Create modern Web sites using HTML5 and CSS3
Implementing the canvas and video elements in HTML5
Skill Level: Intermediate
Joe Lennon
Software developer
Freelance

02 Mar 2010
Since the World Wide Web emerged in the early 1990s, HTML has evolved to
become a relatively powerful markup language, which, when backed up by its close
partners JavaScript and CSS, can be used to create visually stunning and interactive
Web sites and applications. This tutorial serves as a hands-on introduction to HTML5
and CSS3. It provides information about the functionality and syntax for many of the
new elements and APIs that HTML5 has to offer, as well as the new selectors,
effects, and features that CSS3 brings to the table. Finally, it will show you how to
develop a sample Web page that harnesses many of these new features. By the time
you have finished this tutorial, you will be ready to build Web sites or applications of
your own that are powered by HTML5 and CSS3.

Section 1. Before you start
This tutorial assumes some basic experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It
assumes that you are aware of what an HTML element or tag is, what an attribute
means, the basic syntax of HTML markup, the general structure of a Web page, and
so on. In terms of CSS, you are expected to be familiar with element, class, and
ID-based selectors, the syntax of a CSS property, and how to include CSS in your
Web pages using inline or external stylesheets. Finally, it is assumed that you have
some working knowledge of JavaScript, such as what a variable, function, if
statement, and for loop is, as well as how to include JavaScript code in your Web
pages. If you feel that you need to brush up on any of these technologies before you

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begin, skip ahead to the Resources section for some useful tutorials and articles that
will bring you up to speed on the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
development.

About this tutorial
Over the past ten years or so, concepts such as Web 2.0, Rich Internet Applications
(RIAs), and the Semantic Web have all pushed HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to and
beyond their limits, often relying on plug-ins such as Adobe® Flash to power
components such as video and audio, as well as highly graphical and interactive
applications. The Adobe Flex development framework, Microsoft®'s Silverlight
platform, and JavaFX have all looked to provide support where HTML's weaknesses
made developers' lives difficult. With HTML5, however, the markup language is
striking back, with full multimedia support, local storage and offline application
support, a native 2D drawing API, and a host of new application development APIs,
all provided with the intent of proving that HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can provide a
rich front end to your Web sites and applications.
HTML5 is widely regarded as one of the most important new technologies scheduled
to emerge in 2010, and there are already several books being written on the subject,
some of which are due to be published as early as March of this year. For many
years, the Web has relied on external plug-ins to deliver features that cannot be
natively supported by the Web browser, particularly in terms of 2D drawing,
animation, and multimedia. The latest versions of the HTML and CSS specification
aim to remove the need for these additional browser components to facilitate such
features, as well as reduce the amount of JavaScript required (or removing the need
for JavaScript entirely, in some cases) for such trivial things as row drag and drop,
row striping, and more. Follow along in this tutorial to learn how to take advantage of
HTML5.

Prerequisites
HTML5 is a relatively young specification, and as a result, browser support is quite
limited (at the time of writing). The code presented in this tutorial is built to be as
cross-browser compatible as possible, but some features will not work in all
browsers. Any features that are currently browser-specific will be clearly identified in
the tutorial. To ensure that you can experience all of these new features, it is
recommended that you install the latest versions of the following Web browsers on
your system when developing HTML5 and CSS3 applications:
• Mozilla Firefox (version 3.5+)
• Apple Safari (version 4.0+)

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• Opera (version 10.0+)
• Google Chrome (version 3.0+)
You do not need any specific software to write HTML and CSS code; any basic text
editor will do (such as Notepad, vi, emacs, and so on.) In this tutorial, it is assumed
that the source code is stored in a directory on your local computer—you do not
need to use a Web server or upload the files to a Web hosting service.

Section 2. New features in HTML5
In this section, you will discover some of the great new features that HTML5 has to
offer. You will first learn about the new semantic elements that aim to give meaning
to the various parts of a modern Web page: headers, footers, navigation bars, side
bars, and so forth. Next, you will learn about the important new <canvas> element
and the 2D drawing JavaScript APIs that you can use to create shapes, text,
animations, transitions, and more. Following this, you will see how the new <audio>
and <video> elements intend on replacing the Web's current dependency on Flash
as a multimedia delivery platform. Next, you will be introduced to the local storage
APIs and offline applications support that will further bring Web applications in line
with their desktop counterparts in terms of functionality, even when not connected to
a network or the Internet. This section is wrapped up with a brief overview of the
other new elements, attributes, and APIs that are proposed in the current HTML5
specification.

Semantic elements
The HTML5 specification includes a series of new semantic elements that is used to
give some meaning to the various sections or parts of a Web page, such as a
header, footer, navigation, and so on. In previous versions of HTML, you would
typically use <div> elements to create these parts, using ID or class attributes to
differentiate them from each other. The problem with this is that this has no semantic
meaning, as there are no strict rules defined that specify what class names or IDs
are to be used, making it extremely difficult for software to determine what the
particular area is doing. HTML5 should help alleviate these issues, making it easier
for Web browsers to parse the semantic structure of a document.
It is worth pointing out that continuing to use <div> elements in HTML5 is perfectly
valid, but in order to future-proof your work, it is recommended that you use
semantic elements where relevant. On the other side of the coin, it is also suggested
that you avoid using these new elements for purposes other than their intended. For
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example, the <nav> element should not be used for just any group of links; it is
intended to surround the main navigation block on the page.
The main semantic elements that HTML5 introduces are:
<header>
This element is used to define a header for some part of a Web page, be it the
entire page, an <article> element, or a <section> element.
<footer>
Like the <header> element, this new element defines a footer for some part of
a page. A footer does not have to be included at the end of a page, article, or
section, but it typically does.
<nav>
This is a container for the primary navigation links on a Web page. This
element is not intended for use with all groups of links and should be used for
major navigation blocks only. If you have a <footer> element that contains
navigation links, you do not need to wrap these links in a <nav> element, since
the <footer> element will suffice on its own.
<article>
The <article> element is used to define an independent item on the page that
can be distributed on its own, such as a news item, blog post, or comment.
Such items are typically syndicated using RSS feeds.
<section>
This element represents a section of a document or application, such as a
chapter or a section of an article or tutorial. For example, the section you are
reading now could be surrounded by a <section> element in HTML5. <section>
elements typically have a header, although it is not strictly required. The header
for the section you are reading now would contain the text "Semantic
elements," for example.
<aside>
This new element can be used to mark up a sidebar or some other content that
is considered somewhat separate to the content around it. An example of this
might be advertising blocks.
<hgroup>
In some cases, a page, article, or section may require more than one heading,
such as where you have a title and a subtitle. This tutorial, for example, has the
title "Create modern Web sites using HTML5 and CSS3" and the subtitle
"Implementing the canvas and video elements in HTML5." You could wrap
these in an <hgroup> element, using an <h1> element for the main title and an
<h2> element for the subtitle.

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The sample Web site at the end of this tutorial includes several of these new
semantic elements, and I will explain their syntax and use in more detail at that
point.

The <canvas> element
The <canvas> element was originally developed by Apple® for use in Mac OS X
Dashboard widgets and in Safari, but was later adopted by Mozilla® and Opera® in
their Web browsers. The element has been standardized and included in the HTML5
specification, along with a series of 2D drawing APIs that can be used to create
shapes, text, transitions, and animations inside the element.
Many believe that the <canvas> element is one of the most important aspects of
HTML5 as it facilitates the production of graphs, interactive games, paint
applications, and other graphics on the fly without requiring external plug-ins such as
Adobe Flash.
The <canvas> element itself is quite basic, defining the width, height, and unique ID
for the object. The developer must then use a series of JavaScript APIs to actually
draw objects on the canvas, typically when the Web page has finished rendering.
These APIs allow the developer to draw shapes and lines; apply color, opacity, and
gradients; create text; transform canvas objects; and perform animation. The APIs
also allow the <canvas> to be interactive and respond to user input such as mouse
events and key events, facilitating the production of games and Web applications on
the canvas. You will see an example of the <canvas> element in action in the
sample HTML5/CSS3 Web site later in this tutorial.

Playing <audio> and <video>
In recent years, the popularity of video sharing sites such as YouTube and content
delivery platforms like Hulu has seen a huge explosion in the use of the Web for
multimedia streaming. Unfortunately, the Web was not built with such content in
mind, and as a result, the provision of video and audio has by and large been
facilitated by the Flash Video (.flv) file format and the Adobe Flash platform.
HTML5, however, includes support for two new elements, <audio> and <video>,
which allow Web developers to include multimedia content without relying on the
user to have additional browser plug-ins installed. Several browsers, including
Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome, have begun supporting these
new elements and providing standard browser playback controls, should the user
choose to use them. In addition, a set of standard JavaScript APIs has been
provided to allow developers to create their own playback controls, should they wish
to do so. A key advantage to native multimedia playback is that it theoretically
requires less CPU resources, which can lead to energy savings.

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A key issue with these new multimedia elements, however, is the file formats
supported by each browser and the patent licensing issues that go along with the
various codecs that these files can be encoded with. Mozilla and Opera want to use
the open source Theora video container and codec, which does not require patent
licensing for the inclusion of the codecs in the Web browser. On the other hand,
Apple and Google are not happy with the quality of Theora, particularly for the
delivery of high definition (HD) content on the likes of YouTube. They prefer the
H.264 codec, typically contained in MP4, MOV, or MKV files.
The issue is not just with video however, as the same problems reside with audio
codecs. The MP3 and AAC formats are restricted by patents, whereas the Vorbis
format is not. The problem with Vorbis audio is that it is not in widespread use, as
portable media players and many media software applications do not support it.
There are many decisions to be made about HTML5 <video> and <audio> in the
near future, and it will be interesting to see what codecs and formats are facilitated in
the final recommendation. In the meantime, you can try to support all browsers by
making video available in a variety of formats and by providing Flash video as a
fallback. Let's hope that a final decision is made, and that it is not left to browser
vendors to decide which formats to support, as that would essentially render these
new elements useless.
Again, you will see the <video> element in action later in this tutorial.

Local storage and offline applications
Web developers have traditionally used cookies to store information on a visitor's
local machine, allowing a Web page to read this information back at a later point.
While cookies are very useful for storing basic data, they are limited by the fact that
Web browsers are not required to keep more than 20 cookies per Web server or
more than 4KB of data per cookie (including both name and value). In addition, they
are sent to the Web server with every HTTP request, which is a waste of resources.
HTML5 provides a solution for these problems with the Local Storage APIs, which
are covered in a separate specification to the main HTML5 document. This set of
APIs allows developers to store information on the visitor's computer while remaining
reasonably confident that they will still be there at a later date. In addition, the
information is accessible at any point (even after the page has rendered) and is not
loaded automatically with each HTTP request. The specification includes
same-origin restrictions, which prevent Web sites from reading or changing data
stored by other Web sites.
Most browsers store Web pages in local cache, allowing them to be viewed even if
the user is offline. This works fine for static pages, but it is not available for dynamic
content that is typically database-driven, such as Gmail, Facebook, or Twitter.

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HTML5 provides support for offline applications, where the browser downloads all
the files necessary to use the application offline, and when the user uses the
application offline, the browser can allow any changes made in the process to be
uploaded to the server when they reconnect to the Internet.

Web form enhancements
If you have created Web applications before, you are more than likely familiar with
HTML's set of form controls, some of which are implemented using the <input>
element. In HTML 4, the following input types were supported:
• button
• checkbox
• file
• hidden
• image
• password
• reset
• radio
• submit
• text
In addition, there are some other elements that are used in forms such as <select>
and <textarea>. These form controls provide plenty of function for basic form fields
such as name, phone number, and address—like you might find on a contact form.
But, the Web as a platform has grown far beyond the stage where HTML forms are
used to submit contact forms—now they are used to submit application data for
server-side processing. As a result, Web application developers find themselves
continually in need of some more sophisticated form controls, such as spinners,
sliders, date/time pickers, color pickers, and so on.
In order to tap into these types of controls, developers needed to use an external
JavaScript library that provided UI components, or else use an alternative
development framework such as Adobe Flex, Microsoft Silverlight, or JavaFX.
HTML5 aims to fill some of the gaps left by its predecessor in this space by providing
a whole range of new form input types:
• color

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• date
• datetime
• datetime-local
• email
• month
• number
• range
• search
• tel
• time
• url
• week
At the moment, support for these new form fields is quite limited. The Mobile Safari
browser on the iPhone makes use of some of these new types to change the type of
keyboard presented to the user (for example, with the e-mail type, the @ symbol and
.com shortcuts will be shown). Also, Opera provides some new widgets for many of
these controls, including a spinner for the number type and a calendar date picker
for the date-related types. The most widely available type of these new offerings is
the range type, which is rendered as a slider by Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome.
In addition to these new input types, HTML5 also supports two major new features
for form fields. The first of these is autofocus, which tells a browser to automatically
give focus to a particular form field when the page has rendered, without requiring
JavaScript code to do so. The second enhancement is the placeholder attribute,
which allows the developer to define the text that will appear in a textbox-based
control when its contents are empty. An example of this would be a search box
where the developer would prefer not to use a label outside the box itself. The
placeholder attribute allows the developer to specify text that will show when the
value of the control is empty and the control does not have focus. An example of this
is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The placeholder attribute in action

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As Figure 1 shows, the placeholder text for e-mail address and phone number
appears in grey, while the field is empty and does not have focus. This screenshot
also shows an example of a range input type, represented here by a slider in the
Safari browser. This screenshot is taken from the sample Web page discussed later
in this tutorial.

Other new features
HTML5 includes so many new features; it's impossible to cover them all in this
tutorial. This section provides a brief overview of some of the other enhancements in
the specification.
Web worker
This allows JavaScript code to be set to run in a background process
facilitating the development of multi-threaded applications. The chief benefit
that Web workers offer developers is that intensive calculations can be
processed in the background without adversely affecting the speed of the user
interface.
Geolocation
HTML5 includes a geolocation API that allows a Web application to determine
your current geographical location, assuming the device you are targeting
provides features for finding such information (for example, GPS on a
cellphone). If you do not have a device that supports this feature (such as an
iPhone or an Android 2.0-based smartphone), you can use Firefox and
download a plug-in that allows you to set your location manually.
Drag and Drop
Another interesting feature is the inclusion of a drag and drop API. Up until
now, implementation of drag and drop without plug-ins was dependent on

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some very complex JavaScript or the use of a JavaScript library such as
script.aculo.us.
Cross-document messaging
This allows documents in different windows (and iframes, for that matter) to
send and receive messages to one another. This feature could prove very
useful for the development of widgets and applications that are hosted on
servers other than the primary Web page's server (similar to Facebook
applications).
And more
Other new features introduced by HTML5 include MIME types and protocol
handler registration, so Web applications can be registered as the default
application for a particular file type or protocol; browser history management,
which until now needed to be implemented manually or using an external
JavaScript framework; and a host of other new elements and attributes that
make Web developers' lives easier.

Section 3. New features in CSS3
This section introduces you to the new features that can be found in the CSS level 3
specifications—including new CSS selectors such as structural, state-based, and
negation pseudo-classes, as well as other new types of selectors. It also shows
many of the effects that CSS3 offers that would previously have required images to
be created using a separate application and saved as GIF, JPG, or PNG. Such
effects include drop shadows on text and boxes, rounded corners on borders, and
the use of opacity to create a translucent appearance. Many of these features (such
as opacity and rounded corners) are relatively widespread in use due to the fact that
they degrade very gracefully in legacy Web browsers. Next, you will learn about the
new multicolumn layouts that can be created using CSS3. These layouts are a
throwback to the newspaper layout where text will stretch over a set number of
columns or to a particular column width as required. Another feature that will be
discussed is the issue of including non-standard Web fonts using the @font-face tag.
Finally, some of the other new CSS3 features will be introduced, such as support for
HSL (Hue, Saturation, and Lightness) and RGBA (Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha)
color models.

New selectors
A CSS selector refers to the manner in which HTML element(s) are styled using a

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stylesheet. For example, to put a border around all <div> elements you would use
the selector div: div { border: 1px solid #000; }.
To apply a background color to all elements with the class highlight you would use
the selector .highlight: .highlight { background-color: yellow; }.
Finally, to change the width of an element with an ID attribute value of myDiv, you
would use: #myDiv { width: 250px; }.
Of course, these selectors can be combined, so to select all <div> elements with the
class highlight, you would use div.highlight, or to select the <div> element
with the ID myDiv you would use div#myDiv.
In addition to these straightforward selectors, CSS also includes (and has done
since previous versions) a series of more complex selectors. For example you can
use the selector input[type="text"] to select only the input elements that contain an
attribute type with the value of text. Or you can use the pseudo-class :hover to
style an element when the mouse is over it, for example: a:hover { color:
red; }.
There are many more of these selectors, all of which are provided to make it easier
to select an element to style. With CSS3, even more new selectors have been
added to the mix, all of which make developers' lives easier and reduce the amount
of HTML and JavaScript they need to write.
Attribute selectors
E[foo^="bar"]
Select an element, E, whose foo attribute begins exactly with the string bar
E[foo$="bar"]
Select an element, E, whose foo attribute ends exactly with the string bar
E[foo*="bar"]
Select an element, E, whose foo attribute contains the string bar
Structural pseudo-classes
E:root
Select an element, E, the root of the document (the <html> tag)
E:nth-child(n)
Select an element, E, the n-th child of its parent element
E:nth-last-child(n)
Select an element, E, the n-th last child of its parent element

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E:nth-of-type(n)
Select an element, E, the n-th sibling of its type
E:nth-last-of-type(n)
Select an element, E, the n-th last sibling of its type
E:last-child
Select an element, E, whose is the last child of its parent element (Note that
E:first-child was previously defined in CSS2)
E:first-of-type
Select an element, E, the first sibling of its type
E:last-of-type
Select an element, E, the last sibling of its type
E:only-child
Select an element, E, the only child of its parent element
E:only-of-type
Select an element, E, the only sibling of its type
E:empty
Select an element, E, that has no children (including text nodes)
The target pseudo-class
E:target
Select an element, E, who is the target of the referring URI
UI element states pseudo-classes
E:enabled
Select a user interface element, E, which is enabled
E:disabled
Select a user interface element, E, which is disabled
E:checked
Select a user interface element, E (a radio button or checkbox), which is
checked or selected
Negation pseudo-class
E:not(s)
Select an element, E, which does not match the simple selector s

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General sibling combinator
E~F
Select an element, F, which is preceded by an element, E
Browser support for the new attribute selectors and the general sibling combinator is
excellent, as they work on almost all modern Web browsers. Support for the new
pseudo-classes is included with the latest versions of most browsers, but you may
need to include fallbacks for older browsers such as Internet Explorer 6/7 and
Firefox 3.0.

New effects
Although the new selectors are probably the features that reduce developers'
headaches the most, the enhancements people most want to see are the shiny new
effects that are available. These are facilitated through a slew of new CSS
properties, including:
• background (now supports multiple backgrounds)
• background-clip
• background-origin
• background-size
• border-radius (rounded corners)
• border-image
• border-color (gradient borders)
• box-shadow (drop shadow on boxes without images)
• box-sizing
• opacity
• outline-offset
• resize
• text-overflow
• text-shadow
• word-wrap
The sample HTML5/CSS3 Web page you'll create at the end of this tutorial will show
some of these new effects in action.

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Multicolumn layouts
CSS3 multicolumn layouts allow for text to be spread over a number of columns, like
you might find in a newspaper. This can be done in two ways, either using the
column-width property, where you define how wide each column should be (the
number of columns is determined by the space available to the container), or using
column-count, where you define the number of columns that should be used. The
width will then vary based on the space available to each column.
Other features of multicolumn layouts include the column-gap property, which allows
the developer to define the space that should be present between columns when the
column-width method is used. Another useful addition is the column-rule property,
which allows a border-style rule to be placed between columns. Finally there is the
column-space-distribution property, which determines how left over space should be
allocated between the columns.
Multicolumn layouts are currently supported by Mozilla and WebKit browsers. At
present, these are implemented by means of temporary proprietary properties
prefixed with -moz or -webkit, respectively. When the specification has been
finalized, these browsers will eventually move to the CSS standard properties.

Web fonts
Web fonts were actually proposed for CSS2 and have been available in Microsoft
Internet Explorer since version 5. Unfortunately, this required the use of the
proprietary .eot (Embedded Open Type) font format, and none of the other browser
vendors chose to implement it. As a result, Web fonts never really took off on
CSS2-based Web sites.
With the latest versions of Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera, however, you can
now use the @font-face rule to use any licensed .ttf (TrueType) or .otf (OpenType)
font on your Web page. An example of the @font-face rule is as follows:
@font-face { font-family: Alexa; src: url('Alexa.otf'); }.
You can now use this font in your own CSS rules, such as: article p {
font-family: Alexa, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; }.
Remember that fonts are like images—if they are not your own you may need
permission to use them on the Web. Alternatively, you can pay for (or download for
free) some royalty-free fonts that can be included on your Web pages as you please.

Other new features

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CSS3 also includes many other new features, including support for new color
values, notably HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) and two color values with alpha
properties—RGBA (Red, Green, Blue, Alpha) and HSLA (Hue, Saturation,
Lightness, Alpha). Media queries will allow you to define different styles for different
devices based on their viewport size. For example, you can provide specific styles
for devices with a viewport of less than 500 pixels (such as a smartphone, PDA, or
other mobile device). CSS3's speech module allows you to control properties of the
speech of a screen reader, including voice volume, balance, rate, stress, and more.

Section 4. Putting it all together: The sample
HTML5/CSS3 page
At this stage, you must be anxious to get your hands dirty and start creating pages
that use the great new features that HTML5 and CSS3 have to offer. In this section,
you will create an HTML page that contains many of these new features. This
section of the tutorial will divide the development of the page into subsections as
follows:
• The basic HTML5 page structure
• Using the new semantic elements
• Introducing the <video> element
• Web form enhancements
• The <canvas> element and the 2D drawing API
The entire source will be built into a single HTML file, named index.html (see
Downloads). You can open this file from any location on your computer; it does not
need to be deployed to a Web server to load. Some browsers may give you
warnings about running scripts locally, so be sure to keep dynamic scripting features
on if asked.
Along the way, the CSS rules for the page will be added to an external stylesheet
file, named styles.css. You will see some examples of new CSS3 properties such as
border-radius, text-shadow, and box-shadow in this sample page.
Anyway, that's enough of the housekeeping, let's get started with some HTML5!

The basic HTML5 page structure
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As you may be aware, Web browsers can operate in different modes depending on
whether a valid doctype is available in an HTML document. If no valid doctype is
found, the browser will operate in quirks mode, where some non-standard features
are maintained for backwards-compatibility. If a valid doctype is found, the browser
operates in standards mode, according to W3C and IETF standards.
The doctype for HTML5 is very simple: <!doctype html>.
You should include this line at the top of every HTML5 page you create. Let's
continue and define the basic outline for the index.html page. The code for this can
be found in Listing 1.
Listing 1. Basic HTML5 document structure
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>HTML5 Demo</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" />
<!--[if IE]>
<script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk
/html5.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

You may notice that unlike the recent XHTML flavors of HTML, the opening <html>
tag no longer requires the xmlns or xml:lang attributes, and the lang attribute
alone suffices. Similarly, the <meta> element features a new shorthand attribute
charset for defining the page's character encoding. It is worth pointing out that these
changes just make it easier and reduce the amount of code required to perform
simple tasks. The old methods are still perfectly valid.
You may also be wondering why the <link> element doesn't feature a type attribute.
CSS is the only supported stylesheet type at present, and all modern browsers will
assume the type is text/css if none is supplied, so it is not required. Again, it is
perfectly acceptable to provide the type attribute if you so wish.
The final point of note in Listing 1 is the <script> element, which loads the externally
hosted JavaScript file html5.js. As Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers (even
version 8) do not support the new HTML5 elements, the browser does not recognise
the likes of <article>, <section>, <header>, and so on. Not only does it not recognise
these elements, but it also prevents them from being styled. A known hack for
circumventing this issue is to use the JavaScript function
document.createElement() to create dummy elements for each tag. This script
will do this for every new HTML5 element so you don't have to worry about it. I highly

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recommend including this script in all of your HTML5 work.
Next, you will add some of the new semantic elements to the page to create the
page's visual structure. You will also create some stylesheet rules to make the page
look more presentable.

Using the new semantic elements
To illustrate how the new semantic HTML5 elements should be used, you will now
add these to the index.html file. The basic structure of these elements will adhere to
the following outline:
• header
• hgroup
• nav
• article
• header
• section
• header
• footer
As you can see, the page itself opens with a header, followed by a nav, then an
article, and finally a footer. The header will have multiple headings using the hgroup
element. The article itself will have a header as well as a section element, which too
has its own header. The code for this is shown in Listing 2, and should be added
between the opening and closing <body> tag from Listing 1.
Listing 2. Using HTML5 semantic elements
<header>
<hgroup>
<h1>Company Name</h1>
<h2>An example of HTML5 and CSS3 in action</h2>
</hgroup>
</header>
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#">About Us</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Contact Us</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
<article>

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<header>
<time datetime="2010-01-12" pubdate>
<span>Jan</span> 12
</time>
<h1>
<a href="#" title="Link to this post"
rel="bookmark">Article Heading</a>
</h1>
</header>
<p>This is an article that demonstrates some of the new features
that HTML5 and CSS3 has to offer. This article contains several sections, each
with its own heading, as well as a video element which will play a video without
Flash on browsers that support it.</p>
<section>
<header>
<h1>This is a section heading</h1>
</header>
<p>This is an example of a basic section of a document.
A section can refer to different parts of a document, application, or page.
According to the draft W3C spec, HTML5 sections usually have headings.</p>
</section>
</article>
<footer>
<p>&copy; 2009 Company Name. All rights reserved.</p>
</footer>

The code in Listing 2 should be relatively self-explanatory. The main <header>
element consists of a <hgroup> element with two headings: a <h1> title and a <h2>
subtitle element. The main <nav> element is an unordered list with three items, each
a link to a fictitious page on the site. The <article> element contains its own
<header>, with a <time> element for the publication date of the article. You will
notice that this element contains an attribute datetime, which specifies a
standardized form of the date of the post that is easy for computers to read. The
content of the time element is "Jan 12," which humans will find easier to read. The
pubdate attribute indicates that this is a publication date for the article in question.
Beneath the header is a normal HTML paragraph, and this is followed by a new
<section> element, which contains a <header> with the section's title and a
paragraph. You will create more sections for the additional areas of the page created
in the remaining sections of this tutorial.
If you open this page in your browser, it won't look very pretty, as it has not yet been
styled with CSS. Let's add some styles to make the page look a bit better. Add the
code from Listing 3 to the styles.css file.
Listing 3. CSS styles for the new semantic HTML5 elements
* {
font-family: Lucida Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
body {
width: 480px; margin: 0px auto;
}

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header h1 {
font-size: 36px; margin: 0px;
}
header h2 {
font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; color: #888;
font-style: italic;
}
nav ul {
list-style: none; padding: 0px; display: block;
clear: right; background-color: #666;
padding-left: 4px; height: 24px;
}
nav ul li {
display: inline; padding: 0px 20px 5px 10px;
height: 24px; border-right: 1px solid #ccc;
}
nav ul li a {
color: #EFD3D3; text-decoration: none;
font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;
}
nav ul li a:hover {
color: #fff;
}
article > header time {
font-size: 14px; display: block; width: 26px;
padding: 2px; text-align: center; background-color: #993333;
color: #fff; font-weight: bold; -moz-border-radius: 6px;
-webkit-border-radius: 6px; border-radius: 6px; float: left;
margin-bottom: 10px;
}
article > header time span {
font-size: 10px; font-weight: normal;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
article > header h1 {
font-size: 20px; float: left;
margin-left: 14px; text-shadow: 2px 2px 5px #333;
}
article > header h1 a {
color: #993333;
}
article > section header h1 {
font-size: 16px;
}
article p {
clear: both;
}
footer p {
text-align: center; font-size: 12px;
color: #888; margin-top: 24px;
}

Most of these CSS rules contain properties that have been available in CSS for a
while now, but you may notice that the rule article > header time contains
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border-radius properties (including browser-specific properties for Mozilla and
WebKit-based browsers). This adds a rounded corner to the date/time box on
supported browsers, such as Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.
You'll also notice the use of the text-shadow property in the article > header
h1 rule. Most modern browsers support this property.
The nice thing about both of the CSS3 properties introduced in this section is that
they degrade gracefully. In other words, if the visitor's Web browser doesn't support
these new properties, they will simply be ignored and the elements will be styled
according to any other supported properties. The page including its current contents
should look like the screenshot in Figure 2 (this is how it looks in Safari 4 on Mac OS
X, at least).
Figure 2. Semantic HTML5 elements in action

Next, you will be introduced to the <video> element and how to use it to include a
Theora video file in your HTML5 page.

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Introducing the <video> element
Now you will add a video to the index.html page along with a set of browser-supplied
playback controls. Please note that the video included in this sample is a Theora
video, which can be played on Firefox and Google Chrome only. Safari currently
only supports H.264 encoded videos. Add the code from Listing 4 beneath the last
closing </section> tag from Listing 2, but above the closing </article> tag.
Listing 4. Adding a video to the page
<section>
<header>
<h1>This is a video section</h1>
</header>
<p>
<video src="http://www.double.co.nz/video_test/transformers480.ogg"
controls autoplay>
<div class="no-html5-video">
<p>This video will work in Mozilla Firefox or Google
Chrome only.</p>
</div>
</video>
</p>
</section>

As you can see, you first create a new section where the video will be shown on the
page. This has a header followed by the video itself. The video I'm using here is a
trailer for the first Transformers movie and is loaded from an external Web site using
the src attribute. The controls attribute tells the browser to display the browser's
standard controls for video playback. And the autoplay attribute, well, tells the
browser to start playing the video automatically.
Between the opening and closing <video> tags I have created a <div> element with
the class no-html5-video, which will display a message to users who try to view
the video in a browser that does not support the <video> element or does not
support the Theora video codec.
Before you go and fire up the page in your browser, let's add some new rules to the
styles.css page. Just add the rules from Listing 5 to the bottom of the file.
Listing 5. CSS rules for the video section
article > section video {
width: 480px; height: 200px;
}
article > section div.no-html5-video,
article > section div#no-canvas {
width: 480px; height: 40px; border: 1px solid #993333;
text-align: center; color: #993333; font-size: 13px;
font-style: italic; background-color: #F7E9E9;
}

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These rules simply define the size of the video container element, as well as the
error message for those visitors using browsers that do not support HTML5 video or
the Theora format. If you open the page in Firefox or Chrome you should see
something like the following (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. HTML5 Video in action

Neat, huh? Now try opening it in a browser like Internet Explorer or Opera. You
should see an error like the one shown below in Figure 4. Note that if you try to view
it in Safari it may show the browser video player, but it will not play the video.
Figure 4. No HTML5 video support error

Next, you'll create a form that has some of the new Web form features such as
placeholder text, autofocus, and the new input types such as range, datetime, and
email.

Web form enhancements
One of the more underrated aspects of HTML5 is the introduction of several new
form controls that will make developers' lives much easier when creating
forms-based Web applications. At present, support for these new controls in terms of

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browser widgets and functionality is fairly sparse, but they degrade gracefully as
regular text boxes so you can safely use them in your code now, and when browser
support improves, the features will automatically enable.
Add the code from Listing 6 directly below the closing </section> tag for the video
section you created in Listing 4.
Listing 6. Adding a Web form
<section>
<header>
<h1>This is a feedback form</h1>
</header>
<p><form>
<label for="contact_name">Name:</label>
<input id="contact_name" placeholder="Enter your name"
autofocus><br />
<label for="contact_email">E-mail:</label>
<input type="email" id="contact_email" placeholder="Enter
your email address"><br />
<label for="contact_phone">Phone:</label>
<input type="tel" id="contact_phone" placeholder="Enter your
phone number"><br />
<label for="contact_callback">Callback on:</label>
<input type="datetime" id="contact_callback"><br />
<label for="contact_priority">Priority:</label>
<input type="range" min="1" max="5" value="1"
id="contact_priority"><br /><br />
<input type="submit" value="Request Call">
</form></p>
</section>

The first form element in Listing 6 does not have any type attribute, and as a result
it will default to a text control. You'll notice that this has the placeholder text "Enter
your name" and is set to autofocus. Supporting browsers will automatically switch
focus to this element when the page has been rendered.
The next element is of type "email" and again contains a placeholder text value. The
only browser that recognizes this type of input element as anything special is Opera,
which displays a mail icon in the field to signify that it's an email field.
The next field of interest is the datetime field with the label "Callback on:". In
supporting browsers, this will display a date and time picker. In Opera, this displays
as two controls, a textbox with a datepicker and a spinner for the time.
Finally, you'll see a control of the type range, with min, max, and value attributes set.
This control will be rendered by Safari, Chrome, and Opera as a slider, with a
minimum value of 1, selected by default, and a maximum value of 5. Unsupported
browsers will simply display this as a textbox with the text value set to 1.
Next, let's add some flair to what is otherwise a fairly dull and boring form. Add the
following rules (see Listing 7) to your styles.css file.

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Listing 7. Web form CSS rules
article > section form {
border: 1px solid #888;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
border-radius: 10px;
-moz-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888;
-webkit-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888;
box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888;
background-color: #eee;
padding: 10px; margin-bottom: 30px;
}
article > section label {
font-weight: bold; font-size: 13px;
}
article > section input {
margin-bottom: 3px; font-size: 13px;
}

Looking at Listing 7 in more detail, you'll see that a border radius has been added to
the form container to round the box corners. In addition, a box shadow has been
added to this element as well as a soft grey background color and some padding.
First, let's look at the form as it appears in Opera, the browser that includes the most
support for these new HTML5 Web form input types (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Web form enhancements in Opera

You can see the mail icon next to the email field, and the new controls for the
datetime field. Clicking the spinner drop-down field opens Opera's calendar widget,
as shown in Figure 6 below.
Figure 6. Opera's calendar widget

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You can also see a rather unattractive slider control as Opera has rendered it.
Frustratingly, however, Opera does not support the border-radius or box-shadow
properties, and as a result, neither of these effects has been applied to the form.
Let's open it in Safari now to see what these CSS3 effects look like (see Figure 7).
Figure 7. Web Form enhancements in Safari

The WebKit-based Safari has correctly rendered the rounded corners and the box
shadow effect, and it has a stunning but simple visual effect. The same effects would
work in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. You may notice that Safari supports the
placeholder text feature and also implements a slider (a far prettier alternative to
Opera's, it must be said) in place of the range input type. In the final section of this
tutorial, you will learn how to use the <canvas> element and the 2D drawing API to
create a simple smiley face bitmap image.

The <canvas> element and the 2D drawing API

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To get started with <canvas>, you first need to add the element itself to the page.
Directly beneath the code you added to index.html for the Web form in the previous
section, add the code from Listing 8.
Listing 8. Adding the <canvas> element to the page
<section>
<header>
<h1>This is an 2D Canvas section</h1>
</header>
<p>
<canvas id="my_canvas" width="480" height="320"></canvas>
<div id="no-canvas">
<p>You need a Canvas-compatible browser to view this area.</p>
</div>
</p>
</section>

This code is relatively straightforward. You simply declare the canvas element,
giving it a width, height, and a unique ID attribute. Mozilla and WebKit browsers
have different opinions on whether the <canvas> tag should have a separate closing
tag, but both will be rendered the same way so long as you do not place any code
between the opening and closing tags. You will use JavaScript to display the
no-canvas error message to those users who are using an unsupported browser in a
moment.
Next, you need to add the JavaScript code that harnesses the 2D drawing APIs to
create the image on the canvas. In the index.html file, just before the closing
</head> tag near the top of the file, add the following code (see Listing 9):
Listing 9. Scripting the canvas element
<script>
function loadCanvas() {
var canvas = document.getElementById('my_canvas');
if(canvas.getContext) {
var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.arc(245,160,150,0,Math.PI*2,true);
ctx.fillStyle = "rgb(255,255,204)";
ctx.fill();
ctx.stroke();
ctx.fillStyle = "black";
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.arc(200,110,15,0,Math.PI*2,true);
ctx.fill();
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.arc(280,110,15,0,Math.PI*2,true);
ctx.fill();
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.arc(240,170,20,4,Math.PI*2,true);
ctx.stroke();

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ctx.beginPath();
ctx.arc(240,190,60,0,Math.PI,false);
ctx.stroke();
} else {
document.getElementById('my_canvas').style.display = 'none';
document.getElementById('no-canvas').style.display = 'block';
}
}
</script>

Listing 9 adds a block of JavaScript to the page's head element, defining a function
named loadCanvas. This function instantiates a variable named canvas by
selecting the element with the unique ID my_canvas. It then uses an if statement to
determine if it can get a canvas context from this element. If it can, then the
<canvas> element is supported by the browser; if not, there is no support for the
browser and the canvas should be hidden and replaced by the error message. This
is taken care of in the else block of the if statement, towards the end of the function.
If canvas supported is detected, the function gets a 2D context named ctx, which is
then used to draw shapes on the canvas. In this function, five shapes are created.
First, the ctx.beginPath() function is called to start a path drawing. Next a full
circular arc is drawn, with a radius of 150 pixels, near the center of the canvas, using
the ctx.arc() function. The fill style is set to a yellow color, before the
ctx.fill() and ctx.stroke() functions are called, creating a large yellow circle
with a black outline. This is the main face.
The fill style is set to black as the next shapes to be drawn are the eyes. This time
full circles are created using ctx.arc() which have a radius of just 15 pixels, and
the ctx.fill() function is called to draw them.
The next block of code creates the nose, which is an arc that is not a full circle and is
placed below and centered between the eyes that were just created. The nose is not
to be filled, so the ctx.stroke() function is used instead.
Finally, a large semi-circle arc is stroked below the nose to create the mouth. The
result should look the same in all browsers that support the <canvas> element (most
modern browsers including Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera—even Internet
Explorer—can support it with the help of some clever JavaScript libraries).
The final change you need to make to index.html is to change the <body> element to
call the loadCanvas() function when the window has finished loading. Simply
replace the opening <body> tag with the following line: <body
onload="loadCanvas();">.
Finally, just add the following rules to the styles.css file to add some pretty box
shadowing to the canvas container (see Listing 10).
Listing 10. Canvas CSS rules

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article > section div#no-canvas {
display: none;
}
canvas {
border: 1px solid #888;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
border-radius: 10px;
-moz-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888;
-webkit-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888;
box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888;
background-color: #eee;
}

The final result looks like the image in Figure 8.
Figure 8. The smiley face canvas

That concludes the sample page for this tutorial. In this section, you have used
HTML5 and CSS3 to work with the new HTML5 semantic elements, harnessed
some of CSS3's pretty new effects, watched video in the browser without any Flash
plug-in, seen some new form widgets, and created a smiley face graphic on a
canvas using JavaScript APIs.

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Section 5. Summary
This tutorial serves as a hands-on introduction to HTML5 and CSS3 development.
HTML5 is very much at an early stage of development, and it will be interesting to
see how the new features it proposes are adopted by the different browser vendors.
At present, of the major browsers, Opera, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome are providing
support for more enhancements with each release, and one would hope to see the
bulk of HTML5 features supported by the end of 2010.
Several issues may stop HTML5 from becoming widespread in the near future,
however. The first real issue is the lack of support of it from Microsoft's Internet
Explorer, the most widely used Web browser on the market. It is unlikely that
developers will be able to test any HTML5 features on IE until the first beta version
of IE9 is released. At least for now, sites developed for HTML5 degrade quite
gracefully on IE8, and with a bit of extra work, fallbacks can be put in place to
provide workarounds for IE users.
Another major issue is the one surrounding video codecs and containers. The way
things stand, the <video> element will not replace Flash video as the video standard
for the Web. With different browsers backing different codecs, it's still much easier to
use Flash than it is to encode your videos for Theora and H.264. Here's hoping that
some kind of breakthrough is made this year on HTML5 video. In summary, HTML5
and CSS3 are exciting standards, and you can start future-proofing your Web sites
to be compliant with these new specifications right now. Following the steps outlined
in this tutorial, you should be well versed to move forward and explore some of the
other interesting features HTML5 has to offer.

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Downloads
Description

Name

Size

Download
method

HTML5 examples

html5.examples.zip

3KB

HTTP

Information about download methods

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Resources
Learn
• "HTML V5 and XHTML V2" (Adriaan de Jonge, developerWorks, November
2007): While the intention of both HTML V5 and XHTML V2 is to improve on the
existing versions, the approaches the developers chose to make those
improvements is very different. And with differing philosophies come distinct
results. For the first time in many years, the direction of upcoming browser
versions is uncertain. Uncover the bigger picture behind the details of these two
standards.
• "New elements in HTML5" (Elliotte Rusty Harold, developerWorks, August
2007): Get an overview of some of the new elements in HTML 5.
• "An Introduction to MathML" (David Carlisle, developerWorks, December 2009):
MathML is a W3C Recommendation defining an XML vocabulary for marking up
mathematical expressions. With HTML 5, it will hopefully be possible to place
MathML directly on the Web without needing to worry about mime types and
server configurations.
• "Android and iPhone browser wars, Part 1: WebKit to the rescue" (Frank
Ableson, developerWorks, December 2009): This article is the first in a two-part
series on developing browser-based applications for iPhone and Android.
• "The future of HTML, Part 1: WHATWG" (Ed Dumbill, developerWorks,
December 2005): In this two-part series, Edd Dumbill examines the various
ways forward for HTML that Web authors, browser developers, and standards
bodies propose.
• This HTML tutorial from w3schools.com teaches you everything about HTML.
• This CSS tutorial teaches you how to use CSS to control the style and layout of
multiple Web pages all at once.
• JavaScript tutorial: Learn how to use the scripting language of the Web.
• HTML5: A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML: Editor's Draft
13 January 2010: Read the most recent Editor's Draft for the HTML5
specification.
• Read excerpts from the upcoming Dive Into HTML5 by Mark Pilgrim from
O'Reilly Media.
• HTML5 gallery is a showcase of sites using HTML5 markup.
• HTML5 Tag Reference: See an alphabetically-ordered reference for HTML5
tags.
• HTML5 doctor Web site is loaded with information to help you implement HTML

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5 today.
• The HTML 5 Cheat Sheet lists all currently supported tags, their descriptions,
their attributes, and their support in HTML 4.
• CSS 3 Cheat Sheet: Here are the main features of CSS 3 in a handy, printable
reference card.
• HTML5 demos Web site has links to various HTML 5 experiments and demos.
• This demo demonstrates the potential of rendering 3D graphics in the browser,
using O3D, an open-source web API for creating rich, interactive 3D
applications in the browser.
• Read How HTML5 Will Change the Way You Use the Web from lifehacker.com.
• Yes, You Can Use HTML5 Today!: Another excellent introductory article to the
world of HTML5.
• css3.info.com: Everything you need to know about CSS3.
• Introduction to CSS3: Read the W3C Working Draft of this upcoming
specification.
• Introducing the CSS3 Multi-Column Module looks at the W3C multi-column
module. The module's intent is to allow content to flow into multiple columns
inside an element.
• Learn about CSS3 Columns from Mozilla.org.
• CSS3 transitions and 2D transforms: This article teaches you about CSS3
transitions and transforms in Opera. See the SVG and SMIL corollaries to them,
too.
• This Canvas tutorial from Mozilla.org describes how to implement the <canvas>
element in your own HTML pages.
• Using the Canvas from Apple Developer Central looks at Safari, Dashboard,
and WebKit-based applications support for the JavaScript canvas object, which
allows you to easily draw arbitrary content within your HTML content.
Get products and technologies
• Theora is a free and open video compression format from the Xiph.org
Foundation.
• O3D AP: O3D is an open-source Web API for creating rich, interactive 3D
applications in the browser.
• Download IBM product evaluation versions, and get your hands on application
development tools and middleware products from DB2, Lotus, Rational, Tivoli,
and WebSphere

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About the author
Joe Lennon
Joe Lennon is a 24-year-old software developer from Cork, Ireland. Joe
is author of the forthcoming Apress book Beginning CouchDB, and has
contributed several technical articles and tutorials to IBM
developerWorks. In his spare time, Joe likes to play football (soccer),
tinker with gadgets, and work on his Xbox 360 gamerscore. He can be
contacted via his Web site at www.joelennon.ie.

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