Preparing Your Small Catholic Web Site for HTML 5.0
Introduction
As of the time of this writing, the latest
draft August 2009 of HTML5.0, is documented at the W3C HTML Specifications
and Timeline. For many small Catholic web site owners who started building their site
on HTML4, this news is one very important update: HTML5 may be the next
Web standard, and may be made official sooner than we realize. Though HTML5
is still in draft, and is continuously being discussed by an HTML Working
Group, the inevitable scenario that it would be the next HTML standard of the
Web, will make web site owners aware and prepare well for the needed adjustments
to their site pages.
Some strategies suggested for the needed adjustments
- Keep your web content for the time being at "noindex". You can do
this at the head section in one of your meta tags.
- Create a template that you can easily adjust to accommodate all
the new HTML5 specifications. One important thing to note in HTML5
is that it does not recognize the <font> tag.
- In the HTML5 template that you will design, keep to a minimum
of images. Don't use flash or embed any plug-ins yet. And don't use
audio, video, or any other multimedia content as yet. Just plain
text in the <body> tag of the web page should suffice for
the meantime.
New tags to expect in HTML5
Just for starters, the HTML5 Tag Reference,
at w3schools.com has listed down many new specifications to when adjusting your
site pages from HTML4 to HTML5. Here are a few samples:
- HTML5 uses a simple DOCTYPE declaration, <!DOCTYPE>. That's
all. A real space saver compared to the DOCTYPE declaration needed
in HTML4.
- HTML5 also use the <audio> tag to define sound content.
- It uses <canvas> to define graphics.
- It uses <datalist> to define a dropdown list.
- It uses <nav> to define navigation links.
- It uses <video> to define a video.
- It uses <article> to define an article.
- HTML5 is also more specific in dealing with content
in the <body> tag of a web page; it employs a
<section> tag to specify distinct sections of a
web page's content.
Some tags to unlearn in HTML5
There are some tags in HTML4 that we use, but are not part of
HTML5 anymore. Among many of these tags that are not operative
in HTML5 are: <basefont>, <big>, <center>,
and <font> tags. So, when designing a template for HTML5, it
is best to keep the design at its leanest, without neglecting good
aethetics. A web page at its "leanest" will also load up in the
browser faster. This gives the viewers of the web page a
better experience instead of waiting a long time. Also, in terms
of search engine rankings (as of the time of this writing), Google
gives more importance for faster loading web pages in its
indeces.
Keeping up-to-date with HTML5
Now that HTML5 is becoming more and more prominent in a lot
of discussion groups and in many bloggers' comments, it would
be wise to keep up-to-date with any news on the development
of this upcoming Web standard. For the purpose of making
Catholic web sites last on the Web, this site will also add
to its updates anything new, or currently being discussed in
relation to the HTML5 drafts. You can follow these updates
through articles on this site or through our Catholic network
feeds. If you need outside information, you can always search
for more from among your favorite social networks and technology
news sites.
Dennis Emmanuel V. Cabrera
Web site administrator
14 April 2010
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