For some time now, we’ve been using various technologies to edit and store text within a web browser. Now with the contenteditable attribute, things have got a whole lot easier. In this article, I’ll tell you what this attribute is for, how it works, and how we can take things further.

While HTML5 is stable and being implemented we’re still not past losing (or gaining) an element, as demonstrated by the removal of <time> and the addition of <data>. Rather than jumping into the ensuing brouhaha, we’ve spent some time figuring out what this really means. In short? Well… it’s complicated.

The scoped attribute for the style element allows you to include styles mid-document that targets a specific element and its children. Depending upon how you look at this, it’ll either be a godsend or a curse. Once you’ve reached the end of this article, I hope you can form your own opinion.

Between curating sites for the HTML5 gallery and answering readers’ questions here at HTML5 Doctor, I see a host of HTML5 sites and their underlying markup. In this post, I’ll show you some of the mistakes and poor markup practices I often see and explain how to avoid them.

For those who like (to argue about) semantics, HTML5 is fantastic. Old presentational elements now have new semantic meanings, there’s a slew of new semantic elements for us to argue about, and we've even in<cite>d a riot or two. But that's not all! Also in HTML5 is microdata, a new lightweight semantic meta-syntax. Using attributes, we can define nestable groups of name-value pairs of data, called microdata, which are generally based on the page’s content. It gives us a whole new way to add extra semantic information and extend HTML5.

Simplequiz #4 asks about alt text on images that are captioned using HTML5 figure and figcaption. Steve Faulkner moderates this week.

This is a bit of a special Simplequiz this week. Simon Pieters, who works on multimedia QA for Opera and is one of those working on the HTML5 spec, asked us to run a quiz that would help the spec writers decide on a new aspect of the language.

HTML5 contains a bunch of new semantic goodness, but sometimes we need more semantics than what’s available. This is the first article in a series looking at various ways to extend HTML5 — first up, microformats.

Have you ever found yourself using element class names or rel attributes to store arbitrary snippets of metadata for the sole purpose of making your JavaScript simpler? If you have, then I have some exciting news for you! If you haven't and you're thinking, Wow, that's a great idea! I implore you to rid your mind of that thought immediately and continue reading.