Yes, I’ve resolved to use more temporally informative titles for my posts. Following is a roundup of W3C activities at the close of the year and the start of the new one, beginning with a big milestone for HTML5 and ending with an upcoming local conference.
HTML5 Definition complete
In December, W3C published the complete definition of the “HTML5” and “Canvas 2D” specifications. Though not yet W3C standards, these specifications are now feature complete, meaning businesses and developers have a stable target for implementation and planning.
W3C now embarks on the stage of W3C standardization devoted to interoperability and testing. W3C is on schedule to finalize the HTML5 standard in 2014. The HTML Working Group also published first drafts of “HTML 5.1,” “HTML Canvas 2D Context, Level 2,” and “main element,” providing an early view of the next round of standardization.
Other New Recommendations
WOFF File Format 1.0. This document specifies the WOFF font packaging format. This format was designed to provide lightweight, easy-to-implement compression of font data, suitable for use with CSS @font-face rules. Any properly licensed TrueType/OpenType/Open Font Format file can be packaged in WOFF format for Web use.
Navigation Timing. This specification defines an interface for web applications to access timing information related to navigation and elements.
High Resolution Time. This specification defines a JavaScript interface that provides the current time in sub-millisecond resolution and such that it is not subject to system clock skew or adjustments.
Packaged Web Apps (Widgets) – Packaging and XML Configuration (Second Edition). This specification standardizes a packaging format and metadata for a class of software known commonly as packaged apps or widgets.
the Second Edition of the OWL 2 ontology language (a W3C Edited Recommendation). OWL 2, part of W3C’s Semantic Web toolkit, allows people to capture knowledge about a particular application domain (e.g, energy or medicine) and then use tools to manage information, search through it, and learn more from it.
Proposed Recommendations
Selectors API Level 1. Selectors, which are widely used in CSS, are patterns that match against elements in a tree structure. The Selectors API specification defines methods for retrieving Element nodes from the DOM by matching against a group of selectors. It is often desirable to perform DOM operations on a specific set of elements in a document. These methods simplify the process of acquiring specific elements, especially compared with the more verbose techniques defined and used in the past. Comments are welcome through 25 January.
Candidate Recommendations
The Provenance Working Group has published four Candidate Recommendation Documents along with corresponding supporting notes. These document provide a framework for interchanging provenance on the Web. PROV enables one to represent and interchange provenance information using widely available formats such as RDF and XML.
Working Drafts
Content Security Policy 1.1 (First public working draft). This document defines a policy language used to declare a set of content restrictions for a web resource, and a mechanism for transmitting the policy from a server to a client where the policy is enforced.
HTML Media Capture (working draft). The HTML Media Capture specification defines an HTML form extension that facilitates user access to a device’s media capture mechanism, such as a camera, or microphone, from within a file upload control.
Ambient Light Events (Last call working draft).This specification defines a means to receive events that correspond to a light sensor detecting the presence of a light. Comments are welcome through 26 January.
CSS Text Decoration Module Level 3 (Last call working draft). This module contains the features of CSS relating to text decoration, such as underlines, text shadows, and emphasis marks. Comments are welcome through 31 January.
CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 3. One of the fundamental design principles of CSS is cascading, which allows several style sheets to influence the presentation of a document. The rules for finding the specified value for all properties on all elements in the document are described in this specification.
Workshops and Training
Electronic Books and the Open Web Platform, Feb 11-12, 2013, New York (USA), Hosted by O’Reilly Media. Today’s eBook market is dynamic, fast-changing and strong. Nevertheless, publishers face major business and technical challenges in this market, some of which could be reduced or removed by standardization.
W3C online course “Mobile Web 2: Programming Web Applications“. In this course, taught by Marcos Caceres, you will learn how to program mobile Web applications that can ship both online and in application stores. Moving beyond best practices, the course covers all techniques you need to know for creating successful mobile Web apps. The 6-week course begins 21 January 2013.
W3Conf: Practical Standards for Web Professionals, W3C’s second annual developer conference, in San Francisco on 21-22 February 2013. Presentations will focus on practical, cutting-edge standards that developers and designers can use across browsers today, and give a glimpse into what’s coming. The conference will feature leading experts in the Web industry on HTML5, CSS, graphics, mobiles, accessibility, multimedia, APIs, and more. Space is limited, so register now.
