What's new in XHTML 1.1

XHTML is the evolution of HTML, and is sometimes thought of as HTML 5. XHTML 1.1 is the latest XHTML standard at the time of this writing, having reached the official W3C Recommendation status in 2001.XHTML 1.1 evolved out of its predecessors, but along the way dropped some baggage that was holding it back and picked up a couple of new features.

In the early days, the priority was to get HTML working and get it adopted by developers. Like any technology that becomes popular, more and more sophisticated demands were made on HTML. New Web-enabled products emerged and new players appeared, including accessibility organizations. The arrival of XML technologies signaled a clear need for change - XHTML 1.0 was a conservative step forward, retaining a strong HTML legacy. Not until XHTML 1.1 do we see a standard that makes a clean break from the infancy of the Web.

What is XHTML 1.1?

The XHTML 1.1 recommendation defines a new XHTML document type that is based upon the module framework and modules defined in Modularization of XHTML which serves as the basis for future extended XHTML 'family' document types, providing a consistent, forward-looking document type cleanly separated from the deprecated, legacy functionality of HTML 4 that was brought forward into the XHTML 1.0 document types. This document type is essentially a reformulation of XHTML 1.0 Strict using XHTML Modules. This means that many facilities available in other XHTML Family document types (e.g., XHTML Frames) are not available in this document type. These other facilities are available through modules defined in Modularization of XHTML, and document authors are free to define document types based upon XHTML 1.1 that use these facilities.