Articles by Ian Devlin

The woes of date input

One of the many new input types that HTML5 introduced is the date input type which, in theory, should allow a developer to provide the user with a simple, usable, recognisable method of entering a date on a web page. But sadly, this input type has yet to reach its full potential. Briefly, the date […]

The progress element

When building web sites and web applications, we often need to provide essential feedback to a user informing them of the progress of their request or task, be it uploading a file, playing a video, or importing data. HTML5 makes life easier for us by defining an element whose sole purpose is just that: the […]

Multimedia Troubleshooting

While I was researching HTML5 multimedia-related topics for my book, HTML5 Multimedia: Develop and Design, I noticed a number people struggling to get HTML5 audio and video working in different scenarios. From Twitter to Stack Overflow, the same questions kept cropping up, so I’ve put together a list of the most common problems (and some not so common) and their solutions (if there is one!).

Finding your position with Geolocation

The Geolocation API provides a method to locate the user’s exact (more or less – see below) position. This is useful in a number of ways ranging from providing a user with location specific information to providing route navigation.