Suggestion for new HTML5 media element for epubs

[lviana]

First there was the <img> tag. Now, with HTML5, <audio> and <video> tags are being introduced (which also have the helpful controls attribute). This covers the 3 most important media types, namely pictures, music, and videos. However, there is a fourth type of digital media that is quickly becoming prevalent: electronic publications such as ebooks and documents. As a matter of fact, just like the other 3 media types have their own common codecs, the dominant electronic publication codec/format is ePub. If there was such new element, for instance it could be called <document> or <book>, it could be used to display ebooks and other ePub documents in a webpage. And if there was an associated controls attribute, it could be used to add next and previous button controls to switch between pages. Just as the other media elements may help us eliminate the need to use proprietary plug-ins such as Adobe Flash, a <document> element could help eliminate the need of using other proprietary plug-ins such as Adobe Reader. It seems to me that such new element would be popular, especially now that ereaders are becoming common. Has any thought been given to such HTML5 element addition?

[zcorpan]

Why is <iframe> not good enough?

[lviana]

The <iframe> element is used to display another HTML webpage. What I suggested was the ability to display not an HTML webpage, but a formatted electronic publication, such as an ebook or electronic document, encoded in a format/codec such as ePub. It would accomplish something similar to what the Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin does, but without the need for proprietary plugins. In addition, similarly to the <audio> and <video> tags, you would also have the ability to specify height and width, and add controls that can be used to switch to next of previous pages of the electronic document. With eReaders, such as iPad and Kindle, becoming really popular and selling ePub books via their online stores, I believe this feature could be very popular and do for books what <audio> and <video> are doing for music and videos. And with text editing software (iWorks, MS Word) adding support for ePub, you can also imagine things like reports, novels, how-to guides, etc., in addition to ebooks, also being displayed via this new element.