interoperability that diverse industries demand. Microsoft has already donated test cases to the current test suite.

(7) The W3C has invited test suite contributions from the community and, starting in March, will also dedicate new staff to drive development of an HTML5 test suite.

(8) After the W3C releases the first last call working draft in May, it plans to begin tackling the early stages of what it's currently referring to as HTML.next.

Support for HTML 5 in Internet Explorer 9

IE9 RC supports additional emerging Web standards including CSS3 2D Transforms, HTML5 Geolocation and a set of HTML5 semantic elements. We’ve added support for the HTML5 canvas global­Composite­Operation property and improved the performance of canvas’s Canvas­Pixel­Array. We’ve updated IE9 RC to reflect changes to the DOM events and added accessibility to the HTML5 audio and video controls. These additions reflect our pattern of implementing site ready HTML5 while ensuring developers can experiment with new and emerging specifications through our HTML5 Labs. As these specifications become stable, you can expect we will implement them in IE as we have throughout the development of IE9.

Download Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate . Watch videos, get help, and learn about the latest version of the browser. Two million have downloaded the IE9 release candidate since the release last week.

See HTML 5 in action at Beauty of the Web.

IE 9 on Coming to Windows Phone Too

Also announced this week  that IE9 will come to Windows Phone. We’ve worked closely across the Windows Phone and IE teams over the last few months to deliver the same IE9 browsing engine—the same code, the same standards support, the same hardware acceleration, the same security and privacy protections—for Windows Phone as we’ve delivered on the desktop.

 

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation

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