The Future of HTML

HTML is undergoing rapid development. Although the ratification of HTML version 2.0 is only expected to take place at the end of 1994, various efforts are already underway to improve the language by the addition of new features. Work is continuing on HTML version 3.0, which is due out some time during 1995.

A new, experimental browser, called Arena is now available, and is being used at the moment mainly as a research tool to aid in the development of HTML version 3.0, although work is underway to make it a fully-functional Web browser for general use. Designed to handle all the proposed HTML version 3.0 features, Arena was developed initially by Dave Raggett of Hewlett Packard Laboratories in Bristol. Further development is continuing at CERN in Geneva, and Web users around the world are contributing comments and bug reports. The following figure illustrates some of Arena's features.

The pre-release version 0.9 is publicly available on the net in binary format for certain UNIX workstations (Digital Equipment DECstation, IBM RS/6000, SGI IRIX, Hewlett Packard 9000 Sun SPARCstation running SunOS 4.x linked with or without the resolver libraries or or running Solaris 2.3), although it cannot be considered stable. The source code has not yet been released for general consumption.

Arena incorporates an HTML syntax checker, and has the facility to switch to and from an HTML editor of the user's choice. It supports client side file caching, which should make for a discernible performance improvement. Other features include user-customizable icons and support for MIME mailcap files.

Next: HTML 3.0 features Up: Appendices Previous: Appendices

[ITCP] Spinning the Web by Andrew Ford
© 1995 International Thomson Publishing
© 2002 Andrew Ford and Ford & Mason Ltd
Note: this HTML document was generated in December 1994 directly from the LaTeX source files using LaTeX2HTML. It was formatted into our standard page layout using the Template Toolkit. The document is mainly of historical interest as obviously many of the sites mentioned have long since disappeared.