For several years, web workers passionate about web standards have donned blue beanies for one day to bring attention to the importance of using web standards, keeping the web open, and continually moving it forward. We dutifully change our avatars on social media sites and the pictures on our web sites for a single unified day—this year on November 30. Of course this bewilders high school, college, and other non-tech friends on sites like Facebook, but we disregard their confusion in our eagerness to advocate the advancement of something we believe in. The following day, we return to our typical avatars and photos, all while making plans for a funnier, more creative blue beanie avatar for the next year.

What if there is more?

What if wearing that cute little blue toque was only the beginning of a continual journey?

• But I’m just a single developer…
• I don’t have an organization behind me…
• The company I work for doesn’t really care…
• I can’t really effect anything, why bother…
• I already work 60 hours a week—I can’t fit anything else in…
• I don’t really have any original ideas…
• Other developers know so much more than me…

These are just a few of the excuses that play in our heads when we contemplate doing more than putting on the beanie once a year. Today I’m happy to announce a new project, put together by a group of very passionate web folks, that can enable your entry into the process of moving the web forward—no matter what skill level you’re currently at—Move the Web Forward.

From the site:

Our goal is to make it easy for anyone to get started contributing to the platform, whether that’s learning more about how it works, teaching others, or writing specs. The web has grown due to people like you, and we want to make it even easier for people like you to give back.

The web page is packed full of a generous range of ideas, from how to learn, and how to help other people learn, to how to hack the web and contribute to specs. There are few excuses left when the ideas are well organized allowing you to pick and choose what you, or your organization can handle. I’m impressed with the generosity of time and effort this group of devs have contributed to put this amazing resource together. Don’t miss it — Move the Web Forward!

You can make the web as awesome as you want it to be. Browser vendors, standards editors and library creators actively seek your voice and your contribution. Together we can move the web forward.

Also check out Addy Osmani’s article on Smashing Magazine with more details on just how you can help move the web forward.

As the saying goes, many hands make light work. How fantastic would it be if there were so many hands that the burden didn’t fall on just a few? Together, let’s make the web rawk even harder!

Is W3C saying that CSS3 is part of the HTML5 specification?

No. However, many HTML5 Web sites and applications do take advantage of CSS3 for styling and presentation.

This is a good start, but there is still a lot to be done. The main HTML5 logo page still includes non-HTML5 (or event HTML5 web app-related) technologies such as CSS3, SVG, etc. And the Badge Builder still assembles a badge that makes these technologies appear subordinate to HTML5 as opposed to framing them as complementary, but distinct entities. We hope the FAQ change is not the end of their efforts to fix the potential confusion they have caused and that they will continue putting things right over coming days.

On a related matter…

As you probably heard, the WHATWG has decided to drop the “5” from their work on the HTML language:

…we realised that the demand for new features in HTML remained high, and so we would have to continue maintaining HTML and adding features to it before we could call “HTML5″ complete, and as a result we moved to a new development model, where the technology is not versioned and instead we just have a living document that defines the technology as it evolves.

At first blush, many of us were a little distraught by this decision because we thought the W3C might decide to follow suit, but after thinking on it a bit, the decision makes sense: the WHATWG can work on the HTML markup language in a fluid way and the W3C can take snapshots of that work and christen it with a version number for reference purposes.

Some might argue that version numbers are meaningless on the ever-evolving web, but they do help us establish mile-markers or guideposts which aid in both education and accountability. Sure, both versions 4 and 5 of HTML are still HTML, but, as the saying goes, you can’t build on shifting sands. It’s frustrating to teach from an ever-changing spec. The same goes for authoring to one. Some manner of stability is necessary so you know what is “true” now (or at least at some point in time), even if those circumstances may change in six months or six years. Not having a version number will make it really hard to educate people about the current set of new HTML features, and how they differ from the old version (which rather contradicts the purpose of the HTML5 logo in the first place).

Not that there was really a question, but we stand by our sentiment that the final (as in W3C) version of HTML5 should continue having a version number while the version-less WHATWG version is used for continuing development.

But wait, things are not quite right. If you delve deeper you’ll see that, included in their definition of the technology that comprises HTML5, is CSS3, WOFF, SVG, and a few other cuckoos in the HTML5 nest. If you look at the HTML5 Logo FAQ, you’ll find the following:

The logo is a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others.

This really isn’t good—I appreciate that it is good to have an umbrella term for a group of related technologies and techniques that would otherwise be difficult to talk about in conversation. “Ajax” and “Web 2.0” serve that purpose well. And it is ok to talk about closely-related specs such as Geolocation and Web Sockets as being under the HTML5 umbrella, as long as you clarify it somewhere (you can find a good example in Get familiar with HTML5!). But this is different—HTML5 and CSS3, for example, are two distinctly different technologies, and should not be confused with one another. To do so will impede learning and cause problems with development, documentation, and all manner of other things.

You could perhaps forgive marketers for getting it confused, but then again their confusion is not so critical as long as their end product looks and works great, and they have a web developer behind them to put them right at critical points. But I have talked to many web developers that are confused, and honestly think that CSS3 and SVG are part of HTML5.

There has understandably been some bad feeling about this in the web community. Jeremy Keith put it nicely in Badge of Shame, and Bruce Lawson also gave a good view in On the HTML5 logo, as well as providing a good rant to put things straight: HTML5 != CSS3. At Opera, my colleagues and I are constantly reiterating a more accurate definition of HTML5 to help overcome such confusion, and many allies at other browser vendors are doing the same.

But standing against the W3C is not the way to solve this either. In light of this, we at the WaSP are sending an open letter to folks at the W3C, urging them to fix this oversight. The letter is thus:

Dear W3C,

We are writing to address a major concern we at WaSP (and in the web professional community in general) have with the newly-unveiled HTML5 brand. While we are excited that the W3C is doing so much to promote new technologies being developed, we are incredibly concerned that using “HTML5” as the umbrella for these technologies does more harm than good.

“HTML5,” as a term, has become a bit of a beast and is already presenting problems:

First, you’ve got HTML5 “the spec” which isn’t just HTML markup anymore, but includes specifications for everything from local databases to web workers. Explaining what we mean when we talk about “HTML5” requires use of modifying phrases, as in “HTML5 the markup language” or “HTML5 geolocation”.

Then Apple and Google began promoting the use of “HTML5” as as a catch-all term for marketing their browser advancements, much as Microsoft and Netscape (and journalists) had used “DHTML” in the past. The term became less meaningful because it was being used to cover more ground and, consequently, it made communications between developers and clients more difficult because both sides did not have the same understanding of what HTML5 meant.

Now the W3C has come out and essentially condoned the branding of everything from CSS to actual HTML5 to WOFF as “HTML5”. We can’t imagine a single action that will cause more confusion than this misguided decision (and the W3C has produced some pretty impenetrable specs in its time). Our own Jeremy Keith summed it up perfectly when he said

What we have here is a deliberate attempt to further blur the lines between separate technologies that have already become intertwingled in media reports.

We need for the W3C, as a standards body, to understand the importance of clarity with regard to the term “HTML5”. Without being able to draw clear distinctions between technologies, clear communication about those technologies becomes increasingly difficult if not impossible. As an organization of web professionals promoting the inclusion of web standards in the education of future web professionals and the adoption of web standards among practicing professionals, we are deeply concerned that your decision will make our job even harder.

So, when push comes to shove, what do we want you to change? Well, we think a good place to start is backing away from the use of “HTML5” as a catch-all term. If you feel you need a catch-all term, come up with something else, but as Jeremy also said

We [developers] never needed a term to refer to “XHTML 1.0 plus CSS2.1” or “HTML4.01 plus JavaScript” or “any combination of front-end technologies.” Why this sudden all-conquering need for a term that covers so many different technologies as to be completely meaningless?

With a new moniker for the umbrella of modern web technologies, the blurred distinction between the diverse languages and systems that comprise it will evaporate and we won’t have to worry (as much) about the potential for miscommunication. Hey, it will even give you a chance to create another logo.

Signed,

The Web Standards Project

1. HTML5
2. CSS3
3. speed

Now three “developer previews” in, by all accounts they’re living up to that promise: HTML5 support is increasing rapidly (including support for canvas; as PPK just confirmed, their CSS3 support is nearly complete; and several benchmark tests put them right up there with Chrome in terms of speed.

In playing around with the browser, I’ve been really impressed so far. To me, IE9 really puts the oft-maligned browser on par with the remainder of the browser landscape and even gives them the edge in certain cases. My hat’s off to the IE team, this is great work. I’m excited to see what happens as it continues to develop.

You can download the IE9 preview and check out some of the demos at http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/, but keep in mind that you’ll need Vista or Windows 7 to run it.

• the death of hasLayout
• object fallbacks
• stylable legend elements
• generated content (including support for dynamic attribute insertion via attr())
• CSS counters
• support for the quotes property
• outline control
• data URIs
• full access to the style attribute via the DOM
• mutable DOM prototypes
• and much more

This browser is a giant leap forward for standards support at Microsoft, but reviews so far seem mixed. What do you think?

Fantasai, an invited expert in the working group has published her feedback on our requests with information on what the Working Group has done about them. It’s unclear to me what will happen next, but presumably they will be considered further now that Fantasai’s report is complete.

She has also published information on the working group’s new charter and an overview of the high priority work that they expect to complete in the next two years.

Chris states:

We think it will be useful to anyone who wants to learn or teach client-side web design/development “the right way”, including students and teachers at schools or universities, trainers and employees inside companies, etc. It already has support from several universities and large companies, including Yahoo!

Translations and packaging of the curriculum as PDFs is on the to-do list.

As part of the outreach work we’re doing in partnership with the W3C’s CSS Working group, we invited all web professionals to tell the Working Group what they want from the next version of the spec.

As the Working Group’s face-to-face meeting is at the end of March, we will close comments on March 10 2008 to give fantasai a chance to gather your input together to take to the group.

How to comment

Please read the original call for participation and add your ideas in the comments. If your idea needs a long explanation or diagrams, please publish them to your webspace and link to it. You can comment as an individual, a representative of a group or organisation or anonymously. All ideas are gratefully received.

After the comments have closed

fantasai will take the ideas to the CSS Working Group and feedback to us once the ideas have been looked at. Meanwhile, the comments that you leave will be migrated to a wiki to be hosted on css3.info for further community development and collaboration.

You can still participate in the CSS3 working group via their www-style mailing list, which is open to everybody.

Acid3 is a complex test compared to Acid1 and Acid2. The Web is increasingly becoming a platform for application development, so Acid3 tests many of the DOM2 and ECMAScript specifications, in addition to markup languages, CSS, SVG, and others. A complete list of specifications tested will be available when the test launches, along with a guide to the test.

Due to the complexity of the test, we’re asking for a final round of feedback to ensure its fairness and accuracy. Please review the test and submit your comments here or email them to us.

Authors Tommy Olsson and Paul O’Brien have created an incredibly detailed and complete reference to CSS, not simply listing the various properties and syntax but showing examples, detailing browser compatibility issues and giving best practice guidelines throughout. A huge amount of work has gone into this – and it’s going to get better with time as the reference also enables user submitted comments. If you have solved a particular issue or know that certain usage can cause problems in a browser and that hasn’t already been listed, you can go and add this information.

If you are struggling with CSS bugs and workarounds the CSS Advisor from Adobe is another place to go and find help – or contribute to the pool of knowledge. The Adobe CSS Advisor is a community wiki where you can find solutions already contributed, add comments to those solutions or add new solutions to browser bugs and issues.

Finally don’t forget the CSS Discuss wiki, documenting a wide variety of information from bug fixes to layout examples.

If you have a favorite CSS resource not mentioned here – let us know in the comments.