HTML 5 is a new version of HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 focusing on the needs of Web application developers as well as evolving HTML and addressing issues found in the current specifications.

Why Should You Learn HTML 5

HTML 5 is the newest specification for HTML, and many browsers are going to start supporting it in the future. One nice thing about HTML 5 is that it attempts to stay backwards compatible. So if you don’t want to learn it just yet, you don’t need to.

If you build Web applications you will eventually want to learn HTML 5. There are a lot of new attributes and tags built just for Web applications. For instance, there are a number of new event handlers for drag and drop:

• ondrag
• ondragstart
• ondragend
• ondrop

• 20 HTML5 Examples Websites
• Learn HTML5
• HTML 5 Tutorials

HTML 5 introduces new elements to HTML for the first time since the last millennium. New structural elements include aside, figure, and section. New inline elements include time, meter, and progress. New embedding elements include videoand audio. New interactive elements include details, datagrid, and command

Even well-formed HTML pages are harder to process than they should be because of the lack of structure. You have to figure out where the section breaks go by analyzing header levels. Sidebars, footers, headers, navigation menus, main content sections, and individual stories are marked up by the catch-all div element. HTML 5 adds new elements to specifically identify each of these common constructs:

• section: A part or chapter in a book, a section in a chapter, or essentially anything that has its own heading in HTML 4
• header: The page header shown on the page; not the same as the head element
• footer: The page footer where the fine print goes; the signature in an e-mail message
• nav: A collection of links to other pages
• article: An independent entry in a blog, magazine, compendium, and so forth