This is kind of a Links of Interest post, but I wanted to highlight these things extra-specially:
A Preview of HTML 5
I know everyone and their mother is going to be linking to this article, and I also know this is potentially years away, but I can’t help but get excited thinking about how sweet HTML 5 is going to be in production. For example:
<body>
<header>...</header>
<nav>...</nav>
<article>
<section>
...
</section>
</article>
<aside>...</aside>
<footer>...</footer>
</body>
How’s that for semantic awesomeness? Real tags for your header. Real tags for navigation. Sidebars properly designated as “aside”. Good stuff. If you would like to keep updated on the goings-on of HTML 5 for yourself, you can always check out the gignormous working draft.
24 Ways (to impress your friends)
24 ways is like an end-of-the-year party for web professionals. It’s a place we all can get together and watch some pseudo-celebrity guest speakers hand out fabulous door prizes in the form of interesting tutorials. My favorites so far:
- Capturing Caps Lock: Use Javascript to display a warning to users entering text in an input field with their CAPS LOCK key on.
- Neverending Background Images: Some tips on Photoshopping your way to seamless and beautiful background image.
Eric Meyer on the Future of CSS
Adobe Egde has an interview with Eric Meyer on the future of CSS.
JL: I understand that CSS 3 is currently under discussion and development by the W3C. Can you give us a peek at what designers can expect in terms of new properties and selectors?
EM: You understand incorrectly. What’s under discussion and development is various CSS modules, each advancing at its own pace.
Eric makes the important point, that I have failed to make clear on this site, that there really is no “CSS 3”, and there probably will never be. It’s a bummer in some regards, since it may segregate browsers even more than they already are with different browsers supporting different new aspects of CSS. It’s positive in other ways, mostly that we might see some of these new features sooner than later in some browsers. I think we’ll see a lot more forward-enhancement stuff, as many of them will be pretty easy to code and degrade easily.
Eric Myer kinda sounds like a jerk. He needs to unplug, step outside, and get away from his computer. A more human & friendly answer would have suffice.
@merchanical marksy: Yeah I’m not sure if he’s a jerk or not as I’ve never met him, but he did make his point their abundantly clear =). I’m honestly a bit confused about the Eric Meyer worship that surrounds CSS. His own website is pretty ugly if you ask me.
This brings up an interesting point. It is absolutely possible to be a CSS guru and make awful websites. CSS, really, isn’t all that complicated, it is what you do with it, the design that goes with it, and the content it styles that make great websites.
I have to agree, his site anything but exceptional.
The HTML5 looks good. To be honest I have and will stay away from it all until it actually becomes common usage