A group from Intel and a number of HTML5 developers from across the globe have launched the HTML5 Hub, a community project driven by two groups for the solitary cause of harnessing articles, ideas, and best practices related to the new hypertext markup language standard HTML5.

Their motto is “Build. Share. Unite.” which sums up the tenants of the organization’s goals to create projects in HTML5 and then share them from the central “hub”, all the while helping to push the boundaries in their effort to revolutionize digital experiences.

Collaborate

The current group of fourteen developers includes Ian Devlin, Kyle Simpson, Todd Motto, Darcy Clarke, Christopher Schmitt, Jon Raasch, John Hann, Dale Cruse, Andres Pagella, Faruk Ates, Adam Hartwig, Franck Lecollinet, Guillaume Lecollinet, and Richard Davey, and they are looking for more contributors in their effort to create a new community. Another slogan of the hub is “By developers. For developers.” If you want to contribute your HTML5 work to the Hub you can submit your name, email, experience, website/portfolio, and your background in HTML5, including projects, publications, experience and other relevant material. Getting involved in the hub allows you to contribute to the discussion and share your ideas, and collaborate with the hub members on cool HTML5 projects. It also allows you to showcase your innovative work to a global audience of top developers.

Projects

The HTML5 Hub is less than a month old, so don’t expect to see a slew of projects in the hopper just yet, hence, the call for more developers to join. What you will find are a handful of posts that include a guide to how developers can contribute to the HTML5 specification, request and animation frame from better performance, CSS3 story telling, cutting through images in canvas, and more. I am sure as theHTML5 Hub community grows, the list of projects and scope will continue to evolve, following suit with its contributors.

Intel partnership

Partnered with Intel’s Developer Zone, specifically with their HTML5 Developer Environment, the HTML5 Hub loftily benefits from the vast resources of Intel’s development arm. In tune with Intel’s belief of inspiring innovative web applications with cross-platform access, they are poised to leverage building exciting digital experiences with the technology of HTML5 and CSS3.

Among the nifty Intel HTML5 tools, is the App Starter, which you can use to create your own app, guided by a wizard to help you get started with selecting a project name, and a development path for your HTML5 app project.  You get to choose from a list of five development paths:

  1. Use the App Starter UI Builder to set up pages and navigation.
  2. Work from the App Framework kitchen sink demo.
  3. Create a new game app. (XDK Game Dev Mode)
  4. Build upon or explore a Demo app.
  5. Create your own from scratch. [requirements]

The screen capture below displays the App Starter UI Builder which allows you to create pages from the Pages tab. With the Elements tab open, it includes layout, forms, and media with dialog boxes for each element. As you can see, the active “Hello World” Button Properties and Styles windows open.

The other two development tabs include Nav which allows you to create and modify the navigation headers, footers, and side nav, and lastly, the Tree tab which shows you the parent child relationship of all your app pages. CSS theme selections include the following:

  • Use native device themes
  • iOS
  • iOS7
  • Android dark
  • Android light
  • Win8 Dark
  • Win8 Light
  • Blackberry 10
  • App Framework

You can also toggle between vertical and horizontal rotations and preview the app in another window with live demonstrations, allowing you to test the orientation in either tablet or phone view. You can select from the list of CSS themes as shown below.

HTML5 Hub is another feather in the cap for the continued development and adoption of HTML5 as the new standard for web browsers; it will be interesting to see how the community and partnership grows in the coming months.