HTML5 Question

[Citywolf]

The pitch for DP9 states, "Designer Pro automatically makes use of HTML5 whenever it can."

If I am trying to achieve a fully HTML5 site, are there any design issues I need to concern myself with so that the site publishes as close to pure HTML5 as possible? When can't DP9 automatically use HTML5?

Thanks.

Dan

[Acorn]

Dan, not a full answer but Xara converts a lot of your objects to a graphics if you add effects. Where possible, for text, it will try and create such effects using CSS.
It uses a range of JavaScript modules for rollovers and nagivation menus.
Its focus is pixel-perfect positioning of objects so a text block is a DIV's worth of SPANs, which some object to as this relies on absolute position so responsive sites are difficult (but not impossible).
If you were to use a validator (e.g., http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/), you probably wouldn't find anything untoward with the HTML. In many ways is is more understandable than some products out there but it will never beat a hand-crafted design or code editor, you get all the bells and whistles without having to worry about such. Indeed, there are very few occasions where Xara code does not run almost identically in the major browsers - having that alone is a very precious thing.
Where Xara hasn't got an HTML5 feature, you can always hand-code it, use a widget or embed a CMS...

Acorn

[richinri]

I second the consistency of Xara sites across browsers. The only program I know right now that spits out pure html5 is a comic/motion program called MotionArtist from Smith Micro. While not a website program, it can produce a website in pure html5 for small websites....after a learning curve and not in the most convenient fashion. Frankly, I wouldn't trust a web page program with pure html5 yet since it is still evolving. MotionArtist is geared to making full use of the <canvas> attribute.

[Big Frank]

ive used an animation app called hippo animator - it too creates fully html5 animations (its great btw) and if you wanted to you could create a entire website in it
as you say it's not the holy grail and its definitely worth waiting

[Citywolf]

Thanks, guys, for the great explanations and insights. Have used Xara for webs for, well, a long time. Have had to make some WordPress sites lately and they are now shifting to full HTML5. It is not a clean conversion and it has only reinforced my appreciation for Xara.

Dan

[pauland]

There's a point that seems missing from the thread - not all browsers understand HTML5 so Xara can't always assume that a HTML5 feature alone is usable to render a page.

I understand Xara will create a HTML compliant page for browsers that understand HTML5 and for the rest it substitutes non-HTML5 elements.

[Big Frank]

http://html5readiness.com/ if anybody's interested

[Citywolf]

I'm interested. Are there any stats as to the usage of the browsers as a a percentage of all browser use? I know that government (US) browsers tend to lag, but I believe they are at least IE9. Most of the unavailable features on IE9 do not seem to be deal breakers for most commercial web sites.

[pauland]

Most of the unavailable features on IE9 do not seem to be deal breakers for most commercial web sites.

There was a web before HTML5!

Commercial web sites don't choose the browsers their customers use.

[PeteS]

There's a point that seems missing from the thread - not all browsers understand HTML5 so Xara can't always assume that a HTML5 feature alone is usable to render a page.

I understand Xara will create a HTML compliant page for browsers that understand HTML5 and for the rest it substitutes non-HTML5 elements.

Correct, HTML5/CSS3 is used as a fallback only on browsers that support it. If you're viewing the produced page on a browser that does not support HTML5/CSS3 then the page will be displayed exactly the same as in previous versions where it all graphics or plain text. Of course, as far as the visitor to your site is concerned and can see, there is no difference.