W3C WebApps Working Group

Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group

What are APIs?

Application Programming Interfaces

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a software interface that exposes access to some internal functionality of a piece of software for use by programmers, to get access to specific information, to trigger special behavior, or to perform some other action. The APIs that the WebApps WG develops are typically client-side script APIs, for use in browsers and similar user agents (as opposed to server-side APIs, for example).

What are Web Components?

The component model for the Web

Templates, which define chunks of markup that are inert but can be activated for use later.
Custom Elements, which let authors define their own elements, with new tag names and new script interfaces.
Shadow DOM, which encapsulates a DOM subtree for more reliable composition of user interface elements.
Imports, which defines how templates, decorators and custom elements are packaged and loaded as a resource.

Each of these pieces is useful individually. When used in combination, Web Components enable Web application authors to define widgets with a level of visual richness and interactivity not possible with CSS alone, and ease of composition and reuse not possible with script libraries today.

The W3C Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group is chartered to develop specifications for webapps, including standard APIs for client-side development, and a packaging format for installable webapps. This work will include both documenting existing APIs such as XMLHttpRequest and developing new APIs in order to enable richer web applications.

This group works in public, with details in the WG's Work Mode document and the WG's Wiki.

A detailed list of this group's publications and their status (available in one of the W3C's version control systems.)

The W3C Team Contact for the WebApps Working Group is Yves Lafon and Xiaoqian Wu. The Co-Chairs of the Working Group are Art Barstow and Charles McCathieNevile.

Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group

Upcoming Meetings