Articles Glossary
This is the glossary of terms, filled with explanations of commonly used phrases and acronyms related to web design, all in lay-man's terms.
Microsoft Active Server Page (ASP) is a server-side scripting technology that can be used to create dynamic and interactive Web applications. An ASP page is an HTML page that contains server-side scripts that are processed by a web server before being sent to the user’s browser. You can combine ASP with HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and XML (Extensible Markup Language) to create powerful interactive Web sites.
ASP is a feature of Microsoft IIS (or Internet Information Services), and since it generates normal HTML server-side, it can serve any browser with rich database driven content.
Blog - personal online journal
Shortened from weblog, a Blog is a web site in which journal entries are posted and then displayed for all and sundry to see on the net. A lot of blogs can focus on special interests or personal hobbies, or even just day to day ramblings. It cannot be denied though, they are an important way of communicating in this day and age.
Browser - Internet Explorer, Firefox, opera, etc
There are several internet browsers available, by far the most widely spread is Internet Explorer, which is the packaged browser with Windows. There are good alternatives available though, like Firefox for example, which is free to use and has some excellent plug-ins to allow easy downloading. Firefox also features tabbed windows, making for a clutter free desktop when you've got several windows open at once. Firefox is available for free download at the top left of this page.
Client-side signifies something that is executed in your browser, for example, some Javascript to swap an image when you mouse over a link.
Database - Access, MS SQL and MYSQL
Databases sit server-side and can drive all sorts of important content driven sites, like news sites, blogs and e-commerce catalogues. They contain lists and tables of data, and using server-side script, like ASP or PHP, data can be easily and quickly sorted, filtered and delivered to your browser according to search criteria, in an easy to read format.
E-commerce, or Electronic Commerce, is the business of browsing, buying, renting or selling of goods over the internet, like an online shop, or auction site.
FTP is a protocol enabling you to securely connect to your web server and transfer your files remotely.
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
HTML is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages with hypertext and other information to be displayed in a web browser. HTML has syntactic rules that apply, in order for different web browsers to be able to successfully render the page the same. See also, XML and XHTML.
HTTP / HTTPS - Hypertext Transfer Protocol
HTTP is a request and response protocol used between your browser and the server. It's used to deliver the content you read in your browser.. like this page you're reading now. HTTPS is essentially the same save for encryption used, providing a secure tunnel between your pc and the web server.
In the case of the internet, the most used form of hypertext, and possibly the best example is the hyperlink, a link within a document that when clicked, will take the user to another part of the same document, or to another document altogether. For example, when you click on some of the links within this document, it scrolls the screen elsewhere in the glossary to the appropriate part of the glossary. Whereas, if you click one of the links in the menu over on the left, you will be taken to a different document altogether.
IIS - Internet Information Services
IIS is a group of internet based services used on Microsoft based servers. These services include FTP and HTTP as well as other services such as NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). IIS has native support for ASP, and if you're running Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional, you can run (albeit limited to one site and limited connections,) a web site locally on your home pc for testing purposes.
Javascript is an extremely powerful, object based scripting language, it runs client-side, but can communicate server-side too. Javascript can be used to great effect where HTML is not enough, checking form validity, and performing other special effects on the fly, from within your browser.
PHP is an open-source programming language, that is used to create dynamic and interactive Web applications. PHP runs server-side and generates HTML on the fly, providing the user with dynamic content. It can interact with databases, and also has access to a huge library of tools to carry out other operations server-side, such as image manipulation.
A script can be server-side or client-side, and is usually a piece of conditional code that will change something on the fly. For instance, a piece of code server-side may work out the time of day, and then display a message in the content of the page to say "Good morning" or "Good afternoon". An example of a script running client-side might be to swap an image when you move the mouse over it, to make it look highlighted, sometimes called a rollover script. See Javascript.
A web server is the computer out there in the internet, that holds all of the documents, images and other files that make up your web site, and probably a lot of others too. People that provide these servers for your use are called web hosts. You usually connect to these servers via FTP, uploading your files, and then people can access your site by typing in your URL.
Server-side literally means code that is executed on the web server, before it reaches your browser. This might be pulling records out of a database, generating an image, or creating an e-mail based on a form you've submitted.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator
A URL is commonly known as a web address, for example www.upload.me.uk is the URL for this website. The URL acts as a 'friendly' name instead of using a, (difficult to remember,) IP address, for example, 213.171.218.75 .
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get
In the context of web design, this would be an application like Macromedia's Dreamweaver, where you can essentially type freely, highlight text and apply formatting from menus, insert images and other media, and the program generates the HTML for you in the background.
XHTML - Extensible Hypertext Markup Language
XHTML is essentially the same as HTML, but has a stricter syntax, in line with XML. This allows it to be pharsed using a standard XML library, unlike HTML, which requires a relatively complex, custom parser.
XML - Extensible Markup Language
XML is a markup language used for creating special markup languages, and is capable of describing many different kinds of data. It's main purpose is to allow the sharing of data across different systems, without having prior knowledge of their form.