Web Design Technologies

Web Design Technologies

HTML

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, it's the coding language that is used to display the content within a certain layout on the Internet. Unlike CSS, HTML is specifically used for the structure of content whilst CSS   is for the presentation layout.

Initially, the original code for HTML was invented over 20 years ago with updates for each version of the language infrequently occurring. Because of the span of time for updates, certain features have only been able to be put in the HTML through the usage of external programs. Take the example of Video, the integration of video for HTML has been hard to fit in naturally through each update therefore external applications have had to been used. Ones such as Real Time Player, Windows Media Player and Flash are some examples of players that have been designed as external plugins for the web. However though, because these programs are external to HTML in order for someone to achieve video on their website they would need to download these plugins from a source. As well as that, sources over the internet aren't all trustworthy so any unwanted software such as viruses may invade with downloads also. 

With HTML5, the usage of plugins could be phased out with adding video to it's capabilities. Along with other features such as Audio, drag and drop and vector graphics/animation, HTML5 is planned to create a consistent and universal web experience throughout all web devices and browsers. 

CSS

In order to implement sophisticated design elements into HTML webpages, programmers use CSS. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, it's the computer language that is used to describe the presentation (view/format) of a webpage. 

The difference between HTML and CSS in simple terms is that whilst HTML is used to structure content, CSS is used to format that specific structured content. Take header and paragraph elements for example, to create these, tags such as <h1> and <p> are used. With CSS however, these tags can be stylised either by applying a style attribute or referring to the tags with an external stylesheet. Whe nthe web was originally gaining popularity web designers looked to adding a type of layout so certain tags such as <font> were used to define layout. At the time, web pages were being frequently created however browsers producers (such as Microsoft and Netscape) had an issue where structure tags, like <table>, were being misused to pages with layout, and not structure. Additionally, many layout tags were only supported by one type of browsers and not other so CSS was invented to remedy these errors.

Overall, CSS made layout opportunities a lot more sophisticated with sole stylesheets and different media options like screen or print. The main benefit to CSS though was that is helped form the fundamental law of web design, the separation of presentation style of documents from the content of documents. This, helps coding maintainence a lot more precise and easier for web designers and developers. 

The only problem that still remains today however is the functionality of advanced features with CSS3 (such as box-shadow) and it's implementation with today's ever updating and increasing web browsers. Issues like this call for the usages of prefixes or prehacks, this will be touched more upon in Web Design Issues. 

JavaScript

JavaScript is a cross-platform, objected orientated programming language designed to implement interactive elements into webpages. Initially developed by Netscape, JS has allowed web authors to closely interact with the HTML source code and create many dynamic features for their websites.

One of Javascript's main features is reading and writing to HTML elements, such as <p>, and seeing what content is inside there and manipulating it accordingly. With this type of functionality if certain conditions are met of a visitor to a website, Javascript can edit the content to provide the user with a unqiue experience. Take the example of certain Greetings depending on the time of day, if we wanted the webpage to say Good Morning, Afternoon or Evening depending on time of day we can use JS. With inbuilt functions such as .getHours, we can check what time of day it is with for loops and change the content depending on those type of conditions. Secondly, Javascript can also react to a user's behaviour. When comparing to CSS we can see that the styling of an element can change when it's hovered over, clicked on or focussed on. With Javascript, we can control the entire interface of a webpage instead of just a single element depending on mouse control. Another example of Javascript reacting to a user's behaviour can be through application forms and taking the values entered into fields and printing it out in one chunk, this can be useful for database records/entries.

With the ever increasing usage of JavaScript compared to other languages alike (such as Ruby or Python), JS is becoming the key language in creating dynamic features for web browsers. Today, JS is even exceeding it's intention of browser features with certain projects using code that is capable of powering physical real-world devices via an Arduino or running natively on mobile devices/tablets. In terms of achieving unity with a development that is efficient, JavaScript is the highly recommended code to do the job.

pHp

pHp is a server-side scripting language that stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. It’s used to create web-based applications that can create, manage, display and destroy information. Alike to JavaScript, pHp focuses on the manipulating of information with a webpage whilst JavaScript focuses on the visual/behavioural effects you can achieve with a webpage.

But what really distinguishes pHp from client-side scripting languages such as JavaScript is that the code is executed on the server, this code can be used to generate HTML that is then sent to the client. Therefore, the client would receive the results of running that script but not be able to access the underlying code of that action as it’s on the server. This is a great way for web authors to keep confidentiality with their webpages so anybody can’t steal their HTML or CSS. pHp can also interact with MySQL databases meaning that we can create scripts that can write a user’s information (username, password, etc) and retrieve information from the database. With using contents of the database, webpages such as user profiles can be created and more complex systems such as login systems or website search features can be made with pHp also. This is a great tool for creating websites that support forums and close interactions between users.

Today, pHp is seen as one of the most popular programming languages in recent years with its server-side scripting functions that have helped create well-known open source programs such as WordPress or Joomla. However though, with certain languages such as Python, Ruby and HTML5 becoming increasingly popular with similar features that may perform better or more efficiently, pHp may be one day phased out all together.