Specification Links

Note: The spec list at https://platform.html5.org/ attempts to provide links to all relevant specs using the guidelines documented on this page; cases where it currently doesn’t merit a pull request or issue report.

Source

• Prefer WHATWG specifications over W3C ones

WHATWG

• Use HTTPS

W3C

• Always use the Editor's Draft
• Use HTTPS

Multipages

If you're linking to 'multipage', don't include the page in the URL since the page is not stable. e.g.:

• WHATWG
  • https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/#root-element instead of
  • https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/infrastructure.html#root-element
• W3C
  • https://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/#introduction-16 instead of
  • https://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/rendering.html#introduction-16

Spec links

• HTML living standard: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/
• DOM living standard: https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/
• UI Events (formerly DOM Level 3 Events): https://w3c.github.io/uievents/
• Quirks mode: https://quirks.spec.whatwg.org/
• URL: https://url.spec.whatwg.org/
• XHR: https://xhr.spec.whatwg.org/
• Encoding: https://encoding.spec.whatwg.org/
• MIME sniffing: https://mimesniff.spec.whatwg.org/
• CSS editor’s drafts: https://drafts.csswg.org/
  • Status of each spec: https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work
  • CSSOM: https://drafts.csswg.org/cssom/
  • CSS 2: https://drafts.csswg.org/css2/
• WebComponents
  • Shadow DOM: https://w3c.github.io/webcomponents/spec/shadow/
  • HTML Templates: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/#the-template-element
  • HTML Imports: https://w3c.github.io/webcomponents/spec/imports/
  • Custom Elements: https://w3c.github.io/webcomponents/spec/custom/
• SVG: https://svgwg.org/svg2-draft/

CSS 2

CSS 2 is a special snowflake. Some, but not all, of its chapters are superseded by newer Level 3+ documents. Look at CSS 2 for the feature-set to prioritize, but at the new specs (which are often more detailed and precise) for implementation. Consider the stability of the spec before implementing new features.

• Section 1.4.2.1. CSS property definitions, Value → CSS Values and Units, Chapter 2. Value Definition Syntax
• Chapter 4. Syntax and basic data types → CSS Syntax and CSS Values and Units
• Chapter 5. Selectors → Selectors and Selectors Level 3, Chapter 7. Pseudo-elements
• Chapter 6. Assigning property values, Cascading, and Inheritance → CSS Cascade
• Chapter 7. Media types → Media Queries and CSS Conditional Rules
• Chapter 10. Visual formatting model details
  • Preferred (minimum) width, shrink-to-fit → CSS Intrinsic & Extrinsic Sizing
• Chapter 11. Visual effects
  • Section 11.1.1. Overflow: the 'overflow' property → CSS Overflow
  • Section 11.1.2. Clipping: the 'clip' property → CSS Masking, Appendix A. The deprecated clip property
• Chapter 12. Generated content, automatic numbering, and lists
  • 12.4 Automatic counters and numbering and 12.5. Lists → CSS Lists and Counters (but don’t use Section 7. Positioning Markers yet)
  • Values of list-style-type → CSS Counter Styles
• Chapter 13. Paged Media → CSS Paged Media and CSS Fragmentation
• Chapter 14. Colors and Backgrounds → CSS Color and CSS Backgrounds and Borders
• Chapter 15. Fonts → CSS Fonts
• Chapter 16. Text → CSS Text and CSS Text Decoration
• Chapter 18. User interface
  • Section 18.1. Cursors: the 'cursor' property → CSS Basic User Interface, Section 7.1. Pointer interaction
  • Section 18.2. System Colors → CSS Color, Appendix A. Deprecated CSS System Colors
  • Section 18.3. User preferences for fonts → CSS Fonts
  • Section 18.4. Dynamic outlines: the 'outline' property → CSS Basic User Interface, Chapter 5. Outline properties
• Appendix A. Aural style sheets → CSS Speech
• Appendix D. Default style sheet for HTML 4 → HTML, Chapter 14. Rendering