HTML5 Hacks

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

1. Hacking the Semantic Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Hack 01. Simplify Your Doc with the Right <doctype> 1

Hack 02. Adopt Common Structures 2

Hack 03. Make Your New HTML5 Tags Render Properly in Older Browsers 5

Hack 04. Bring Back the <input> Tag 11

Hack 05. Easily Implement Form Validation Without JavaScript 16

Hack 06. Improve the Usability of Your Forms with New Controls 24

Hack 07. Know What’s Going On in Your App with New DOM Events 37

Hack 08. Add Rich Context to Your Markup with Custom Data 40

Hack 09. Track User Events with Custom Data 44

Hack 10. Make Your Page Consumable by Robots and Humans Alike with

Microdata 47

2. Hacking with Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Hack 11. Use Experimental CSS Features with Browser Prefixes 54

Hack 12. Design with Custom Fonts Using Web Fonts 56

Hack 13. Use Google Web Fonts for Simple @font-face Implementation 61

Hack 14. Use CSS3 Text Effects to Make Your Text Not Suck 70

Hack 15. Make Elements Appear Transparent Without Altering the Opacity 73

Hack 16. Use Media Queries to Build Responsive Design 77

Hack 17. Make Your Web App Respond to Device Orientation Changes 81

Hack 18. Take Full Control of Your DOM with Pseudoclasses 85

Hack 19. Hack Up Your Sprite and Put Your Images Inline with Image Data

URIs 87

Hack 20. Build Gradients the Easy Way 92

Hack 21. Make Borders Interesting Again, with Border Treatments 98

Hack 22. Set Multiple Background Images to the Same Element 103

Hack 23. Free Your Page Elements from Their Traditional Space with CSS3

Transforms 106

Hack 24. Turn Transforms into Animations with CSS3 Transitions 110

Hack 25. Make iOS-Style Card Flips with CSS Transforms and Transitions 113

Hack 26. Use Respond.js to Polyfill CSS3 Media Queries in IE 117

Hack 27. Control Mobile Layout with the viewport <meta> Tag 121

3. Multimedia Hacking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Hack 28. Embed Video Directly in Your Application with HTML5 Video 125

Hack 29. Choose the Right Codecs for Your Video Files 128

Hack 30. Create Custom Video Controls with Video APIs 130

Hack 31. Replace the Background of Your HTML5 Video with the <canvas>

Tag 135

Hack 32. Add Subtitles to Your HTML5 Video Element 139

Hack 33. Beautify Your HTML5 Video Cues 143

Hack 34. Use the Cuepoint.js Polyfill for Subtitles 147

Hack 35. Easily Build Audio-Rich Applications with Buzz 150

Hack 36. Simplify Your HTML5 Media with MediaElement.js 154

4. Hacking Your Graphics with Canvas and SVG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Hack 37. Draw Shapes on Your HTML5 <canvas> Tag 158

Hack 38. Apply Styles to Your Canvas Elements 164

Hack 39. Style Canvas Elements with Image Files 171

Hack 40. Use the HTML5 <canvas> Tag to Create High-Res, Retina-

Display-Ready Media 177

Hack 41. Accelerate Animation with Canvas Drawings 181

Hack 42. Build “Native” Illustrations with Scalable Vector Graphics 188

Hack 43. Style SVG Elements with CSS 192

Hack 44. Animate Illustrations with SVG 199

Hack 45. Embed SVG Directly in Your HTML 204

5. User Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Hack 46. Make Any Content Draggable Within Your Application 210

Hack 47. Update the DOM with a Drag-and-Drop Data Transfer Object 214

Hack 48. Drag Files In and Out of Your Web Application 220

Hack 49. Make Any Element on Your Page User-Customizable with

Editable Content 226

Hack 50. Turn Your Web Page into a WYSIWYG Editor 229

Hack 51. Take Control of the Browser History Buttons with HTML5 Session

History 232

6. Client-Side Data Storage Hacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Hack 52. Embed Binary Data in an Inline URL 239

Hack 53. Convert a Data URI to a Blob and Append It to Form Data with

XHR2 244

Hack 54. Use the WebStorage API to Persist User Data 246

Hack 55. Polyfill LocalStorage with YepNope.js and Storage.js 252

Hack 56. Cache Media Resources Locally with the FileSystem API 255

Hack 57. Build a Milestone Calendar with IndexedDB and FullCalendar.js 264

7. Geolocation Hacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Hack 58. Use the Geolocation APIs to Display Longitude and Latitude in a

Mobile Web Application 274

Hack 59. Use Google’s Geocoding API to Reverse-Geocode a User’s

Location 280

Hack 60. Update a User’s Current Location in a Google Map 286

Hack 61. Use the Geoloqi Service to Build a Geofence 291

Hack 62. Use the Geoloqi Real-Time Streaming Service to Broadcast a

Remote User’s Movement 298

Hack 63. Polyfill Geolocation APIs with Webshims 302

8. WebWorker API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

How Browsers Handle JavaScript 307

Hack 64. Use the BlobBuilder Interface to Create an Inline Worker 309

Hack 65. Perform Heavy Array Computations in a Dedicated Web Worker 315

Hack 66. Use a Timer to Send Application State to Workers 325

Hack 67. Process Image Data with Pixel Manipulation in a Dedicated

Worker 338

Hack 68. Use Import Scripts to Make Twitter JSONP Requests 343

Hack 69. Connect to Shared Workers Simultaneously from Multiple

Browser Windows 347

9. Hacking HTML5 Connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Hack 70. Use Kaazing’s Remote WebSocket Server to Echo Simple

Messages from a Browser 352

Hack 71. Build a Blazing-Fast WebSocket Server with Node.js and the ws

Module 360

Hack 72. Build a Donation Thermometer with Web Sockets, the Pusher

API, and PHP 367

Hack 73. Build Plug-Ins for jWebSocket 383

Hack 74. Push Notifications to the Browser with Server-Sent Events 394

Hack 75. Configure Amazon S3 for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing to Host

a Web Font 404

Hack 76. Control an HTML5 Slide Deck with Robodeck 414

Hack 77. Inspect a Socket.IO Connection to Determine If It Is Native or

Emulated 435

Hack 78. Build a Simple SPDY Server with node-spdy 435

10. Pro HTML5 Application Hacks with Node.js . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

HTML5 Application Design Considerations 439

Hack 79. Deliver “Hello Html5” to the Browser 440

Hack 80. Detect the User Agent String Within the Request Object 448

Hack 81. Use Node.js’s Response Object to Respond to the Client with

Device-Specific Data 450

Hack 82. Use the Node Package Manager to Add a Web Application

Framework As a Third-Party Module 452

Hack 83. Use the Express Application Generator to Bootstrap Your App 453

Hack 84. Build a Custom Module to Handle Routing 455

Hack 85. Configure Express to Use a View Engine 457

Hack 86. Use Jade Layouts to DRY Up Your Application’s Views 458

Hack 87. Use a Jade Partial to Create a Common Navigation Bar in Your

Views 461

Hack 88. Use Jade Mixins to Populate Your Views with Data 463

Hack 89. Set Up Expressive, Dynamic, Robust CSS with Stylus 466

Hack 90. Include HTML5 Boilerplate As Your Default Starter Template 469

Become an HTML5 Hacker 475

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477