HTML5与未来的网页设计（英文教程）(3)

Building browser-specific apps

I’ve always promoted building sites for your audience, so depending on your audience, building browser-specific applications may be a real option. As I mentioned above, it’s all about controlling the environment, if we can control the environment we can control features delivered to the user much better. Google is currently attempting to do this with Google Wave.

The idea behind Google’s new monster product is to revolutionize communication, and do so with the newest technology. Google Wave is built in HTML5 and isn’t usable in all browsers yet. But that’s alright since they’re controlling the audience by only releasing it to select developers for testing.

With Wave, Google is pushing HTML5 as far as it will go (and even a little further). They are taking blogs, wikis, instant messaging, e-mail and synchronous communication to the next level by combining them into place.

Here is what the Wave inbox looks like.

Below is a sort of wiki/chat area with all sorts of real-time communication treats for you to check out (once they release it).

Google Wave being powered by HTML5 is definitely the biggest step forward we have seen in this area. They have done a phenomenal job putting together a creative and innovative product.

Focusing on the mobile

Just like Google is currently doing with Wave by selectively releasing it to developers, we can control the viewing environment when working with mobile devices. By grabbing the user agent, we can design specific applications that use HTML5 for supported devices.

Targeting the user agent of a device is not an ideal method in designing for the general mobile web, but when we need to specifically target a device, like the iPhone, Pre or Google’s Android it’s a pretty solid option.

Right now, the best mobile testing platform we have is the iPhone. With the recent software upgrade, it is very close to having full support. But, if you just want to use the new elements, most any of the big 3 mobile platforms will work fine. If you’re looking for API support I suggest testing on the iPhone with the new upgraded software.

Conclusion

With the strong foundations set up by previous versions of (X)HTML and large community activity surrounding Web standards, we’re coming into a new age with a wealth of knowledge and the ability to learn from our past mistakes (and make some new ones). HTML5 is being set up with the expectations of a very powerful markup language and it’s up to us to utilize it in a way that can benefit us all.

There are so many great features to look forward to from new elements to tons of killer APIs. We can make data available offline, easily combine technologies and create very intricate animations all within a familiar landscape. If you have the time, I encourage you to browse through the entire spec and familiarize yourself even further with all the bells and whistles (there are a lot) so we can use HTML5 to build stronger, richer Web applications for years to come.

Here’s to HTML5, let’s hope it lives up to the hype.

Resources

• 23 Essential HTML 5 Resources
  A comprehensive list of articles and resources related to HTML 5.
• HTML5 Demos
  HTML5 Demos is a great resource for checking out the HTML5 APIs such as: geolocation, drag and drop, offline detection, and storage. This is a very good and unique resources to test out and see exactly with we can do with HTML5.
• HTML5 Gallery
  The HTML5 Gallery, like any gallery, is a web site showcase where you can see how others are using HTML5 in every day development. I’ve looked round though this site quite a bit and did some cross browser testing on some of the entries. Many are broken in older browsers, but there are some that hold up very well.
• HTML5 Doctor
  A resource that catered for the people who wished to find out more about implementing HTML5 and how to go about it. This blog publishes articles relating to HTML5 and it’s semantics and how to use them, here and now.
• HTML5 Cheat Sheet
  A handy printable HTML 5 Cheat Sheet that lists all currently supported tags, their descriptions, their attributes and their support in HTML 4. Released here, at Smashing Magazine.
• W3C HTML5 Spec Overview
  Whenever you want to know
  about something that no one has written about on the Web, the W3C is your answer. I spent hours scouring this site in researching HTML5. It’s a great resource and I highly recommend reading through whatever you can.
• HTML5 Validator
  Even with such little support, we still want to make sure our code is valid. Validating your code is a great way to learn and ease yourself into developing with HTML5.
• WHATWG Wiki
  The HTML Working Group has put together some great documentation for tracking what exactly is going on in the world of HTML5.

References

• Yes, You Can Use HTML 5 Today!
• W3C HTML5 Differences
• 5 Amazing HTML5 Features to Look Forward to
• Preview of HTML5
• Preparing for HTML5 with Semantic Class Names
• XHTML2 vs. HTML5
• HTML4 vs. HTML5
• Accessibility in HTML5
• HTML5 Doctor