Introduction to HTML5 for ASP.NET Developers

Introduction

More and more web applications are harnessing the power of client side

features of a browser. To that end HTML5

has many features to offer web developers. HTML markup, JavaScript and CSS have

become more powerful and flexible than ever before. ASP.NET Developers must be well-versed with

HTML5 features because all of the leading browsers are aggressively supporting

them and newer web applications are bound to rely heavily on them. This article

is intended to give you an overview of some key features of HTML5 from a

developer’s perspective. We won’t go into too much detail of new HTML tags,

CSS3 and such "markup" level features, instead we will focus on

features more appealing to web developers.

Features of Interest

HTML5 is an emerging web standard that has received a great deal of

attention from browser companies and the developer community. All of the major

browsers, including Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome, Safari and Opera have

support for HTML5 in varying degrees. Although not all of the browsers support

all of the HTML5 features in the same way, web developers can still avail

themselves of many of the benefits of HTML5 from the current releases of these

browsers. All of these browser companies are aggressively working to provide

full-fledge standardized support for HTML5 features. As far as this article is

concerned we will focus on the following features of HTML5.

  • Local Storage
  • JavaScript Selectors
  • Web Sockets
  • Web Workers
  • Application Caching
  • Client side drawing
  • Custom attributes

Remember that HTML5 is a collective term used for new HTML elements,

JavaScript enhancements and CSS 3 specifications. Throughout the article when

we say HTML5 we mean one of these technologies and not just HTML markup tags.

New HTML Markup Tags

HTML5 adds many new tags to the existing set of markup elements. Though we

won’t discuss each and every tag in detail, here are a few tags that might be

interesting to ASP.NET developers.

  • <audio> and <video> tags allow you to embed

    audio and video inside a web page respectively.

  • Forms can now have new elements – <datalist>,

    <keygen> and <output>. The <input> element now supports

    various input types such as url, email and datetime.

  • Elements such as <section>, <header> and

    <footer> allow you to design a page in a structured manner.

We won’t go in too much detail about these tags in this article. See later

sections of this article that talk about how various Microsoft tools support

HTML5 schema and provide intellisense for these elements.

Local Storage

ASP.NET developers often used cookies to store small pieces of data on the

client side. One of the limitations of using cookies is the amount of data that

can be saved. For example, many browsers have size limit of 4,096 bytes for a

single cookie. HTML5 local storage allows developers to store more data on the

client side using JavaScript code. Local storage typically allows you to store

up to 5 MB of data (different browsers may have slightly different limits).

Local storage comes in two flavors viz. local storage and session storage

(together they are often called Web Storage). Local storage is persisted on the

client machine across browser sessions whereas session storage is persisted

only for the current session. These storages can be accessed via JavaScript

using localStorage and sessionStorage objects. The following code fragment

illustrates how data can be saved and retrieved in localStorage object.

function SetData() {

    window.localStorage["myKey"] = document.getElementById("Text1").value;

    alert("Data saved!");

}

 

function GetData() {

    document.getElementById("Text2").value = window.localStorage["myKey"];

}

As you can see the SetData() JavaScript function stores values from a

textbox into a localStorage key named myKey. The GetData() function then

retrieves the previously stored key and assigns the value to another textbox.

The localStorage and sessionStorage objects also expose methods to remove and

clear items from the respective storages.

JavaScript Selectors

If you used JavaScript before you are probably aware of getElementById() and

getElementByTagName() methods. These methods return elements based on supplied

parameter (either ID or tag name). JavaScript now has two more selector methods

viz. querySelector() and querySelectorAll(). The former method returns the

first element from the matched result set whereas the later method returns all

of the matching elements. The following code fragment shows how these methods

can be used.

<ul>

<li id="id1" class="class1">ASP.NET</li>

<li class="class1">Windows Forms</li>

<li id="id2" class="class1">jQuery</li>

<li class="class2">MVC</li>

<li class="class2">WCF</li>

</ul>

var item = document.querySelector("li.class1");

alert(item.innerHTML);

var items = document.querySelectorAll("li.class1");

alert(items.length + " items found!");

var items = document.querySelectorAll("#id1,#id2");

alert(items.length + " items found!");

The call to querySelector() method returns the first <li> element

whose class attribute is set to class1. Similarly, querySelectorAll() method

that follows returns all the <li> elements whose class attribute is set

to class1. The second call to querySelectorAll() method returns all the

elements that have specified ID attribute.

Web Sockets

If you have ever programmed a desktop chat application then probably you are

aware of socket programming. Web Sockets is essentially socket programming for

web applications. Currently a popular approach to ping back server for some

processing is AJAX. However, AJAX communication involves the client browser

polling the server periodically. Web sockets, on the other hand, provide a two

way communication channel where the server can send data to the client browser.

The Web socket feature is still in evolving stages and there are concerns over

security. In the days to come we may expect a standardized and secure form of

web sockets supported by all of the leading browsers. 

Web Workers

Web workers bring multithreading to browser based applications. Web workers

essentially allow you to load and execute a JavaScript file in a separate

thread without affecting the responsiveness of the user interface. Not all

browsers support web workers at this stage. A sample code fragment, shown below,

shows how web workers can be used in FireFox.

HTML page

==========

var worker = new Worker("MyWorker.js");

worker.postMessage("Hello World");

worker.onmessage = function (evt) {

    alert(evt.data);

};

worker.onerror = function (evt) {

    alert("Error : " + evt.data);

};

MyWorker.js file

==================

onmessage = function (evt) {

    postMessage("Data processed : " + evt.data);

};

As you can see the Worker object refers to a JavaScript file to be loaded in

a separate thread. The postMessage() method is used to send data to the code being

executed from the file. The onmessage function displays the data received back

from the code. The entire processing of MyWorker.js is happening in a separate

thread and the end user is free to work with the web page user interface. 

Application Caching

Web applications require a live connection with the server in order to work

properly. This always connected behavior can create problems of its own when

the server goes offline for some reason or the network connection is lost

temporarily. The Application Caching features of HTML5 tries to address these

scenarios in two ways – client side SQL database (Web SQL) and Offline

Application Caching APIs. In the former approach a local SQL database is used

to store a local copy of data on which the user can work. The later approach

makes use of a Cache Manifest file that stores a list of files that are to be

cached locally. Note that the SQL database option (though initially proposed by

W3C) is no longer actively pursued by W3C and may not become a standard across

all the browsers.

Client Side Drawing

One of the reasons for the popularity of the web is the graphical user

interface they offer to the end user. Images, animations, fonts and other

interactive effects make a website appealing from an end user’s perspective.

However, one limitation that website developers often encounter is drawing

graphics in the browser. As a solution, developers often resort to Flash or Silverlight based plug-ins or generate

graphics on the fly at server side and then send it to the client. HTML5 does a

great job in client side graphic rendering by offering what is known as the Canvas. The actual drawing can be carried out

using JavaScript code and certain new graphic objects.

The HTML5 Canvas is very similar to a real life drawing canvas in that it

allows you to draw shapes, text, backgrounds and many such drawing operations.

Of course, HTML5 Canvas is browser based and is measured in pixels. At HTML

markup level canvas is represented by the <canvas> tag. A basic usage of

<canvas> tag is shown below.

<canvas id="myCanvas" width="500" height="500"></canvas>

Consider the following piece of code:

var myCanvas = document.getElementById('myCanvas');

var context = myCanvas.getContext('2d');

context.fillRect(10,10, 200, 100);

context.beginPath();

context.moveTo(125,350);

context.lineTo(100,600);

context.lineTo(45,450);

context.closePath();

context.stroke();

context.font = '20pt Arial';

context.fillText('Drawing text on the Canvas', 0, 100);

As you can see the getContext() method of canvas object returns a rendering

context object. Various methods of the rendering context object such as

fillRect(), lineTo() and fillText() allow you to draw on the canvas.

Custom Data Attributes

Traditionally HTML elements have a fixed set of attributes that can be assigned

(either through markup or via JavaScript code). HTML5 introduces what is known

as Custom Data Attributes that allow you to define custom attributes for an

HTML element. These custom data attributes won’t affect the user interface of

the element in any way but you can access and manipulate them via JavaScript

code. These attribute take the form of data-* where * is any custom name. e.g.

data-firstname, data-birthdate and data-validationmessage. The following code

shows how custom data attributes can be used.

<input type="text" id="Text1" data-validationmessage="Invalid Birth Date" />

<br />

<br />

<input type="button" value="Show Custom Data Attribute" onclick="OnClick();"/>

Notice how data-validationmessage defines a validation message for a textbox.

The value of data-validationmessage attribute can then be retrieved as follows:

function OnClick() {

    var text1 = document.getElementById("Text1")

    alert(text1.getAttribute("data-validationmessage"););

    text1.setAttribute("data-validationmessage", "Birth date is invalid")

    alert(text1.getAttribute("data-validationmessage"));

}

The getAttribute() and setAttribute() methods essentially get and set the

custom attribute value respectively. It would be interesting to note that ASP.NET MVC3 un-obstructive validation

makes use of custom data attributes.

Now that you know about what HTML5 has to offer, let’s see how Microsoft

development tools support HTML5 markup. Note that these tools basically support

HTML5 markup schema. Support for new JavaScript objects and code level features

should come from the target browser.

HTML5 Support in Visual Studio 2010

When Visual Studio

2010 was released there was no in-built support for HTML5 schema and tags.

However, Service Pack 1 fills that gap. With Visual Studio SP1 installed you

can turn HTML5 support on using Tools > Options menu as shown below:

Visual Studio SP1 HTML5 support

Figure 1: Visual Studio SP1 HTML5 support

As you can see the HTML schema is set to HTML5. This will cause the HTML

editor of Visual Studio to show HTML5 option like this:

The HTML schema is set to HTML5

Figure 2: The HTML schema is set to HTML5

You can then use intellisense for new HTML5 tags inside the pages. 

Intellisense for new HTML5 tags

Figure 3: Intellisense for new HTML5 tags

The future versions of Visual Studio will, of course, enhance and extend

these features further.

HTML5 Support in Microsoft Expression Web

Microsoft Expression Web 4 Service Pack 1 Page Editor Options

WebMatrix new HTML page

Figure 5: WebMatrix new HTML page

As you can see, unlike the default template of Visual Studio, this template

is simple with DOCTYPE set to html. This is what is sufficient to start writing

an HTML5 page.

Summary

HTML5 offers many new features for any ASP.NET developer. In addition to new

markup tags, features such as local storage, JavaScript selectors, web sockets,

web workers, client side drawing  and custom data attributes are important

from an ASP.NET developer’s perspective. Current Microsoft development tools

such as Visual Studio 2010, Expression Web 4 and WebMatrix provide support for

HTML5 schema through service packs and we can expect enhanced support for HTML5

in their future releases.

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