Put these technologies to work for you.
There are many technologies available today to create web sites, with
new ones appearing each year. While some tools (such as Microsoft FrontPage
and Macromedia Dreamweaver) can free the web designer from writing HTML code,
there are tasks which require the skills of a software developer. Web sites
are no longer written solely in HTML; many incorporate technologies such as
Cascading Style Sheets, Javascript and PHP.
Here is a brief introduction to some of the technologies, explaining how
they can benefit your web site.
HTML
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. This is the language that tells
the visitor's browser (e.g. Explorer, Navigator, Safari, or Firefox) what to
display. A "markup language" controls text positioning, font appearance,
layouts of tables, etcetera. "Hypertext" refers to the ability of pages to
connect to each other using links.
We handcode our websites, to ensure that the pages are clean, download
quickly, and work across all browsers. We have found this to be
an essential step in the creation of a reliable web site.
In the early days of the web, each browser company came up with their own
special features for the HTML language, which only their browser
understood. There is now an organization devoted to standardizing HTML:
the WorldWide Web Consortium (W3C).
We code every page of your site to meet W3C standards, and use W3C validation
software to check it.
CSS
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. A style sheet is a computer file
which contain descriptions of various styles. For example, you might
have one style for the headings of your text and another for the body of
the text. A style might include the font, its size, its colour and its
alignment (left-justified, right-justified or centered). It might also
include margin specifications and position of the text.
Each style is given a name in the style sheet. Once a style has been
described in a style sheet, every web page on your site can make use of
it, with code that says something like "display this text in the style
called MyHeading".
Style can be controlled using HTML, but it is preferable to use style
sheets. Using style sheets allows you to change the style of your whole
site by changing a single file; that change is then reflected in every web
page that uses that style sheet. HTML code is also cleaner and easier
for the developer to maintain when style sheets are used.
Server Side Includes
Server Side Includes are useful when a design element is reused across
multiple pages within your site. That design element might be a page header, a
copyright notice, or a menu.
The design element is described in a single file which is located on
your web site host computer. Multiple web pages can refer to that file.
When a visitor goes to one of those web pages, the host computer pulls the
design element from that file into the web page before sending the web page
off to the visitor's computer. When a change is made to the file containing
the design element, it is immediately reflected in all the web pages that
refer to that file.
Pages that use server side includes have names that end in .shtml, like
this one.
PHP
PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page. However, it has been
renamed to Hypertext Pre-Processor. PHP is a general purpose scripting
language, similar to the programming language "C".
With PHP, your web site can include pages which are created automatically
when a visitor arrives at them, usually using information available in a
MySQL database. The computer that hosts your site runs the PHP code, which
creates HTML for the page. The resulting HTML file is then passed on to
the visitor's computer.
Database technology is particularly useful for displaying tabular data.
For example, an online retailer could store all the information about
the products they sell: the product name, a description, the price, and a photograph.
Then the site visitor could search for all the products under a certain price.
PHP with a MySQL database lends itself well to this type of task.
When you need a dynamically created web page, we use PHP to create it. You can
maintain the data on your office computer using Excel, and and upload the spreadsheet
to your host computer, using the detailed and thorough instructions we provide in our
manual. Along with our detailed documentation, we provide training and support.
This combination of technologies allows you to maintain your own web
site without having to know web development technologies. However, it is best
suited to sites which contain tabular information. If your content is going
to be mostly free-format, then we would look at other technologies, such as
a Joomla! template or a WordPress blog.
Here are examples of some pages we have created using the PHP/MySQL technology.
JavaScript
Javascript is a programming language that can be incorporated into an
HTML file. Javascript code is run by the visitor's browser when they visit
a web page that includes such code. (That is, unless they have disabled
Javascript in their browser for security reasons.) This differs from PHP,
which is run by the host computer instead of on the visitor's computer.
Javascript is used to create interactive effects on web pages (such as menus
which expand when you mouse over a menu item).
There are online sources of thousands of Javascript code snippets, including
scripts for calculators, calendars, drop-down menus, games and forms. To
keep costs down, we make use of these when this is efficient, reviewing and
editting code as necessary to make sure it is robust. However, we typically
write our own Javascript.
DHTML
DHTML stands for Dynamic HTML. This is not a technology in itself, as much
as it is a collaboration of other technologies:
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- Document Object Model (DOM)
DOM is a technology for labelling elements of code in a web page so
that Javascript code can access those elements by name.
DHTML allows us to make more sophisticated interactive web pages than
would be possible with Javascript and HTML alone.
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