What is new in HTML 5?

Why Is HTML 5 a big deal?

HTML Code (Photo credit: Sebastian Fuss)

New versions of code typically don’t show up on your radar but HTML 5 is different and you may have heard something about it. You might be wondering “So what is all the ruckus with HTML 5?” Well, HTML 5 is an updated version of the standard that tells web browsers how to format what is displayed. Sometimes these updates matter because they make life easier. Version 5 introduces several new features, some of which have a major impact on the way websites can now be built. One of the main changes is the way audio and video are addressed behind the scenes and that is what we will focus on here.

Simple Audio and Video Integration

All the directions about formatting in HTML are handled with tags. A tag has a start and an end to encapsulate the data, usually some text, to be acted on. So for example typing this into an html document

<b> Hello World!</b>

produces this in your browser

Hello World!

The start tag <b> turns on the bold display while the end tag </b> turns it off. Special software editors makes adding the right tags easier.

Before HTML 5, adding video or audio to your site required embedding one of the many types of video or audio players available. Basically the code to embed a player is quite long and complex. Getting this right could be quite difficult, especially for webmasters who aren’t extremely tech savvy. Now with HTML 5, adding audio or video is as simple as using the <audio> or <video> tag. That simplifies the process of adding video or audio to web pages and simpler is a good thing!