W3C

W3C is pleased to launch a new edition of its JavaScript online course, to help Web developers master good JavaScript practices and avoid the pitfalls of the language. The course is 4 weeks long, to start on 17 March 2014. This course is a condensed set of tricks, advice, tools and good practices built around JavaScript, with a logical flow that is always illustrated by examples and assignments. JavaScript is one of the three major Web developer tools, along with HTML5 and CSS3, so register before February 27 to benefit from the early bird rate.

Register now to the upcoming W3C HTML5 online course, to start 27 March 2014. Acclaimed trainer Michel Buffa will cover the techniques developers and designers need to create great Web pages and apps. This course edition features additional advanced sections on time based animation, 2D geometric transformations, Web Audio API, etc., all illustrated by numerous examples. Register before February 27 to benefit from the early bird rate.

Learn more about W3DevCampus, the W3C online training for Web developers.

The CSS Working Group and the SVG Working Group have published a Working Draft of CSS Masking Module Level 1. CSS Masking provides two means for partially or fully hiding portions of visual elements: masking and clipping. Masking describes how to use another graphical element or image as a luminance or alpha mask. Typically, rendering an element via CSS or SVG can conceptually be described as if the element, including its children, are drawn into a buffer and then that buffer is composited into the element’s parent. Luminance and alpha masks influence the transparency of this buffer before the compositing stage. Clipping describes the visible region of visual elements. The region can be described by using certain SVG graphics elements or basic shapes. Anything outside of this region is not rendered. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Learn more about the Style Activity and the Graphics Activity.

The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 (Second Edition). This document is the specification of the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) format. EXI is a very compact representation for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Information Set that is intended to simultaneously optimize performance and the utilization of computational resources. The EXI format uses a hybrid approach drawn from the information and formal language theories, plus practical techniques verified by measurements, for entropy encoding XML information. Using a relatively simple algorithm, which is amenable to fast and compact implementation, and a small set of datatype representations, it reliably produces efficient encodings of XML event streams. The grammar production system and format definition of EXI are presented. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Math Working Group has published two Proposed Edited Recommendations today:

• Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0 2nd Edition. This specification defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. MathML is a markup language for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. Comments are welcome through 11 March.
• XML Entity Definitions for Characters (2nd Edition). This document defines several sets of names, so that to each name is assigned a Unicode character or sequence of characters. Each of these sets is expressed as a file of XML entity declarations. Comments are welcome through 11 March.

Learn more about the Math Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Shapes Module Level 1. CSS Shapes describe geometric shapes for use in CSS. For Level 1, CSS Shapes can be applied to floats. A circle shape on a float will cause inline content to wrap around the circle shape instead of the float’s bounding box. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Comments are welcome through 04 March. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Device APIs Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Vibration API. This specification defines an API that provides access to the vibration mechanism of the hosting device. Vibration is a form of tactile feedback. Comments are welcome through 04 March. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

The Web Performance Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Navigation Error Logging. This specification defines an interface to store and retrieve error data related to the previous navigations of a document. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.