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HTML 5 vs HTML 4

Early notes on HTML5 vs HTML4: the new browser-native input types like date, email, and range that promised to kill custom UI widgets.

Donn Felker

Donn Felker

2007.06.23 · 1 min read · updated July 5, 2013

I was perusing the HTML 5 Spec and I ran across the HTML 5 differences from HTML 4.

There are a couple things that caught my eye immediately: new input types, datagrid, datalist, and also how the structure of the div element has changed. The thing that really sparked my interest was the input types.

HTML 5 is proposing that we have the following new input types:

  • datetime
  • datetime-local
  • date
  • month
  • week
  • time
  • number
  • range
  • email
  • url

In short, the user agent (in this case, the browser) will be responsible for providing the interface to which we can use the said input types. Therefore Internet Explorer, Fire Fox, Safari, etc will be responsible for rendering the UI for the input type that you choose.

Say wha?!? Yeah, finally, no more writing ajax controls for basic UI, and hopefully there is some type of validation built into the spec (but I haven’t gotten that far into reading it).

Links for ya’ll:

HTML 5 Spec

HTML 5 Differences from HTML 4

Donn Felker

Written by Donn Felker

I've spent 25+ years shipping software, writing books, and running my own companies. I write about thinking clearly, working for yourself, and doing real work while AI rewrites the rules. New essays land here every week.

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