Lorian Network | Building | Advanced
| Introduction | The topics we have discussed, up to this point, are the basics. Mastering them will allow you to create basic web pages. But if you want to emulate the interactivity and nicer formatting that you see on good web sites, you need to tackle the essentials of at least two of the following topics: Javascript and Cascading Style Sheets. And if you want to get really fancy or prepare for the future, jump into Java and XML. | |
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| Javascript | Javascript is a scripting language that is built into all modern browsers. Originally developed by Netscape, it is now supported by all modern browsers. Small functions and procedures can be written in Javascript as part of a web page which are executed by the browser when certain "events" occur. Javascript is "client-side. That is, it runs on the user's client machine after the web page is downloaded. It doesn't do anything at the web server. Javascript allows a web page designer to do interactive things with a page that HTML alone simply can not do. There are many articles, books and web sites that can help teach you to create Javascripts. One good resource is at Javascript.com. Visit our Resource section for more links and information. |
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| CSS (Style Sheets) | CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, Cascading Style Sheets allow the web page designer to separate the content of a web page from it's formatting and gives greater control over the formatting of a page than you can achieve with HTML alone. CSS can help solve one of the most irritating problems of web page design. Web pages often look quite different when viewed from different web browsers or on differing computer platforms. For example, your page might look great in Netscape Navigator, but terrible in Microsoft Internet Explorer. It might format correctly when viewed on Macintosh systems but look ridiculous on Windows. Although neither of the two major web browsers support the CSS specification fully, both Netscape and Microsoft support enough of the CSS spec that you can use it to bring the formatting of web pages into line across various browsers and operating systems. |
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| Java |
JAVA is a full featured object-oriented computer programming language developed by Sun Microsystems. The JAVA language can be used to create standard computer applications, but is best known for it's strength in creating small programs called "applets" that are downloaded with a web page. For more information about JAVA, visit Sun's JAVA web site, or see our Resource section. | |
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| XML | XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. Created as a replacement for HTML, it is the future of the world wide web. Though XML is poorly supported (if at all) in today's browsers, if you are doing web-page design, eventually you will be doing it in XML. XML completely separates the "content" of a web page from the "formatting" of that information and requires the use of Cascading Style Sheets. There are many books, articles and web sites where you can learn about XML. The official specifications are at World Wide Web Consortium. | |
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