The mission of the XHTML2 Working Group is to fulfill the promise of XML for
applying XHTML to a wide variety of platforms with proper attention paid to
internationalization, accessibility, device-independence, usability and
document structuring. The group will provide an essential piece for supporting
rich Web content that combines XHTML with other W3C work on areas such as math,
scalable vector graphics, synchronized multimedia, and forms, in cooperation
with other Working Groups.
(Skip to main content)
2010-12-17: The XHTML2 Working Group is closed.
2010-12-17: XHTML
Modularization for RelaxNG is out.
2009-07-02: XHTML 2 Working Group Expected to Stop Work End of 2009, W3C to
Increase Resources on HTML 5. Today the Director announces that when the XHTML
2 Working Group charter expires as scheduled at the end of 2009, the charter
will not be renewed. By doing so, and by increasing resources in the HTML
Working Group, W3C hopes to accelerate the progress of HTML 5 and clarify W3C's
position regarding the future of HTML.
2009-01-28: XHTML Media
Types - Second Edition published. Many people want to use XHTML to author
their Web pages, but are confused about the best ways to deliver those pages in
such a way that they will be processed correctly by various user agents. This
Note contains suggestions about how to format XHTML to ensure it is maximally
portable, and how to deliver XHTML to various user agents - even those that do
not yet support XHTML natively. This document is intended to be used by
document authors who want to use XHTML today, but want to be confident that
their XHTML content is going to work in the greatest number of environments. News item.
2009-01-16: CURIE Syntax 1.0 is a
W3C Candidate Recommendation.This document defines a generic, abbreviated
syntax for expressing URIs. See the ongoing CURIE implementation report for progress
during the CR phase. News
item.
2008-10-16: RDFa is a
Recommendation. This specification allows publishers to express structured data
on the Web within XHTML. This allows tools to read it, enabling a new world of
user functionality, allowing users to transfer structured data between
applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the
user experience. For those looking for an introduction to the use of RDFa and
some real-world examples, please consult the updated RDFa
Primer.
2008-10-08: XHTML
Modularization 1.1 is a W3C Recommendation. The main change in this version
is addition of support for XML Schema. The XHTML2 WG will now use this to add
schema support to its markup languages that use XHTML Modularization. News item.
2008-09-04: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group
and the XHTML2 Working Group have published the Proposed
Recommendation of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax
and Processing. See also the RDFa
Implementation Report.
2008-07-29: XHTML Basic 1.1
is a recommendation. With this, there is now a full convergence in mobile
markup languages, including those developed by the Open Mobile Alliance
(OMA).
2008-06-20: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group
and the XHTML2 Working Group have published a Candidate
Recommendation of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax
and Processing. Web documents contain significant amounts of structured
data, which is largely unavailable to tools and applications. When publishers
can express this data more completely, and when tools can read it, a new world
of user functionality becomes available, letting users transfer structured data
between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to
improve the user experience. RDFa is a specification for attributes to be used
with languages such as HTML and XHTML to express structured data.
2008-06-12: The XHTML2 Working
Group published two Proposed Recommendations today: XHTML
Modularization 1.1 and XHTML Basic 1.1. The former
provides a means for subsetting and extending XHTML, a feature needed for
extending XHTML's reach onto emerging platforms. This specification is intended
for use by language designers as they construct new XHTML Family Markup
Languages. This second version of this specification includes several minor
updates to provide clarifications and address errors found in the first
version. It also provides an implementation using XML Schemas. This version of
XHTML Basic, which uses the Modularization approach, has been brought into
alignment with the widely deployed XHTML Mobile Profile from the Open Mobile
Alliance (OMA).
2008-05-26: The XHTML2 Working
Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of XHTML Access
Module. This document is intended to help make XHTML-family markup
languages more effective at supporting the needs of the accessibility community
by providing a generic mechanism for defining the relationship between document
components and well-known accessibility taxonomies.
2008-05-06: The XHTML2 Working
Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of CURIE Syntax 1.0 that
defines a syntax for expressing URIs in a generic, abbreviated syntax.
2008-04-07: The XHTML2 Working Group has released
a second Last Call Working Draft of XHTML Role Attribute
Module. With the role
attribute, authors can annotate XML
languages with machine-readable semantic information about the purpose of
elements. Use cases include accessibility, device adaptation, server-side
processing and complex data description. The attribute can be integrated into
any markup language based on XHTML Modularization.
2008-01-07: The XHTML2 Working
Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XHTML Access Module. This
document is intended to help make XHTML-family markup languages more effective
at supporting the needs of the accessibility community. It does so by providing
a generic mechanism for defining the relationship between document components
and well-known accessibility taxonomies.
(Past News)
HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the World
Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created
and processed by a wide range of tools, from simple plain text editors - you
type it in from scratch - to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools. HTML
uses tags such as <h1>
and </h1>
to
structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links etc. Here is a
10-minute guide for newcomers to HTML. W3C's statement of
direction for HTML is given on the HTML Activity
Statement. See also the page on our work on the next
generation of Web forms, and the section on Web
history.
The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML™) is a family of current
and future document types and modules that reproduce, subset, and extend HTML,
reformulated in XML rather than SGML. XHTML Family
document types are all XML-based, and ultimately are designed to work in
conjunction with XML-based user agents. XHTML is the successor of HTML, and a
series of specifications has been developed for
XHTML. See also: HTML and XHTML Frequently Answered
Questions
W3C produces what are known as "Recommendations". These are
specifications, developed by W3C working groups, and then reviewed by Members
of the Consortium. A W3C Recommendation indicates that consensus has been
reached among the Consortium Members that a specification is appropriate for
widespread use.
In general, XHTML specifications include implementations of their
requirements in various syntaxes (e.g., XML DTD, XML Schema, RelaxNG). These
implementations are normative, and are meant to be used either as building
blocks for new markup languages (e.g., XHTML Modularization) or as complete
markup language implementations (e.g., XHTML 1.1).
While a normative part of the W3C Recommendation in which they are
presented, these implementations are also code containing potential errors or
omissions. When such errors are discovered, it is sometimes important that they
be addressed very quickly to ensure that technologies relying on the
implementations work as expected (e.g., validators and content authoring
systems). The W3C process allows for the publication and frequent updating of
errata, but unfortunately this process does not enable implementations to be
quickly updated. As a result, the XHTML 2 Working Group has adopted the
following concerning the production and evolution of its implementations:
- All implementations will adhere to the naming convention(s) and evolution
rules as defined in XHTML Modularization. These names include both Formal
Public Identifiers and System Identifiers. These conventions require that
the System Identifier must include a revision number. This revision number
is ONLY incremented when a revision is not backward compatible.
- Each applicable Recommendation will include fixed, unchanging versions of
those implementations within the formal dated location for the
Recommendation (/TR/YYYY/REC-whatever-YYYYmmdd/...).
- The Working Group will also provide a version of that implementation in
the working group's space on the W3C server (/MarkUp), uncoupled from a
specific dated version of the associated Recommendation. In the beginning
this uncoupled version will be *identical* to the version from the
associated Recommendation.
- If the Working Group identifies a problem with an implementation, and it
is possible to solve the problem in a way that is 100 percent backward
compatible, then the version in the group's space will be updated in place
and an announcement will be sent to the XHTML 2 public email list.
The XHTML 2 Working Group states that the term "backward compatible" should
be used only when:
- The external interface to the module cannot change in any way that would
break another module or markup language, either within or outside of the
W3C.
- The content model cannot change in any way that would cause a previously
valid document to become invalid.
If either of the above constraints would be violated by a change, the
working group will either 1) not make the change, or 2) revise the applicable
module. In the latter case, the working group will also change the associated
identifiers.
XHTML 1.0 | HTML
4.01 | XHTML basic | Modularization of XHTML | XHTML 1.1 | XML Events
XHTML 1.0 was the W3C's first Recommendation for XHTML, following on from earlier work on HTML 4.01, HTML 4.0, HTML 3.2 and HTML
2.0. With a wealth of features, XHTML 1.0 is a reformulation of HTML 4.01 in
XML, and combines the strength of HTML 4 with the power of XML.
XHTML 1.0 was the first major change to HTML since HTML 4.0 was released in
1997. It brings the rigor of XML to Web pages and is the keystone in W3C's work
to create standards that provide richer Web pages on an ever increasing range
of browser platforms including cell phones, televisions, cars, wallet sized
wireless communicators, kiosks, and desktops.
XHTML 1.0 was the first step: it reformulates HTML as an XML application.
This makes it easier to process and easier to maintain. XHTML 1.0 borrows
elements and attributes from W3C's earlier work on HTML 4, and can be
interpreted by existing browsers, by following a few simple guidelines. This allows you to start using
XHTML now!
You can roll over your old HTML documents into XHTML using an Open Source HTML Tidy utility. This tool also cleans up markup errors,
removes clutter and prettifies the markup making it easier to maintain.
XHTML 1.0 is specified in three "flavors". You specify which of these
variants you are using by inserting a line at the beginning of the document.
For example, the HTML for this document starts with a line which says that it
is using XHTML 1.0 Strict. Thus, if you want to validate the document, the tool
used knows which variant you are using. Each variant has its own DTD - Document
Type Definition - which sets out the rules and regulations for using HTML in a
succinct and definitive manner.
XHTML 1.0 Strict - Use this when
you want really clean structural mark-up, free of any markup associated
with layout. Use this together with W3C's Cascading Style Sheet language
(CSS) to get the font, color, and layout
effects you want.
XHTML 1.0 Transitional -
Many people writing Web pages for the general public to access might want
to use this flavor of XHTML 1.0. The idea is to take advantage of XHTML
features including style sheets but nonetheless to make small adjustments
to your markup for the benefit of those viewing your pages with older
browsers which can't understand style sheets. These include using the
body
element with bgcolor
, text
and
link
attributes.
XHTML 1.0 Frameset - Use this
when you want to use Frames to partition the browser window into two or
more frames.
The complete XHTML 1.0 specification is available
in English in several formats, including HTML, PostScript and PDF. See also the list of translations produced by
volunteers.
HTML 4.01 is a revision of the HTML 4.0
Recommendation first released on 18th December 1997. The revision fixes minor
errors that have been found since then. The XHTML 1.0 spec relies on HTML 4.01
for the meanings of XHTML elements and attributes. This allowed us to reduce
the size of the XHTML 1.0 spec very considerably.
XHTML Basic is the second Recommendation in a series of XHTML
specifications.
The XHTML Basic document type includes the minimal set of modules required
to be an XHTML Host Language document type, and in addition it includes images,
forms, basic tables, and object support. It is designed for Web clients that do
not support the full set of XHTML features; for example, Web clients such as
mobile phones, PDAs, pagers,
and settop boxes. The document type is rich enough for content authoring.
XHTML Basic is designed as a common base that may be extended. For example,
an event module that is more generic than the traditional HTML 4 event system
could be added or it could be extended by additional modules from XHTML
Modularization such as the Scripting Module. The goal of XHTML Basic is to
serve as a common language supported by various kinds of user agents.
The document type definition is implemented using XHTML modules as defined
in "Modularization of
XHTML".
The complete XHTML Basic specification is
available in English in several formats, including HTML, plain text, PostScript
and PDF. See also the list of
translations produced by volunteers.
XHTML Modularization is the third Recommendation in a series of
XHTML specifications.
This Recommendation does not specify a markup language but an abstract
modularization of XHTML and an implementation of the abstraction using XML
Document Type Definitions (DTDs) and (in version 1.1) XML Schemas. This
modularization provides a means for subsetting and extending XHTML, a feature
needed for extending XHTML's reach onto emerging platforms.
Modularization of XHTML makes it easier to combine with markup tags for
things like vector graphics, multimedia, math, electronic commerce and more.
Content providers will find it easier to produce content for a wide range of
platforms, with better assurances as to how the content is rendered, and that
the content is valid.
The modular design reflects the realization that a one-size-fits-all
approach no longer works in a world where browsers vary enormously in their
capabilities. A browser in a cellphone can't offer the same experience as a top
of the range multimedia desktop machine. The cellphone doesn't even have the
memory to load the page designed for the desktop browser.
See also XHTML
Modularization for RelaxNG and an overview of
XHTML Modularization.
This Recommendation defines a new XHTML document type that is based upon the
module framework and modules defined in Modularization of XHTML. The purpose of
this document type is to serve as the basis for future extended XHTML 'family'
document types, and to provide a consistent, forward-looking document type
cleanly separated from the deprecated, legacy functionality of HTML 4 that was
brought forward into the XHTML 1.0 document types.
This document type is essentially a reformulation of XHTML 1.0 Strict using
XHTML Modules. This means that many facilities available in other XHTML Family
document types (e.g., XHTML Frames) are not available in this document type.
These other facilities are available through modules defined in Modularization
of XHTML, and document authors are free to define document types based upon
XHTML 1.1 that use these facilities (see Modularization of XHTML for
information on creating new document types).
The first step was to reformulate HTML 4 in XML,
resulting in XHTML 1.0. By following the HTML Compatibility
Guidelines set forth in Appendix C of the XHTML 1.0 specification, XHTML
1.0 documents could be compatible with existing HTML user agents.
The next step is to modularize the elements and attributes into convenient
collections for use in documents that combine XHTML with other tag sets. The
modules are defined in Modularization of
XHTML. XHTML Basic is an example of fairly
minimal build of these modules and is targeted at mobile applications.
XHTML 1.1 is an example of a larger build of the
modules, avoiding many of the presentation features. While XHTML 1.1 looks very
similar to XHTML 1.0 Strict, it is designed to serve as the basis for future
extended XHTML Family document types, and its modular design makes it easier to
add other modules as needed or integrate itself into other markup languages. XHTML 1.1
plus MathML 2.0 document type is an example of such XHTML Family document
type.
Note. This specification was renamed from
"XHTML Events".
The XML Events module defined in this specification provides XML languages
with the ability to uniformly integrate event listeners and associated event
handlers with Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 event interfaces. The
result is to provide an interoperable way of associating behaviors with
document-level markup.
- HTML
4.0
- First released as a W3C Recommendation on 18 December 1997. A second
release was issued on 24 April 1998 with changes limited to editorial
corrections. This specification has now been superseded by HTML 4.01.
- HTML 3.2
- W3C's first Recommendation for HTML which represented the consensus on
HTML features for 1996. HTML 3.2 added widely-deployed features such as
tables, applets, text-flow around images, superscripts and subscripts,
while providing backwards compatibility with the existing HTML 2.0 Standard.
- HTML 2.0
- HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866) was developed by the
IETF's HTML Working
Group, which closed in 1996. It set the standard for core HTML features
based upon current practice in 1994. Note that with the release of RFC 2854, RFC 1866
has been obsoleted and its current status is
HISTORIC.
ISO/IEC 15445:2000 is
a subset of HTML 4, standardized by ISO/IEC. It takes a more rigorous stance
for instance, an h3
element can't occur after an h1
element unless there is an intervening h2
element. Roger Price and
David Abrahamson have written a user's guide to ISO
HTML.
The current editors' drafts of all specifications are linked to from a
separate drafts page.
If you have any comments on any of our specifications we would like to hear
from you via email. Please send your comments to: www-html-editor@w3.org (archive). Don't
forget to include XHTML in the subject line.
XHTML 2.0 is a markup language intended for rich, portable web-based
applications. While the ancestry of XHTML 2.0 comes from HTML 4, XHTML 1.0, and
XHTML 1.1, it is not intended to be 100% backwards compatible with its
earlier versions. Application developers familiar with its earlier ancestors
will be comfortable working with XHTML 2.0.
XHTML 2.0 is a member of the XHTML Family of markup languages. It is an
XHTML Host Language as defined in Modularization of XHTML. As such, it is made
up of a set of XHTML Modules that together describe the elements and attributes
of the language, and their content model. XHTML 2.0 updates many of the modules
defined in Modularization of XHTML, and includes the updated versions of all
those modules and their semantics.
XHTML 2.0 essentially consists of a packaging of several parts currently
independently proceeding to recommendation:
plus the necessary text and hyperlinking modules, which you will find in the
XHTML2 draft.
The most recent editor's draft can always be
found on the XHTML2 WG's drafts page.
An XHTML+MathML+SVG profile is a profile that combines XHTML 1.1, MathML 2.0
and SVG 1.1 together. This profile enables mixing XHTML, MathML and SVG in the
same document using XML namespaces mechanism, while allowing validation of such
a mixed-namespace document.
This specification is a joint work with the SVG Working Group, with the help
from the Math WG.
XFrames is an XML application for composing documents together, replacing
HTML Frames. XFrames is not a part of XHTML per se, that allows
similar functionality to HTML Frames, with fewer usability problems,
principally by making the content of the frameset visible in its URI.
The HLink module defined in this specification provides XHTML Family
Members with the ability to specify which attributes of elements represent
Hyperlinks, and how those hyperlinks should be traversed, and extends XLink
use to a wider class of languages than those restricted to the syntactic
style allowed by XLink.
This document summarizes the best current practice for using various
Internet media types for serving various XHTML Family documents. In summary,
'application/xhtml+xml' SHOULD be used for XHTML Family
documents, and the use of 'text/html' SHOULD be limited to
HTML-compatible XHTML 1.0
documents. 'application/xml' and 'text/xml' MAY also be
used, but whenever appropriate, 'application/xhtml+xml'
SHOULD be used rather than those generic XML media types.
This document describes non-normative XML Schemas for XHTML 1.0.
These Schemas are still work in progress, and this document does not
change the normative definition of XHTML 1.0.
This describes the timeline for deliverables of the XHTML2 working group.
It used to be a W3C NOTE but has now been moved to the MarkUp area for easier
maintenance.
You may also be interested in the following slides on XHTML:
- XHTML: The
Extensible Hypertext Markup Language by Dave Raggett, at W3C LA event
in Stockholm, 24 March 1999.
- W3C HTML
Activity by Dave Raggett, as part of WWW8 W3C Track, 12 May 1999
- W3C
Work on XHTML by Dave Raggett, at XML '99, 6
December 1999. The presentation describes the work being done by W3C on
XHTML.
- The XHTML Family (in ???/Japanese) by Masayasu Ishikawa, at SFC Open Research Forum 2001, 21
September 2001.
- XForms, XHTML and
Device Independence by Steven Pemberton, at W3C.DE-Arbeitstreffen:
Cross Media Publishing, 11 April 2002.
- XHTML Family by
Masayasu Ishikawa, as part of WWW2002 W3C Track, 9 May 2002. Slides
are available in XHTML
or HTML
(XHTML version needs XHTML+MathML+SVG+Ruby support).
- XHTML 2.0 (in ???/Japanese) by Masayasu Ishikawa, at SFC Open Research Forum 2002, 22
November 2002.
- XHTML
2.0 and XForms by Steven Pemberton, as part of WWW2003 W3C Track, 21 May
2003.
- W3C's
Horizontal Activities Usage: XHTML Family Case Study by Steven
Pemberton, WWW2003 W3C Track, 23 May 2003.
- XHTML
and XForms by Steven Pemberton, at Zomersessie van NGI Limburg: XHTML2 en XForms, state of the art
en stage-ervaringen bij het W3C, 3 July 2003.
- XHTML2
and XForms by Steven Pemberton, organized by the German and Austrian
Office, 19 April 2005.
- The Semantic
Browser: Improving the User Experience by Mark Birbeck and Steven
Pemberton, WWW2005 W3C Track, 13 May 2005.
- Metadata
in XHTML2 by Steven Pemberton, at News Standards Summit 2005, 24
May 2005.
- XHTML2:
Accessible, Usable, Device Independent and Semantic by Steven Pemberton
and Mark Birbeck, at XTech 2005
Conference, 26 May 2005.
Here are some rough guidelines for HTML authors. If you use these, you are
more likely to end up with pages that are easy to maintain, look acceptable to
users regardless of the browser they are using, and can be accessed by the many
Web users with disabilities. Meanwhile W3C have produced some more formal
guidelines for authors. Have a look at the detailed Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
1.0.
- A question of style sheets. For most people the look of
a document - the color, the font, the margins - are as important as the
textual content of the document itself. But make no mistake! HTML is not
designed to be used to control these aspects of document layout. What you
should do is to use HTML to mark up headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext
links, and other structural parts of your document, and then add a style
sheet to specify layout separately, just as you might do in a conventional
Desk Top Publishing Package. That way, not only is there a better chance of
all browsers displaying your document properly, but also, if you want to
change such things as the font or color, it's really simple to do so. See
the Touch of style.
FONT
tag considered harmful! Many filters
from word-processing packages, and also some HTML authoring tools, generate
HTML code which is completely contrary to the design goals of the language.
What they do is to look at a document almost purely from the point of view
of layout, and then mimic that layout in HTML by doing tricks with
FONT
, BR
and
(non-breaking spaces). HTML documents are supposed to be structured around
items such as paragraphs, headings and lists. Yet some of these documents
barely have a paragraph tag in sight!
The problem comes when the content of pages needs to be updated, or
given a new layout, or re-cast in XML (which is now to be the new mark-up
language). With proper use of HTML, such operations are not difficult, but
with a muddle of non-structural tags it's quite a different matter;
maintenance tasks become impractical. To correct pages suffering from
injudicious use of FONT
, try the HTML Tidy
program, which will do its best to put things right and generate better
and more manageable HTML.
- Make your pages readable by those with disabilities. The
Web is a tremendously useful tool for the visually impaired or blind user,
but bear in mind that these users rely on speech synthesizers or Braille
readers to render the text. Sloppy mark-up, or mark-up which doesn't have
the layout defined in a separate style sheet, is hard for such software to
deal with. Wherever possible, use a style sheet for the presentational
aspects of your pages, using HTML purely for structural mark-up.
Also, remember to include descriptions with each image, and try to avoid
server-side image maps. For tables, you should include a summary of the
table's structure, and remember to associate table data with relevant
headers. This will give non-visual browsers a chance to help orient people
as they move from one cell to the next. For forms, remember to include
labels for form fields.
Do look at the accessibility guidelines
for a more detailed account of how to make your Web pages really accessible.
To further promote the reliability and fidelity of communications on the
Web, W3C has introduced the W3C Markup
Validation Service at http://validator.w3.org/
.
Content providers can use this service to validate their Web pages against
the HTML and XHTML Recommendations, thereby ensuring the maximum possible
audience for their Web pages. It also supports XHTML Family document types such
as XHTML+MathML and XHTML+MathML+SVG, and
also other markup vocabularies such as SVG.
Software developers who write HTML and XHTML editing tools can ensure
interoperability with other Web software by verifying that the output of their
tool complies with the W3C Recommendations for HTML and XHTML.
HTML Tidy is a stand-alone tool for checking and pretty-printing HTML that
is in many cases able to fix up mark-up errors, and also offers a means to
convert existing HTML content into well-formed XML, for delivery as XHTML. HTML
Tidy was originally written by Dave
Raggett, and it is now maintained as an open source project at SourceForge by a
group of volunteers.
There is an archived public
mailing list html-tidy@w3.org. Please send bug reports / suggestions on HTML
Tidy to this mailing list.
Changes to HTML necessitate obtaining a consensus from a broad range of
organizations. If you have a great idea, it will take time to convince others!
Here are some of the places where discussion on HTML takes place:
- public-xhtml2@w3.org (RSS
feed)
- New! This is the public mailing list where the XHTML2
Working Group will conduct its work per its charter.
- www-html@w3.org (RSS
feed)
- Note: The purpose of this list may change in March
2007. A technical discussion list. If you have a proposal for a change to
HTML/XHTML, you might start a discussion here to see what other
developers think of it.
- www-html-editor@w3.org
(RSS
feed)
- Note: The purpose of this list may change in March
2007. This is a list to report errors / send review comments on
HTML/XHTML specifications. This is NOT a discussion list. Anyone
may send comments without subscription, although you'll be requested to give explicit
approval to include your message in our publicly-readable mailing list
archive at your first post. To subscribe, send subscription request
to www-html-editor-request@w3.org. For more information, see how to subscribe.
- w3c-translators@w3.org
(RSS
feed)
- This is a mailing list for people working on translations of W3C
specifications such as the HTML/XHTML
Recommendations. To subscribe, send an email to
w3c-translators-request@w3.org with the word "subscribe" in the subject
line; (include the word "unsubscribe" if you want to unsubscribe.) The archive
for the list is accessible online.
- comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
- A USENET newsgroup where HTML authoring issues are discussed. "How To"
questions should be addressed here. Note that many issues related to
forms and CGI, image maps, transparent gifs, etc. are covered in the WWW FAQ.
- IETF MHTML WG (closed)
- Developed RFC
2557 - "MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate Documents, such as HTML
(MHTML). J. Palme et al. March 1989.
- IETF HTML Working Group
(closed)
- The HTML working group of the IETF,
closed in 1996.
- Web Conferences
- The next international conference dedicated to the Web is WWW2007, to be held in Banff, Canada. The
last was WWW2006 in Edinburgh,
Scotland.
- XML
- XML is the universal format for structured documents and data on the
Web. It allows you to define your own mark-up formats when HTML is not a
good fit. XML is being used increasingly for data; for instance, W3C's
metadata format RDF.
- Style Sheets
- W3C's Cascading Style Sheets language
(CSS) provides a simple means
to style HTML pages, allowing you to control visual and aural
characteristics; for instance, fonts, margins, line-spacing, borders,
colors, layers and more. W3C is also working on a new style sheet
language written in XML called XSL, which provides a
means to transform XML documents into HTML.
- Document Object Model
- Provides ways for scripts to manipulate HTML using a set of methods and
data types defined independently of particular programming languages or
computer platforms. It forms the basis for dynamic effects in Web pages,
but can also be exploited in HTML editors and other tools by extensions
for manipulating HTML content.
- Internationalization
- HTML 4 provides a number of features for use with a wide variety of
languages and writing systems. For instance, mixed language text, and
right-to-left and mixed direction text. HTML 4 is formally based upon
Unicode, but allows you to store and transmit documents in a variety of
character encodings. Further work is envisaged for handling vertical text
and phonetic annotations for Kanji (Ruby).
- Access for People with
Disabilities
- HTML 4 includes many features for improved access by people with
disabilities. W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative is working on providing
effective guidelines for making your pages accessible to all, not just
those using graphical browsers.
- XForms
- Forms are a very widely used feature in web pages. W3C is working on
the design of the next generation of web forms with a view to separating
the presentation, data and logic, as a means to allowing the same forms
to be used with widely differing presentations.
- Mathematics
- Work on representing mathematics on the Web has focused on ways to
handle the presentation of mathematical expressions and also the intended
meaning. The MathML language is an
application of XML, which, while not suited to hand-editing, is easy to
process by machine.
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