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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<HEAD>
<TITLE>Introduction to Wilbur</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Wilbur is the name for the next HTML standard (3.2). This document, part of the WDG Wilbur Reference, provides an introduction to the new standard.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="html authoring, reference, wilbur, tag overview">
<META NAME="generator" CONTENT="Orb v1.3 for OS/2">
<META NAME="author" CONTENT="Arnoud Engelfriet">
<LINK REV="made" HREF="mailto:galactus@htmlhelp.com" TITLE="Wilbur feedback">
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#800080"
ALINK="#000080">
<H2><IMG SRC="./icon/wdglogo.gif" WIDTH=250 HEIGHT=74 ALT="The Web Design Group presents:"></H2>
<H1 ALIGN=CENTER>Introduction to Wilbur</H1>
<HR WIDTH="75%" SIZE=3>
<P>
Until recently, the latest "official" HTML version was <A
HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/html-spec/">HTML 2.0</A>, as
specified in RFC 1866. It served its purpose very well, but many
HTML authors wanted more control over their document and more ways to
mark up their text and enhance the appearance of their sites.
<H2>HTML 3.0</H2>
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.netscape.com/">Netscape</A>, being the leading browser
at that time, introduced new tags and attributes with every new version.
Other browsers tried to duplicate them, but as Netscape never fully
specified their new tags, this didn't always work as expected. It led to
great confusion and problems when authors used these elements and then saw
they didn't work as expected in another browser.
<P>At about the same time, the IETF's HTML working group lead by
Dave Raggett introduced the <A
HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/html3/CoverPage.html">HTML 3.0</A> draft,
which
included many new and very useful enhancements to HTML. Most browsers only
implemented a small subset of the elements from this draft. The phrase
"HTML 3.0 enhanced" quickly became popular on the Web, even though it more
often than not referred to documents containing browser-specific tags,
rather than documents adhering to the HTML 3.0 draft. This was one of the
reasons why the draft was abandoned.
<P>
As more and more browser-specific tags were introduced, it became
obvious a new standard was needed. For this reason, the W3C drafted
the <I>Wilbur</I> standard, which later became known as HTML 3.2.
As they put it themselves: (in the <A
HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Wilbur/HTML32.dtd">document
type definition</A>, the formal specification)
<BLOCKQUOTE>
HTML 3.2 aims to capture recommended practice as of early '96
and as such to be used as a replacement for HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866).
Widely deployed rendering attributes are included where they
have been shown to be interoperable. SCRIPT and STYLE are
included to smooth the introduction of client-side scripts
and style sheets. Browsers must avoid showing the contents
of these element. Otherwise support for them is not required.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
Most of the <I>extensions</I> to HTML, as introduced by the various
browser developers, were not specified as thoroughly as the HTML 2.0
specs do for the standard elements. This meant that the W3C had to
"reverse engineer" the correct functionality for the extensions which
were chosen for HTML 3.2. Since HTML 3.2 is defined in terms of SGML,
some elements had to be defined slightly differently to make them legal.
<H2>The future of HTML: Cougar</H2>
<P>
HTML 3.2 is an attempt to write down what current browsers support or
should support. This will hopefully ensure that a document which is
written for Wilbur will be rendered in an acceptable way by all
current browsers.
<P>
The next version of HTML, which is code-named <I>Cougar</I>, will
introduce new functionality, most of which comes from the now-expired
HTML 3.0 draft. Some of the elements from Wilbur already hint at what
can be expected. For example, the <A HREF="./head/script.html">SCRIPT</A> and <A HREF="./head/style.html">STYLE</A> elements
will be used in the future to allow inclusion of inline scripts and
style sheets, although currently a browser does not have to support
them. It only has to hide the contents of the tags.
<P>
As it's still very early, not many details about Cougar are available
yet. You can get a preview of what's to be expected from the
<A HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Cougar/HTML.dtd">Cougar
DTD</A>.
Cougar will introduce full <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Style/">style
sheet</A> support. This will allow authors
to assign a <I>style</I> to a document easily, while keeping the
HTML for its intended purpose: marking up the content of the document.
It will also have better support for international documents.
<H2>Note</H2>
<P>One of the reasons that HTML 3.0 didn't make it, was that it was so
<EM>big</EM>. Because of this, future versions of HTML will be
introduced in a <I>modular</I> way, so browsers can easily implement
them bit by bit. An example of this approach is
<A HREF="http://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1942.txt">RFC 1942</A>, which
describes a very extensive implementation of HTML <A HREF="./table/table.html">TABLE</A>s.
<HR>
<CENTER>
<P>
<B><IMG SRC="./icon/wdglogo-small.gif" WIDTH=105 HEIGHT=40 ALT="Web Design Group" ALIGN=RIGHT></B><BR>
<A HREF="./index.html" TITLE="Index for Wilbur">Wilbur index</A> ~
<A HREF="./overview.html" TITLE="Overview of HTML 3.2 tags">Tag overview</A> ~
<A HREF="mailto:galactus@htmlhelp.com" TITLE="Wilbur reference feedback">Feedback</A>
<P>
<SMALL>
Copyright © 1997 <A HREF="http://www.stack.nl/%7Egalactus/">Arnoud "Galactus" Engelfriet</A>.
</SMALL>
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