HTML5 and CSS3 Features That Will Help You As a Developer

Do you think HMTL and CSS are easy to learn and they don’t need so much time to hone?. As a Jr. developer, it is so easy to think that HTML and CSS are not a big deal or something that you must worry too much about because they are not programming languages at all.

In this article, I’ll share with you some tips that will help you to improve your skills and realize that these technologies are so important in your career. Having a deep understanding of HTML5 and CSS3 is crucial if you want to become a good software developer.

What’s HTML5?

HTML5 is the latest version of Hypertext Markup Language that helps you to create layouts for your web applications by adding semantic elements to the markup that makes your web site more readable for the browser.

It’s important to keep in mind that even when HTML5 is not a programming language, it’s good to know how to use it. The main point of HTML5 provides you with more semantic tags so that your layout can look better and cleaner.

There are so many new specifications in HTML5 and we’ll cover the most important ones that can help you improve your skills as a developer.

There are a few new elements such as:

• <mark>
• <figure>
• <figcaption>
• <data>
• <time>
• <output>
• <progress>
• <meter>
• <main>

These are new tags that come with HTML5 and that help us to develop a more semantic and a clean layout.

When I started coding my HTML and creating layouts for my web applications, I used to use divs for everything and that is a bad habit due to the specification on the markup in HTML5, you should use more semantic tags, so I would encourage you to try these out in your next layout.

It also includes new tags for forms types:
*datetime
*datetime-local
*date
*month
*week
*time
*number
*range
*email
*url

You can learn more about semantic HTML here!!.

Adding these new tags to your knowledge does not sound difficult, does it?.I know what you are thinking, HTML only provides you a way to set up your website by using semantic tags that together make an entire layout. That is true but have you heard about SEO?.

SEO is a methodology that is used to increase the number of views to your website by getting a high ranking in the search results page of your browser.

What does that mean? If you want your website to have more visitors you have to follow certain techniques and tactics. Those techniques are part of SEO (search engine optimization).

To do this you have to make certain changes to your website design and content so that it is more attractive to a search engine, but, different factors impact your ranking on the browser and one of them is your HTML on your website. Now let’s discuss how this affects your ranking and how you can get the best HTML for a better ranking on the browser.

To measure your ranking based on your HTML, some factors can help you to improve your ranking.

• Title: The title on your website is so important because it tells the search engines what your page is about.
• Meta Description: It helps you to tell the search engines more about the content of your website.
• Sub-headings: Again it helps you to tell the search engine more about the specific content of your page and how it is distributed.
• ALT tags on images: It helps you to tell the search engines how to index your images and have a better ranking when users search for a certain phrase.
• Semantic tags: This one of the most important aspects because it helps your website to look more organize and tell the search engine how the information of your website is distributed and what it is about.

This is the reason why is critical that you understand the importance of HTML and its power, you can get more tips to improve your ranking here!!.

Now that we understand this important point let’s talk about CSS.

What’s CSS3?

In every web application that you develop is necessary to add style to the elements and HTML that makes your web site looks nice and attractive for users. CSS3 is a cascading style sheet that helps you to add styles to your web application. Without CSS a web site would look ugly and flat.
It is important to know the new features and additions that CSS brings to us.

CSS3 is a powerful tool that developers can use to make web
applications look quite good and professional. I’ll share with you the
most important new features on CSS3.

There are a few handy features that can help you to improve your CSS skills:

Animations

This is a great feature in CSS, and it is available in all major browsers. You can use Transition and Transform properties that help you to create awesome and sophisticated animations with pure CSS. Also, you can use the KeyFrame rule to make more complicated animations.

Calc

This is another great feature in CSS that allows you to do operations to calculate properties of elements in CSS. You can use it everywhere and it is flexible, it allows you to use pixels, percentages or units. This lets you develop awesome websites.

Multiple Backgrounds

Yes, now you can set more than just one background to your elements, that is super handy. With this feature, you can develop more complicated designs and interesting effects.

.nav {
  margin: 10px;
  padding: 4px 8px;
  background-image: url(someurl),url(anotherurl);
  background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat;
  background-position: bottom right,left right;
}

Pseudo Elements

This is a great feature that CSS provides to let developers to create content for your elements without having to create more HTML. This also helps you to do more complicated designs.

.navbar-container .navbar a::after {
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  left: 0;
  bottom: -30px;
  width: 0;
  height: 8px;
  background: #747fe0;
  content: "";
  transition: width 0.15s;
}

Grid CSS

I love this feature in CSS, now CSS allows you to set up a responsive layout so easily. It provides you a grid that is easy to set up and it is also really powerful.

.about-info {
  display: grid;
  grid-gap: 30px;
  grid-template-areas:
   'bioimage bio bio'
   'job1 job2 job3';
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr);
}

Learn more about the Grid on CSS here!!.

Do you still think that CSS and HTML are no big deal?

I want you to imagine how powerful these technologies are when you put them together and get the best results by using them correctly.

Let me know what do you think about these awesome technologies by leaving a comment, share this article if you like it and thank you for reading.