Last updated: Jan 26, 2012 DevRel Contact: Paul Irish (paulirish)
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Many of these features have their own jumpoff point on html5rocks.com, with links to solid tutorials and resources. The near-daily-updated Chrome Canary lands these features much sooner than the stable or beta releases. (Though it's pre-alpha, so expect bugs!)
Note: In this page there are many references to "m6" and such. This refers to the stable Chrome release of that version.
File APIs
Handle file uploads and file manipulation.
Availability: Basic File API support in m5.
Notes: Limited form of drag-and-drop available in Firefox 3.6
File System
Availability: started to land in m8, but only available for apps & extensions. Targeting m13 for stable release. Synchronous APIs are in m9 for web workers.
Spec: w3c spec
Notes: devtools support coming. Will need flags --allow-file-access-from-files --unlimited-quota-for-files for testing.
FileWriter
Availability: basic in m8, sync api in m9 for web workers
Dev Contact: Jian Li (jianli), Eric Uhrhane (ericu)
FileReader
Can read local and parse local files.
Availability: m7.
BlobBuilder
Build binary blobs.
Availability: m8.
Notes: window.createBlobURL() changed to new spec's window.createObjectURL() somewhere around m8. As of M10, the call is prefixed under window.webkitURL.createObjectURL().
Typed Arrays
Buffers for holding binary data and working with WebGL & Audio API: ArrayBuffer, Float32Array , Int16Array, Uint8Array, etc.)
Availability: m7 for most. DataView is m9. Float64Array in m13.
Notes: worker.postMessage(TypedArray|ArrayBuffer) landed in m13 using structured cloning.
a[download] attribute
When used on an <a>, this attribute signifies that the resource it points to should be downloaded by the browser rather than navigating to it. Availability: M14
Offline and XHR
App Cache
Enables web pages to work without the user being connected to the internet
Notes: Chrome's implementation is maxed at 260MB. Individual files max out at 32MB (260MB/8)
Availability: m5. Dev tools support added in m6
Dev Contact: Michael Nordman (michaeln)
XHR supports xhr.send(ArrayBuffer) Allows for sending a binary byte array using xhr. Availability: targeting m9 Dev Contact: Jian Li (jianli)
XHR supports xhr.send(Blob|File)
Allows for sending a Blob or File using xhr.
Availability: m7
Dev Contact: Eric Uhrhane (ericu)
XHR supports xhr.send(FormData)Availability: landed m6
XHR.response, XHR.responseType
Allows reading an xhr response as a blob/arraybuffer (xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer', xhr.responseType = 'blob')
restricts the usage of synchronous XHRs (xhr.open(..., false);) by throwing an error when .responseType is set.
Dev Contact: Michael Nordman (michaeln)
XMLHttpRequestProgressEvent
Availability: m7
Access the underlying network information (connection info) of the device.
Availability: target unknown Notes: Not implemented yet Dev Contact: -
navigator.onLine
Allows an application to check if the user has an active internet connection. Also can register 'online' and 'offline' event handlers.
Availability: m14
Dev Contact: adamk
navigator.registerProtocolHandler() Allow web applications to handle URL protocols like mailto:. Availability: m13 Tickets: crbug.com/11359Notes: Protocol whitelist: "mailto", "mms", "nntp", "rtsp", "webcal". Custom protocols require "web+" prefix (e.g. "web+myScheme"). There are no plans to implement registerContentHandler. Dev Contact: koz
Directory upload
Allow specifying a directory to upload (<input type="file" multiple webkitdirectory />), which is just be an extension of existing form mime-multipart file upload.
Availability: m8
Spec: W3C editor's draft
Planned: Support in DevTools. Currently it captures open and close of socket connections, but not the data.
Dev Contact: Yuta Kitamura (yutak)
Strict Transport Security
Header to inform the browser to always request a given domain over SSL, reducing MITM attack surface area.
Availability: m4
a[ping] attribute.Notify resource on link click. Availability: Chrome 7. Notes: webkit changeset. Can be disabled through a command line flag or in about:flags
Storage
Web SQL Database
API exposing an SQLite database
Availability: m4.
Notes: No spec progress or other implementations (outside of Webkit/Opera) expected.
Dev Contact: Dumitru Daniliuc (dumi)
Availability: Indeterminate status
Indexed Database API
Availability: Landed in m11. Currently prefixed as webkitIndexedDB.
Spec: Draft w3c spec
Notes: formerly called WebSimpleDB. Up to Firefox 4beta9, it was accessible as moz_indexedDB, now mozIndexedDB.
Dev Contact: dgrogan, hwennborg, jsbell
Web Storage
Availability: localStorage in m4, sessionStorage in m5
Notes: localStorage serves basic use cases. For more comprehensive storage solution, consider IndexedDB. While the spec indicates anything that structured clone algorithm can clone can be stored, all browser implementations currently allow only strings. Chrome's storage capacity is currently 2.5mb.
Quota Management API
This API can be used to check how much quota an app/origin is using.
Availability: m13: FileSystem (TEMPORARY & PERSISTENT) and WebSQL (temp only). m14 : AppCache and IndexedDB were added (TEMP only)
Dev Contact: Kinuko Yasuda (kinuko)
CSS & Presentation
CSS3 3D Transforms
Availability: m12
Spec: w3 spec
Notes: Associated GPU rendering quirkiness actively being worked on in prep for beta channel release.
new semantic sectioning elements
section, article, aside, nav, header, and footer elements
Availability: m5
<progress> and <meter> elements
Offer a visual display of progress.
Ruby
Ruby annotations are short runs of text presented alongside base text, primarily used in East Asian typography as a guide for pronunciation or to include other annotations
Availability: m4
@font-face webfonts
Availability: OTF/TTF support in m4. WOFF in m6.
Notes: unicode-range support planned. Improved handling of text while font asset is being downloaded, also planned.
Notes: The legacy syntax will be retained for the foreseeable future.
Background printing
Opt-in ability to specify a background should be printed
Availability: landing in m16 with prefix: -webkit-print-background
Scoped style sheets
Boolean attribute for the <style> element (<style scoped>). When present, its styles only apply to the parent element.
Availability: landing in m18
Other CSS3
box-shadow: went unprefixed in m10
border-radius: went unprefixed in m5(?)
print-background: landing with prefix in m16 cross-fade(): landing with prefix ( -webkit-cross-fade) in m17. demo
Provides an API to draw 2D graphics
Availability: m1, Safari, Firefox, Opera, IE9 Notes: Accelerated 2D canvas targeting m14 for windows/linux; perhaps m15 for mac. Currently, available in about:flags. webp format: canvas.toDataURL("image/webp") added in m17 (WebKit 535), but m18 on Mac. : W3C Last Call Working draft
WebGL (Canvas 3D)
3D rendering via the <canvas> element.
Availability: m9
Notes: Originally project developed by Mozilla as a JavaScript API to make OpenGL calls - WebGL WikiDev Contact: Vangelis Kokevis (vangelis), Ken Russell (kbr)
requestAnimationFrame
Offload animation repainting to browser for optimized performance.
Availability: m10 , currently prefixed as window.webkitRequestAnimationFrame
Notes: As of FF4, Mozilla's implementation differs and offers lower framerates, but it will be addressed. This method should be used for WebGL, Canvas 2D, and DOM/CSS animation.
Dev Contact: jamesr
Accelerated Video: m10
WebP image format support: m9
Multimedia
Video and Audio
Natively play video and audio in the browser
Provides API and built-in playback controls
Availability: m3. Also Safari 4, Firefox 3.5
Codecs: mp4, ogv, and webm ship with Chrome. webm shipped in m6.
Notes: Mac and Linux have been at parity with Windows since m5. Future work will focus on performance. Currently we do everything in software (decode and rendering), whereas Flash uses hardware acceleration for part of the rendering. This results in <video> having a nontrivial overhead over Flash, especially on low-end CPUs (e.g. netbooks). We are looking into what we can do, including utilizing the GPU, to improve performance.
Dev Contact: Andrew Scherkus (scherkus)
mediaElem.webkitAudioDecodedByteCount - m11
mediaElem.webkitVideoDecodedByteCount - m11
videoElem.webkitDecodedFrameCount - m11
videoElem.webkitDroppedFrameCount - m11
Web Audio API
Availability: dev channel since m12. stable channel in m14
Notes: enable via about:flags. Also, Mozilla has an alternative Audio Data API proposal Dev Contact: crogers
Media Source APIAllows appending data to an <audio>/<video> element.
Availability: dev channel m17 Notes: enable via about:flags or run with --enable-media-source flag. Dev Contact: Aaron Colwell (acolwell)
WebRTCAllows for real time communication in the browser. Combines the PeerConnection and navigator.getUserMedia() APIs.
Availability: dev channel m18 Notes: webrtc.org Notes: enable via about:flags or run with --enable-media-stream flag.
Other Open Web Platform features
Desktop notifications
Availability: m5
Notes: Additional functionality added in m6: in-place replacement of notifications, BiDi support, Worker support, and UI improvement.
Dev Contact: John Gregg (johnnyg)
Device OrientationEnables real-time events about the 3 dimensional orientation of the device/laptop
Also called Server-sent Events, these are push notifications from the server received as DOM events. Availability: m6
Fullscreen API
Programmatically instruct content on the page to be presented in the browser's full screen (kiosk) mode. Availability: m15 Dev contact: jeremya
Geolocation
Enables websites to get geolocation information from browsers
Availability: m5, also Firefox 3.5
Dev Contact: Andrei Popescu (andreip)
Gives JS access to a game controller via USB. Availability: targeting m18
Battery StatusAllows access to see the battery level of the device's battery Availability: unknown
Magic <iframe>
Allow an IFRAME to be exchanged between documents without it interfering with the iframe's contentWindow. The overall goal is to speed up complex web applications that commonly use multiple windows (or are opened multiple times).
Availability: m5
Notes: Details on magic iframe
API for testing if a given media query will apply. Availability: m9
Gives you access to raw mouse movement, locks the target of mouse events to a single element, eliminates limits of how far mouse movement can go in a single direction, and removes the cursor from view.
Availability: m18
Provides an API to ask whether the current tab is visibile or not. If you, you might want to throttle back action or set an idle state. Availability: m13, prefixed as document.webkitHiddenNotes: Relatedly, setTimeout/Interval are clamped to 1000ms when in a background tab as of m11. Firefox 5 has the same behavior. Dev Contact: shishir
Availability: (withdrawn) Notes: As of m13, things moved to the shadow dom: <progress>, <meter>, <video>, <input type=range>, <keygen>. More details at What the heck is a Shadow DOM?Dev Contact: dglazkov WorkersProvides a threading API Availability: Chrome 3, Safari 4, Firefox 3.5. Shared workers available in m4. Notes: Pre-M15, there were a limit to the number of workers that each page can start, as well as the number of workers that can be running globally across all pages. This was because a new process was started for each worker. As of M15, workers are started in-process, meaning less memory footprint and faster messaging. Transferrable objects landed in m17 (see next) Dev Contact: Dmitry Lomov (dslomov), Drew Wilson (atwilson)
Transferable Object messaging passing.With transferable objects/data, ownership is transferred from one context to another. It is zero-copy, which vastly improves the performance of sending data to a Worker or another window.
Availability: m17 Notes: landed as prefixed: [window|worker].webkitPostMessage(uInt8Array.buffer, [uInt8Array.buffer]);
Availability: See HTML5 Forms Status for all details. (Updated as recently as Aug 3rd, 2011).
DOM APIs
Element.outerHTML - m1
Element.textContent (faster than innerHTML for plain text) - m1
window.onerror event - m10crypto.getRandomValues() - m11
selectionchange event - m11
Chrome Extensions
More resources for going deep with HTML5:
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