WHATWG Weekly: Back!
Big round of applause for Shelley for taking over in my absence. Much appreciated. As I am still somewhat catching up myself with everything that has happened in the last three months I decided to summarize changes to the WHATWG specification since May 23 and highlight a few other efforts I noticed. Hopefully next week I am back up to speed.
Changes to the specification
The send() method of the WebSocket object now accepts ArrayBuffer and Blob as arguments. I.e. the Web sockets API supports binary data. On the receiving end you can specify the type of object you want using the new binaryType attribute.
The application cache support gained support for caching of cross-origin resources over a secure HTTP connection.
Parsing of elements related to ruby markup was made more forward compatible.
A new typemustmatch attribute was introduced for object to ensure only specified plugins can be initialized. If you link cross-origin resources from object you should use this feature to prevent your users from being attacked.
The EventSource object is now enabled with cross-origin support, making it possible for developers to use different servers for the streaming aspects of their application.
These were just the highlights. Numerous other changes have been made, e.g. the WebVTT file signature was simplified, a security check for the AddSearchProvider() API was removed, the error and close events were removed from PeerConnection, et cetera. You can use the HTML5 Tracker to find out more.
Elsewhere
A little before May 23, but still worth highlighting. Adam Barth tackling processing of URLs in Parsing URLs for Fun and Profit. URLs are of course fundamental to the web, but much like any other piece of technology deployed on the web (e.g. HTML, CSS, HTTP) URLs have interoperability issues. As with the work done by WHATWG on HTML, the plan is to take those away.
Alexey Melnikov and Julian Reschke meanwhile are drafting Update to MIME regarding Charset Parameter Handling in Textual Media Types attempting to finally fix the brokenness of the ancient RFC 2046. In particular, how encodings are handled for text/* media types.
Ian asked not to use typemustmatch before it is implemented in all browsers, as otherwise it’s impossible to test and will break pages when gets implemented.
I love the EventSource evolution, looks great !
Thanks for the news !
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