Digital magazine and newspaper publishing with HTML5

摘要

The aim of this thesis has been to study the use of HTML5 technology in digital magazine and newspaper publishing. The field of research has been focused primarily on tablet and mobile platforms which have played a crucial role in the convergence of devices, media and technologies during the past years. This development has increased the significance of browser based applications, contents and services which can flow across different devices and be reached regardless of time, place and device.While browsers have been adopting the new HTML5 features, new execution possibilities have been emerged in digital publishing for tablet and mobile platforms. These implementations can match the performance of native applications and at the same time streamline the publishing process. The lack of de facto implementation methods raises a need for comparison which has been addressed in this study.The most important technologies and publishing methods for HTML5 based content have been identified and introduced in this thesis. The empirical research was based on the implementation of Aalto University Magazine tablet concept: the visual design of the concept magazine was provided by Juho Hiilivirta. The HTML5 based magazine was used as a part of the implemented iOS and web applications which served as research platforms for different implementation methods.Performance and feature detection tests were designed and executed using a range of browsers and devices from desktop, tablet and mobile platforms. The results of this study include Stage Framework for publishing HTML5 based content and recommended conventions for digital publishing in addition to the implemented applications, demo magazine and test results. All in all the new browser technologies were well supported across different platforms offering an excellent publishing platform as the most common execution environment in the world. In the light of this study publishers and developers are encouraged for a confident adoption of these technologies.