What are your favorite features of HTML5?
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Sloan the DEV Moderator @sloan

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What are your favorite features of HTML5?

Publish Date: May 19 '22
15 9

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I'm pretty new to coding, and I want to know how HTML5 is different from past versions of HTML. I feel like getting an understanding of those changes will help me become a better developer, and gain a larger understanding of how to use this specific markup language.

Comments 9 total

  • Ben Halpern
    Ben HalpernMay 19, 2022

    Oh my, pre-HTML5 web dev was pretty brutal!

    I am pretty amazed whenever I encounter an HTML feature which I just assumed would always be an awful hack, but now it is just a native feature.

    The Details disclosure element comes to mind.

  • Daniel Schulz
    Daniel SchulzMay 19, 2022

    Uniformity: A simple, easy to use doctype, lowercase tags, no slash needed on self closing tags.
    Also the separation of concerns. Table layout is deprecated, so are <font>, <center> and <marquee>. HTML has been sharpened for content markup.

  • Andrew Baisden
    Andrew BaisdenMay 19, 2022

    HTML5 Canvass excites me the most. Drawing graphics and creating animations and games its so powerful with JavaScript.

  • Ayu Adiati
    Ayu AdiatiMay 19, 2022

    I immediately got introduced to HTML5 since beginning of my journey.
    So I'm not too familiar with the previous versions.

    One example that I know, previously, we had <b> and <i> for bold and italics.
    But since HTML5, they became <strong> and <em>.
    One of definition of semantics is:

    The study or science of meaning in languages.

    So, we use <strong> to give more attention to the words/sentences and <em> when we want to emphasize words/sentences inside the tags.
    These tags are not there to make them bold or italics, but they give meaning.

    And therefore, there is also structure in semantics HTML to give meaning to the content in the whole page, such as headings (<h1> - <h6>), <header>, <main>, <section>, etc.

    Semantics HTML also helps people who use screen reader. Because semantics HTML gives context for screen readers.

    I hope these help 😊

    • Nicholas Stimpson
      Nicholas StimpsonMay 20, 2022

      One example that I know, previously, we had <b> and <i> for bold and italics.
      But since HTML5, they became <strong> and <em>.

      Well, not really. First, <b>, <i>, <strong> and <em> have existed since the very first complete drafts of HTML. They're all the same age. HTML5 gave <b> and <i> semantics that they didn't have previously, and the semantics of <em> changed quite subtly, but otherwise nothing changed. What that meant was that if you want semantics-free bold and italics, it's necessary to use CSS: font-weight: bold and font-style: italic respectively.

      • Ayu Adiati
        Ayu AdiatiMay 21, 2022

        Thank you for the clarification! Appreciate it! 😃

        Yes, I'm accustomed to use CSS as well if I want to apply bold or italics, also when I need to customize font sizes and untouch the headings 😊

  • Ben Butler
    Ben ButlerMay 20, 2022

    Forms are so much better in HTML5! We have datetime types, we have native validation, there's... everything HTML lacked. It's a recognition that one of the primary uses of HTML is to submit data.

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