Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) is a working group for developing new technologies designed to allow authors to write and deploy web applications more easily by extending the existing technologies. In contrast with the vendor-neutral World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the WHATWG is vendor-driven, with the greatest contributors being Mozilla Foundation, Opera Software and Apple Computer.

It was formed in response to the slow development of web standards monitored by the W3C. The working group, however, does not mean to override the W3C, as the standards proposals created by the WHATWG are submitted to the W3C for approval or amendment. The working group also intends to work more closely with the W3C in future.

[edit] Specifications

This article contains information about a scheduled or expected future product.
It may contain preliminary or speculative information, and may not reflect the final version of the product.

As of year 2006, 3 specifications are being drafted:

Web Forms 2.0, which is targeted to the common needs of web authors.
Web Applications 1.0, which defines advanced widgets like RDF controls, menus and toolbars. These drafts are in active development. Web Forms 2 is nearing maturity; proposals are currently being discussed and specified for Web Applications 1.
Web Controls 1.0, which is intended to add functionality to JavaScript and CSS that aid the creation of custom widgets. However, this will be influenced by the design of XBL2, and so will not be available in the near future.

These specifications, in contrast to W3C's XForms, are intended to work primarily on HTML, bringing what the supporters refer as "HTML5" (the specifications are also compatible with XHTML). This is different from W3C's movement toward standards intended for all XML languages.