W3C

W3C today updated its General Document License to permit non-specification derivative works, such as inclusion of specification text in software, in supporting materials accompanying software, and in documentation of software. The license also makes all Code Components included in Specifications available under the W3C Software License. This update affects both upcoming publications, as well as existing publications, which are also now available under the new license.

The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Service Workers. This specification describes a method that enables applications to take advantage of persistent background processing, including hooks to enable bootstrapping of web applications while offline. The core of this system is an event-driven Web Worker, which responds to events dispatched from documents and other sources. A system for managing installation, versions, and upgrades is provided. The service worker is a generic entry point for event-driven background processing in the Web Platform that is extensible by other specifications. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of CSS Counter Styles Level 3. It adds new built-in counter styles to those defined in CSS 2.1, but, more importantly, it also allows authors to define custom styles for list markers, numbered headings and other types of generated content. This Candidate Recommendation incorporates responses to all feedback received during the previous two Last Calls.

The Internationalization Working Group has also updated their Working Draft of Predefined Counter Styles, which provides custom rules for over a hundred counter styles in use around the world. It serves both as a ready-to-use set of styles to copy into your own style sheets, and also as a set of worked examples.

Learn more about the Style Activity and the Internationalization Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Positioned Layout Module Level 3. This module contains the features of CSS level 3 relating to positioning and stacking of elements. It includes and extends the functionality of CSS level 2, which builds on CSS level 1. The main extensions compared to level 2 are the ability to position elements based on CSS Region boxes, the ability to specify different containing blocks for elements and sticky positioning. Other kinds of layout, such as tables, “floating” boxes, ruby annotations, grid layouts, columns and basic handling of normal “flow” content, are described in other modules. Also, the layout of text inside each line is defined elsewhere. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of Server-Sent Events. This specification defines an API for opening an HTTP connection for receiving push notifications from a server in the form of DOM events. The API is designed in a way that it can be extended to work with other push notification schemes such as Push SMS. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C has published the January 2015 edition of Standards for Web Applications on Mobile, an overview of the various technologies developed in W3C that increase the capabilities of Web applications, and how they apply more specifically to the mobile context.

A deliverable of the HTML5Apps project, this edition includes changes and additions since October 2014, and covers continued progress of the platform. A notable change is that the document has been re-organized around the categories defined as Application Foundations, a set of high-level grouping of features that highlight the needs from users and developers for the next generation of Web technologies. Learn more about the Web and Mobile Interest Group.