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Adactio Go to the source

Looking through the list of hiccups highlighted by the HTML5 Super Friends and my own personal tally , things are progressing at a nice clip with HTML5. The pubdate attribute has been removed from the article element and shifted to a nested time element instead. The content model for the footer element has been changed to match author expectations —that’s a biggie. That still leaves a few issues: The confusion between section and article that I’ve been researching . … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

As promised , I’ve gathered the data from one of the exercises I administered at the dConstruct HTML5 and CSS3 workshop and totted the results up in a table. There were 30 people in the workshop but I only managed to retrieve 22 results—I don’t know what happened to the missing eight sheets of answers. This is a smaller sampling than I was hoping for and I realise that it’s too small to be considered scientifically accurate but I think it’s still interesting to see the responses of 22 smart, savvy web developers. Across the top (in the table header) are the possible answers; nine new elements in the HTML5 spec. Each row shows the answers given for each element as workshop attendees attempted to match up the names of the elements with the nine definitions provided from the spec. The most common answer in each case has been highlighted. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

If there’s one thing I enjoy most about running Authentic Jobs , it’s hearing positive feedback from customers. Not every employer finds the right candidate, mind you — that’s why the money-back guarantee in place. But many do. Here are a few recent testimonials. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

I mentioned in my previous post that I “had come away with my head reeling from the massive length and depth of the often-changing specification”, which is entirely true. Printouts of the current draft of the HTML5 spec can reach, depending on your operating system and installed fonts, somewhere north of 900 pages. Yes: nine hundred . There are unabridged Stephen King novels that run shorter. You might well say to yourself: “Self, is it just me, or are the people doing this completely off their everlovin’ rockers… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

dConstruct week is in full swing. The conference itself is tomorrow. Remy and Brian are doing their workshops today. Myself, Rich and Nat did our HTML5 and CSS3 Wizardry workshop yesterday. I was handling the HTML5 side of things and had quite a bit of fun with it. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I can never pinpoint the exact moment at which I “get into” a particular technology. CSS, DOM Scripting, microformats …there was never any Damascene conversion to any of them. Instead, I’d just notice one day, after gradually using the technology more and more, that I was immersed in it. That’s how I feel about HTML5 now. There’s another feeling that accompanies this realisation. I remember feeling it about CSS in the late 90s and about DOM Scripting half a decade ago. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

HTML5 is a strange character with what appears to be a split personality. Hardly surprising then that something so divided would appear to be so divisive. First of all, there’s the spec itself. The specification HTML5 walks a fine line between maintaining backward compatibility with existing markup and forging the way as a modern, updated specification for the future. If it strays too far in paving the cowpaths and simply codifies what authors already publish, then the spec would mandate using table s for layout and font elements for presentation because that’s still what most of the web does. On the other hand, if it drifts too far in the other direction, the result will be something as theoretically pure but as practically useless as XHTML2 . … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

HTML5 is a strange character with what appears to be a split personality. Hardly surprising then that something so divided would appear to be so divisive. First of all, there’s the spec itself. The specification HTML5 walks a fine line between maintaining backward compatibility with existing markup and forging the way as a modern, updated specification for the future. If it strays too far in paving the cowpaths and simply codifies what authors already publish, then the spec would mandate using table s for layout and font elements for presentation because that’s still what most of the web does. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

The W3C announced last week that the XHTML 2 Working Group will wrap up at the end of this year . This should have been a straightforward, welcome announcement. Instead it has confused a lot of people who believe that it heralds the end of XHTML—see, for example, the comments on Zeldman’s blog post . This confusion is understandable given the lamentable names that have been assigned to different technologies. This isn’t the first time this has happened… JavaScript sounds like it has something to do with Java. It doesn’t. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

The W3C announced last week that the XHTML 2 Working Group will wrap up at the end of this year . This should have been a straightforward, welcome announcement. Instead it has confused a lot of people who believe that it heralds the end of XHTML—see, for example, the comments on Zeldman’s blog post . This confusion is understandable given the lamentable names that have been assigned to different technologies. This isn’t the first time this has happened… JavaScript sounds like it has something to do with Java. … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

It’s been a long five years since it was orginally published, but last month month a new Web Standards Solutions, Special Edition was released by Friends of ED . Late last year, I gave the manuscript a little freshening up, mostly reviewing things in the crop of browsers that have been released since the initial version. I’ll stress that this was not a large overhaul of the book (hence Special Edition rather than Second Edition), so if you’ve already read the original, or own it, you’re better off spending your dime on another book. But while it wasn’t a giant update, it was nice to give it some extra attention, and pass it through through tech editing, copy editing, compositing and proofreading cycles once again. In the end, I’m really happy it just made the book that much more solid for folks that haven’t read it—and hopefully still a good introduction for those getting started with semantic markup and CSS . In other book news, I’ve been toiling away on something brand new, and look forward to sharing much more about that very soon… Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

The rule of thirds and ratios such as the golden section are fantastic methods for achieving designs that feel cohesive. The problem is these principles don’t really apply to web design. Golden Ratio: When the ratio between two numbers is the same as the ratio of the sum of those numbers and the larger number. Basically, a+b is to a as a is to b . Also referred to as the “divine proportion” from its frequent occurrence in nature. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I’m back from spending a weekend in Cornwall at the inaugural Bamboo Juice conference , held in the inspiring surroundings of the Eden Project . I opened up proceedings with a talk entitled All Our Yesterdays . I know it’s the title of a Star Trek episode, but I actually had Shakespeare in mind: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Usually my presentations follow a linear narrative but this was a rambling, self-indulgent affair. So I used a non-linear presentation tool this time; the Flash-based Prezi . You can view the presentation at prezi.com/35967 . … Read the rest here

Clagnut Go to the source

A few weeks ago, Jeremy and I were invited to a mini-conference in Austria. At the conference were owners of some leading businesses whose primary operations were online. I found myself trying to explain to one of these bosses why his developers should be using microformats on his website. The boss in question was more business-inclined than technically-savvy so there was little point in me talking about ids and classes, or even HTML . I needed to explain what practical benefits microformats would bring to his customers and his business. This is the blog post I wish I could have pointed him towards… Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

(This is part of the Feedback on ‘WaSP Community CSS3 Feedback 2008′ series.) My few thoughts on the “ Graphical Effects ” part of the feedback document. A lot of what was mentioned by the community is already in the pipeline, so there’s not a lot to say about those except “hurry ‘em up, willya?”. Gradients — like rounded corners, no surprise these came up. (All we need is to define wet-floor-reflect and we’ll complete the Web 2.0 design tricks hat trick.) I’d like to see them myself, and I don’t think defining them is quite as hard as the commentary implies: Imagine, for example, applying a gradient to the text of a <span> broken across two lines. Do you apply the gradient to each part individually… Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

(This is part of the Feedback on ‘WaSP Community CSS3 Feedback 2008′ series.) The portion of the feedback devoted to shapes had two overarching themes, as I saw it. That makes this entry a bit short, but when I tried to combine it with my feedback on “ Graphical Effects “, it quickly got too long. So, a little amuse cerveau , as it were. Animations, transformations, and so on — the WebKit team have of course been having a field day in this area, and what they’ve done will likely make is way to other browsers. Or not. I don’t know. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

(This is part of the Feedback on ‘WaSP Community CSS3 Feedback 2008′ series.) Not surprisingly, there was a lot of community feedback asking for better layout mechanisms . Actually, people were asking for any decent layout mechanism at all, which CSS has historically lacked. Floats mostly work, but they’re a hack and can be annoyingly fragile even when you ignore old-browser bugs. Positioning works in limited cases, but does not handle web-oriented layout at all well. Why do we use floats for layout, anyway? clear . … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

(This is part of the Feedback on ‘WaSP Community CSS3 Feedback 2008′ series.) Out of all the selector feedback , selector blocks was the part that really caught my attention. I also see the usefulness of a parent selector , but that one has come up many times before, and it’s always died at the doorstep of implementors, who point out that it’s far too difficult to implement without serious performance penalties and even risk of browser lockup. See, for example, the comment left by David Hyatt on Shaun Inman’s post on the idea. Similarly, I think constants (or macros or whatever they’re called) are a great idea and would be very helpful, especially if you’re coding up a Jason Special. Both are loaded with use cases, so I don’t feel like I can add a lot; besides, constants are already in the WG charter, so there’s once more hope in the land. So anyway, selector blocks… Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Back before holiday season hit, Elika Etemad—better known as Fantasai —published WaSP Community CSS3 Feedback 2008 . I gave it a read and came away with a number of things I wanted to say. So many things, in fact, that I’ll need to split them up into a series of posts. This here post will serve as introduction and hub, with links to the follow-on entries added as they’re published. All very Bray -ny, no? (Go ahead, groan… Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

A while back, I woke up one morning thinking, John Resig’s got some great CSS3 support in jQuery but it’s all forced into JS statements. I should ask him if he could set things up like Dean Edwards ‘ IE7 script so that the JS scans the author’s CSS, finds the advanced selectors, does any necessary backend juggling, and makes CSS3 selector support Transparently Just Work. And then he could put that back into jQuery. And then, after breakfast, I fired up my feed reader and saw Simon Willison ’s link to John Resig’s nascent Sizzle project. I swear to Ged this is how it happened. Personally, I can’t wait for Sizzle to be finished, because I’m absolutely going to use it and recommend its use far and wide. … Read the rest here