Like “Ajax”, HTML5 has become a bit of an umbrella term. Some people lump all kinds of unrelated technology like SVG, CSS 3, CORS, JavaScript, Geolocation, even webfonts in with it. Remy and I are guilty too; we talk about Geolocation, Web Workers and Web SQL in our book Introducing HTML5. Here’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek [...]
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” said Juliet of Romeo. Ultimately, in the heady world of Shakespearian romance, names do matter; if you’re name is Montague, you can’t marry someone called Capulet. And certainly names matter in the more prosaic (but equally passionate) [...]
For the past few months, I’ve been lucky enough to tour places like Indonesia talking about cutting-edge web development languages like HTML 5 and WAI-ARIA. My new year resolution was to actually start using them, so made an HTML 5 test page to show that at least some those useful new elements can be used [...]
The Web Accessiiblity Initiative’s Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite, WAI-ARIA is a simple way to add information to HTML that can make Ajax applications accessible. It’s being supported by all the big four browsers and screenreaders are starting to support it. Therefore, although the specification is still formally in “Working Draft” status, the W3C are [...]
The Web Accessibility Initiative’s ARIA specification is a useful way of adding additional information to Ajax applications to allow them to pass information to assistive technologies to make them accessible. I agree with criticism that it’s a bit of a hack, and it doesn’t stop sloppy authors using the wrong element for the job, but [...]
My last project for my previous employers has gone live so here’s a long discussion about the totally redesigned website for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). This isn’t to congratulate myself for some stunning new CSS techniques (there aren’t any), nor to solicit your admiring gasps at the beauty of the visual design (it’s rather [...]
Brothercake has a thought-provoking article Stop using Ajax! in which he argues I’m not saying Ajax is bad, I’m saying it’s immature I’m not saying never use Ajax, I’m saying don’t use it for the sake of it, and try to avoid it for now, instead sticking to accessible alternatives and justifies it with a [...]
There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle lately over the Opera complaint that Microsoft is a monopolist that doesn’t uphold Web Standards. I’m glad that I’m not the only one who believes that it’s perfectly feasible for Microsoft and Opera to continue to work with each other on CSS, regardless of their current spat. While [...]
I decided to miss the main @media bash this year, as I have a reasonable generalist overview of trends on the web. However, I’ve a great Ajax/JavaScript-shaped hole in my knowledge so I decided to go to the specialist Ajax bash instead, where a whole host of beautiful people had gathered. I’m glad I did; [...]