W3 has presented us with some differences between the “old” HTML4 and the new HTML5, which is still under development. HTML5 brings a few new features aimed at some modern trends, such as web applications.

Here are some of the features I found interesting:

• HTML5 is joining html and xhtml markup. Documents may be written in either HTML5 or XHTML5
• It does not allow nesting of block and inline elements under the same element. So this is incorrect:

  <div>
      <span></span>
      <div></div>
  </div>

• Some new elements are introduced, such as article, dialog, header, footer, time, … No more <div id="header">...</div>!
• Input’s type attribute now has some additional options, such as email, url, date, …
• Replace attribute is introduced, telling us what happens to form elements after the form has been submitted. Narrows some javascript down.
• contextmenu global attribute has been added to allow a context menu personalization
• Frames are gone. Iframes only.
• getElementsByClassName() is added to the DOM
• innerHTML is now considered a standard

I quite like where this is going. It brings to more semantic markup, which is good for project organisation and none-css capable browsers such as screen readers and text-only browsers.

HTML5 differences from HTML4 - see for yourself
HTML5 specifications

Marc Andreessen posted a nice cheat sheets collection. These are short programing / scripting manuals, allowing quick reference to commonly used code. The list consists of php, html, css, javascript and google cheat sheets. These can be of great help at times. Do check it out.

Here’s a quick list of the ones I liked. All fit on one A4 page and are in PDF form. So you can print them out and stick em on your wall or your desk :)

• HTML Help Sheet by liquidcity
• HTML Cheat Sheet by ILoveJackDaniels
• CSS Help Sheet by liquidcity
• CSS Cheat Sheet by ILoveJackDaniels
• JavaScript Cheat Sheet by ILoveJackDaniels