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Why Apple is betting on HTML 5: a web history — RoughlyDrafted Magazine
Daniel Eran Dilger has compiled a remarkable history of HTML. One strange thing though. He gives Microsoft a pass at every turn! Very odd. Especially since Dilger is the original fan boy.
Sending Web Pages in E-Mail: The MHTML Standard
The Internet standard for sending HTML in e-mail (MHTML) was first published in March 1997 and major mail systems are now beginning to support it. The standard was developed by a team of IETF e-mail experts.
Can a file be ODF and Open XML at the same time? (and HTML? and a Java servlet? and a PDF archive?) - O'Reilly XML Blog
Proposal to have a standard packaging for combining application specific XML formats, Open HTML, and PDF. Great comments. This July 2007 article links to a January 2009 article: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/01/packaging-formats-of-famous-ap.html
- What Bruce doesn't explain in this highlighted clip is that Sun decided to limit the "extra metadata" developer might need to just a handful of elements Sun and IBM needed to use in OpenOffice. The original OpenDocument Foundation metadata proposal was to open up the use of metadata to the extent that metadata could be used for all aspects of presentation (formatting AND layout!). - garyedwards on 2009-01-14
- This vendor specific - application specific limiting ended the last hope we had for ODF interoperability and backwards compatibility with the billions of "in-process" MSOffice documents known to be populating business processes the world over. In fact, the problem ODF adoption faces is primarily that of MSOffice bound business processes, reflected in these billions of workgroup-workflow documents. - garyedwards on 2009-01-14
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The recent bomb in the ODF world from Gary Edward’s claims that Sun successfully blocked the addition of features to ODF that would be needed for full interchange with Office are explosive not only because they demonstrate how ODF was (properly, in my view) developed to cope with the particular features of the participants, not really as a universal format, but also because the prop up Microsoft’s position that Open XML is required because it exposes particular features that ISO ODF is not capable of exposing. Both because ODF is still in progress and because sometimes the features are simply incompatible in the details.
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Actually, ODF is about to get a new manifest along with the new metadata stuff. Because we base that on RDF, the manifest will also be RDF-based. It gives us the extensibility we want to provide (extension developers, for example, can add extra metadata they may need), without having to worry about breaking compatibility. The primary addition we've made is a mechanism to bind a stable URI to in-document content node ids and files. This is conceptually not all that different than what I see in OPC; it's just that the unique IDs are in fact URIs. Among other things, in the RDF context that allows further statements to be bound to those URIs.
SVG Effects For CSS
This document defines how SVG effects are extended to apply to CSS-formatted elements. In particular, it makes the 'filter', 'mask' and 'clip-path' CSS properties and SVG paint servers applicable to CSS-formatted elements (such as HTML elements).
ilovegom - Google Code
Gom allows you to write GTK applications using JavaScript and an HTML-like widget layout syntax.
It does this by first implementing a W3C DOM Level 1 (Core) API for interacting with GTK widgets and windows, then by providing a JavaScript binding to this layer.
Ajaxian » Making creating DOM-based applications less of a hassle
a framework for JavaScript applications called
ViewsHandler. ViewsHandler is not another JavaScript templating solution but works on the assumption that in most cases you'll have to create a lot of HTML initially but you'll only have to change the content of some elements dynamically as new information gets loaded or users interact with the app. So instead of creating a lot of HTML over and over again all I wanted to provide is a way to create all the needed HTML upfront and then have easy access to the parts of the HTML that need updating.
The first thing you'll need to do to define your application is to create an object with the different views and pointers to the methods that populate the views:
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Dojo also has an implementation of the Django templating language, dojox.dtl. This is an extremely powerful template engine that, similar to this one, creates the HTML once, then updates it when the data changes.
You simply update the data, call the template.render method, and the HTML is updated - no creating nodes repeatedly, no innerHTML or nodeValue access.
IE aims to embrace the web again | Technology | The Guardian
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I asked Hachamovitch, who has led the Explorer team since 2003, why it has taken Microsoft so long to address these deficiencies. "It comes down to what we were doing with our time," he said. "Between 2001 and 2003 we were building what you experience now as Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight."
These technologies display not HTML, the language of web pages, but XAML, Microsoft's proprietary code for creating rich visual content.
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It sounds good, but Hachamovitch's warmth begins to fade when I broach the vexed subject of browser scripting. The context is important. Hachamovitch had already stated that Microsoft spent three years neglecting IE for the sake of a more proprietary technology, which is now appearing on the web as a browser plug-in called Silverlight. This is similar in some ways to Adobe's Flash, and supports rich multimedia effects within web pages, as well as the ability to run applications written in Microsoft's .NET Framework.
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Siding with HTML over XHTML, My Decision to Switch - Monday By Noon
A CMS expert argues for HTML over XHTML, explaining his reasons for switching. Excellent read! He nails the basics. for similar reasons, we moved from ODF to ePUB and then to CDf and finally to the advanced WebKit document model, where wikiWORD will make it's stand.
- Response to marbux comments. - garyedwards on 2008-07-09
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# See also my comment on the same web page that explains why HTML 5 is NOT it for document exchange between web editing applications. . - comment by marbux
# Response to marbux supporting the WebKit layout/document model.
Marbux argues that HTML5 is not interoperable, and CSS2 near useless. HTML5 fails regarding the the interop web appplications need. I respond by arguing that the only way to look at web applications is to consider that the browser layout engine is the web application layout engine! Web applications are actually written to the browser layout/document model, OR, to take advantage of browser plug-in capabilities.
The interoperability marbux seeks is tied directly to the browser layout engine. In this context, the web format is simply a reflection of that layout engine. If there's an interop problem, it comes from browser madness differentials. The good news is that there are all kinds of efforts to close the browser gap: including WHATWG - HTML5, CSS3, W3C DOM, JavaScript Libraries, Google GWT (Java to JavaScript), Yahoo GUI, and the my favorite; WebKit.
The bad news is that the clock is ticking. Microsoft has pulled the trigger and the great migration of MSOffice client/server systems to the MS WebSTack-Mesh architecture has begun. Key to this transition are the WPF-.NET proprietary formats, protocols and interfaces such as XAML, Silverlight, LINQ, and Smart Tags. New business processes are being written, and old legacy desktop bound processes are being transitioned to this emerging platform.
The fight for the Open Web is on, with Microsoft threatening to transtion their entire business desktop monopoly to a Web platform they own. The Web is going to be broken. There is no way of stopping Microsoft at this point. What we can do though is focus on Open Web solutions that are worthy alternatives to Microsoft's proprietary push. For me, this means the WebKit layout/document model supported by Apple, Adobe and Google.
~ge~ - garyedwards on 2008-07-10
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Publishing content on the Web is in no way limited to professional developers or designers, much of the reason the net is so active is because anyone can make a website. Sure, we (as knowledgeable professionals or hobbyists) all hope to make the Web a better place by doing our part in publishing documents with semantically rich, valid markup, but the reality is that those documents are rare. It’s important to keep in mind the true nature of the Internet; an open platform for information sharing.
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XHTML2 has some very good ideas that I hope can become part of the web. However, it’s unrealistic to think that all web authors will switch to an XML-based syntax which demands that browsers stop processing the document on the first error. XML’s draconian policy was an attempt to clean up the web. This was done around 1996 when lots of invalid content entered the web. CSS took a different approach: instead of demanding that content isn’t processed, we defined rules for how to handle the undefined. It’s called “forward-compatible parsing” and means we can add new constructs without breaking the old.
So, I don’t think XHTML is a realistic option for the masses. HTML 5 is it.
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CSS Editors Reviewed | Developer's Toolbox, CSS | Smashing Magazine
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Stylizer
Stylizer (Windows)
Two things make Stylizer a slightly different mindset than the others: it uses a grid interface instead of a text editor, and it has Firefox and IE embedded, so when the user changes the CSS, it’s propagated right away to the browser. The grid system makes CSS feel like “CSS on rails”, because it makes it impossible to have any CSS errors. It lets Stylizer do things such as a Firebug-like element inspector that lets the user diagnose and edit in the same place, and an editable, spotlight-style filtering system.
Understanding HTML, XML and XHTML | Webkit Surfin’ Safari
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Close your
<script>and<canvas>tags!The relationships among HTML, XML and XHTML are an area of considerable confusion on the web. We often see questions on the
webkit-devmailing list where people wonder why their seemingly XHTML documents result in HTML output. Or we’re asked why an XML construct like<b />doesn’t actually close the bold tag.
Beware of XHTML
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I believe that XHTML has many good potential applications, and I hope it continues to thrive as a standard. This is precisely why I have written this article. The state of XHTML on the Web today is more broken than the state of HTML, and most people don't realize because the major browsers are using classic HTML parsers that hide the problems. Even among the few sites that know how to trigger the XML parser, the authors tend to overlook some important issues. If you really hope for the XHTML standard to succeed, you should read this article carefully.
Running beyond the browser
Although there are many ways to slice this discussion, it might be useful to compare Adobe RIA and Microsoft Silverlight RIA in terms of web ready, highly interactive documents.
The Adobe RIA story is quite different from that of Silverlight. Both however exploit the shortcomings of browsers; shortcomings that are in large part, i think, due to the disconnect the browser community has had with the W3C. The W3C forked off the HTML-CSS path, putting the bulk of their attention into XML, RDF and the Semantic Web. The web developer community stayed the course, pushing the HTML-CSS envelope with JavaScript and some rather stunning CSS magic.
Adobe seems to have picked up the HTML-CSS-Javascript trail with a Microsoft innovation to take advantage of browser cache, DHTML (Dynamic HTML). DHTML morphs into AJAX, (which so wild as to have difficulty scaling). And AJAX gets tamed by an Adobe-Apple sponsored WebKit.
Most people see WebKit as a browser specific layout engine, and compare it to the IE and Gecko on those terms. I would argue however that WebKit is both a document model and, a document format. For sure it's a framework for very advanced HTML-CSS-DOM-Javascript work.
Because the Adobe AIR run-time is based on WebKit layout, WebKit documents can hit on all cylinders across any browser able to implement the AIR plug-in. Meaning, web developers and web content providers need only target the WebKit document model to attain the interactive access ubiquity all seek. Very cool. Let me also add that the WebKit HTML-CSS-DOM-Javascript model is capable of "fixed/flow" representation. I'll explain the importance of "fixed/flow" un momento, but think about how iPhone renders a web page and you'll understand the "flow" side of this equation.
Adobe AIR Language Reference for HTML Developers
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Adobe® AIR™ Language Reference for HTML Developers
The Adobe AIR Language Reference for HTML Developers includes details on Adobe AIR APIs.
Adobe AIR APIs are available to JavaScript code in HTML-based AIR applications
via thewindow.runtimeobject.
How To make Web-Clean Documents in AbiWord
Bonus points to Paul!
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HTML Formatting Instructions - Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
By default, when you save your document as an HTML file, AbiWord places all formatting instructions into one block at the beginning. These formatting instructions use the Cascading Style Sheet language, and are in the <style> tag in the <head> of your document. From here it is easy to move the styles as a whole (copy and paste) into a new document which can then be externally linked or integrated with your web-site's style sheet.
ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack | BetaNews Jan 2007
Look at the date on this! A full year has passed and we now can clearly see the importance to Microsoft of ISO approval for MSOffice-OOXML. The MSOffice SDK provides an easy to implement OOXML <> XAML conversion component, pavign the way for billions of complex, business process rich MSOffice documents to be used by IE-8 and the emerging MS Web-Stack. XAML is proprietary and exclusive to the Microsoft Web.
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Vista is not the threat! The threat is that of the MS Web-Stack, at the core of which is the Exchange/SharePoint juggernaut tha tis rapidly replacing Lotus Notes and Apache as the premier server system for eMail, messaging, portal CMS, calendar-scheduling, project management, and collaborative computing.
The MS Web-Stack is able to speak HTML5-CSS2.1 as well as the proprietary XAML-Silverlight-Smart Tags set of WPF technologies designed as alternatives to advancing W3C XHTML, CSS, SVG, XForms, and RDF.
- garyedwards on 2008-04-18 - Great summary quote! At least someone gets it. - garyedwards on 2008-04-18
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An industry coalition that has represented competitors of Microsoft in European markets before the European Commission stepped up its public relations offensive this morning, this time accusing Microsoft of scheming to upset HTML's place in the fabric of the Internet with XAML, an XML-based layout lexicon for network applications.
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What difference does that make? XML is a language for developing domain specific XML languages. Sometimes these domain specific dialects are shared, sometimes they are not. There are ZERO interoperability requirements with XML!!!! XAML is 100% proprietary XML language written exclusively for the MSOffice-OOXML <> MS Web-Stack <> IE-8 use. That it's XML has nothing to do with the interop expected of Opne Web formats.
XAML is proprietary.
- on 2008-04-18
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Is HTML in a Race to the Bottom? A Large-Scale Survey of Open Web Formats
What makes the Internet so extraordinary is the interoperability of web ready data, content, media and the incredible sprawl of web applications servicing the volumes of information. The <i>network of networks</i> has become the information system connecting and converging all information systems. The Web is the universal platform of access, exchange and now, collaborative computing. This survey exammines the key issue of future interoperability; Web Document Formats.
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The "race to the bottom" is a
familiar phenomenon that occurs when multiple standards compete for acceptance.
In this environment, the most lenient standard usually attracts the greatest
support (acceptance, usage, and so on), leading to a competition among
standards to be less stringent. This also tends to drive competing standards
toward the minimum possible level of quality. One key prerequisite for a race
to the bottom is an unregulated market because regulators mandate a minimum
acceptable quality for standards and sanction those who don't
comply.1,2 In examining current HTML standards, we've come to
suspect that a race to the bottom could, in fact, be occurring because so many
competing versions of HTML exist.At this time, some nine different versions of HTML (including its successor,
XHTML) are supported as W3C standards, with the most up-to-date being XHTML
1.1. Although some versions are very old and lack some of the newer versions'
capabilities, others are reasonably contemporaneous. In particular, HTML 4.01
and XHTML 1.0 both have "transitional" and "strict" versions.
Clearly, the W3C's intent is to provide a pathway to move from HTML 4.01 to
XHTML 1.1, and the transitional versions are steps on that path. It also aims
to develop XHTML standards that support device independence (everything from
desktops to cell phones), accessibility, and internationalization. As part of
this effort, HTML 4.01's presentational elements (used to adjust the appearance
of a page for older browsers that don't support style sheets) are eliminated in
XHTML 1.1.Our concern is that Web site designers might decline to follow the newer
versions' more stringent formatting requirements and will instead keep using
transitional versions. To determine if this is likely, we surveyed the top
100,000 most popular Web sites to discover what versions of HTML are in
widespread use. -
Add Sticky Note
The summary statement glosses over the value of a highly structured portable XML document. A value that goes far beyond the strict separation of content and presentation. The portable document model is the essential means by which information is exchanged over the Web. It is the key to Web interop.
Up till now, Web docuemnts have been very limited. With the advent of XHTML-2, CSS-3, SVG, XForms and CDF (Compound Document Framework for putting these pieces together), the W3C has provisioned the Web with the means of publishing and exchanging highly interactive but very complex docuemnts. The Web documents of the future will be every bit as complex as the publishing industry needs.
The transition of complex and data rich desktop office suite documents to the Web has been non existent up till now. With ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML, Microsoft is now ready to transition billions of business process rich "office" documents to the Web.This transition is accomplished by a very clever conversion component included in the MSOffice SDK. MS Developers can easily convert OOXML documents to Web ready XAML documents, adn back again, without loss of presentation fidelity, or data. No matter what the complexity!
The problem here is that while MSOffice-OOXML is now an ISO/IEC International Standard, XAML "fixed/flow" is a proprietary format useful only to the IE-8 browser, the MS Web Stack (Exchange, SharePoint, MS SQL, and Windows Server), and the emerging MS Cloud.
Apache, J2EE, Mozilla Firefox, Adobe and Open Source Servers in general will not be able to render these complex, business process rich, office suite documents. MSOffice-OOXML itself is far to complicated and filled with MS application-platform-vendor specific dependencies to be usefully converted to Open Web XHTML-CSS, ePUB or CDF.
XAML itself is only the tip of the iceberg. The Microsoft Web Stack also implements Silverlight, Smart Tags and other WPF - .NET technologies not available as open standards. Silverlight is a proprietary alternative to SVG and Flash technologies. Smart Tags and the LINQ meta search mechanism are alternatives to RDF, RDFa and SPARQL. And of course, XAML "fixed/flow" is a proprietary alternative to advanced XHTML-CSS, CDF, iPAPER, FlashPaper and PDF.
Web formats are important. This survey sadly only begins to scrape the surface of the interoperability problems the future of the Open Web faces. ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML is going to initiate a great transition of legacy client/server business process systems to a new model of highly efficient, barrier free and cloud ready client/ Web-Stack /server systems.
Hope this helps,
~ge~
- on 2008-04-18
Picasa HTML-CSS Page Layout - Brian - Redfern
Basic layout of highly strucutred HTML - CSS page design
HTML Playground, html, css reference by example - Flock
very cool interactive reference for xhtml + css design.
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Bruce D'Arcus | July 29, 2007 01:02 PM