HTML5 will be the next major revision of HTML once it's worked its way through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approval process. Although it probably won't be final for a few years -- maybe even longer -- HTML5 is a working standard that some Web developers are already experimenting with. (For example, there's an HTML5 version of YouTube.) The developers are drawn to its promise of delivering video and other multimedia formats without proprietary plug-ins, such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight.

Steve Jobs has spent much of this spring embracing HTML5 and bashing Adobe Flash. When Apple announced that it wouldn't support Flash on the iPhone and iPad, the news was a blow to Adobe and to Flash users. The two companies seemed to become rival gangs fighting a turf war, with poor you and me in the middle.

Today, Adobe made a move that throws the gang metaphor out the window and underscores the company's broad interests beyond Flash. The new HTML5 Pack for Dreamweaver CS5 is an extension that makes it easier to work with HTML5. It includes code hinting for HTML5 and CSS3, and HTML5 starter layouts. The HTML5 Pack also adds a Multiscreen Preview panel that enbales Live View display on three screen sizes.

Dreamweaver CS5 users can download the HTML5 Pack on Adobe Labs now. The download is free.

You can read the full HTML5 Pack press release here. For a little background on Adobe's work on HTML5, check out this blog post from Paul Gubbay, a senior director engineering. The post includes a video demo of multi-screen authoring with CSS3 Media Queries in Dreamweaver.