Introduction to Dynamic HTML
By Aaron Weiss
Dynamic HTML builds upon existing HTML standards to expand the possibilities of Web page design, presentation, and interaction. Ultimately, mastering DHTML will allow you to build Web-based applications, rather than mere portraits of data. Because DHTML is essentially an "added value" technology, you should be rather familiar with basic Web page design using traditional HTML specifications. Experience with JavaScript programming is also necessary to employ the potential of DHTML. Consequently, portions of this introduction to DHTML will assume some HTML and JavaScript familiarity.
What and Why
The Web is an ever evolving environment, and Web pages themselves are steadily blooming from static displays of data to interactive applications. "Dynamic HTML" is somewhat of an umbrella term encompassing several ways in which Web developers can breathe life into pages which have traditionally been still portraits of information.
The basic notion behind Dynamic HTML is quite simple: allow any element of a page to be changeable at any time. Sounds like a dream, but as with any simple plan, "God is in the details," as they say. In the olden days, you could only change content on a page via CGI. This required a server to perform the changes to the page and re-serve the entire page, modifications and all, back to the client. While workable, this process was quite slow, as it placed a burden on both network traffic and server processing time. With long delays between a user's action and an on-screen response, building effective Web-based applications was quite constricting.
With DHTML, the magic occurs entirely on the client-side. This means that page modifications should appear immediately following a trigger, such as a user selection. And, remember, the DHTML dream is that you can modify any aspect of the currently loaded page -- text styles, swapped images, context-sensitive forms and tables, and even the on-screen data itself.
It's worth noting here, then, that "Dynamic HTML," isn't really about HTML, the markup language. By and large, DHTML describes the abstract concept of breaking up a page into manipulable elements, and exposing those elements to a scripting language which can perform the manipulations. The degree, or fineness, to which these elements are defined and actionable is a function of DHTML's maturity. And since it has only been around for a year or so, DHTML is not fully mature.
Like the Web itself, Dynamic HTML is ever evolving. At some point, DHTML may self actualize and reach its full potential of "change anything anywhere anytime." It may even change its name -- product developers possess a whimsy for this sort of thing -- but the concepts defined above for modifying elements on a page will necessarily continue to mature.
From DHTML to DOM scripting
By Chris Heilmann
In this article we will try to help JavaScript beginners to spot old and outdated JavaScript techniques and explain what their issues are. We do this by looking at a web page that might have been developed around the millennium with development ideas that were good at the time (DHTML), but result in inaccessible or even broken pages in today's web environment.
If you want to take a look at the code examples offline, you can download the example site as a zip.
This article is aimed at developers who are new to JavaScript, or those who haven't touched it in a while and wonder why people tell them off for using techniques that were the bee's knees in 1999.
We will take a demonstration page that features three dynamic elements using JavaScript, take a look at how they were achieved, and give an example of a modern way of re-creating them more future-proof and less in the way of the visitor (DOM scripting). Let's start with a bit of background knowledge about what DHTML and the DOM are.
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Free HTML, XHTML, DHTML Ebooks Download
Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is markup language used in web pages. HTML describes text, image, links and file downloads etc in a web page. It is thus provides the appearance of a web page. HTML also support embedded scripting language such JavaScript and VB Script for some applications in web browser at client side. HTML versions are HTML 2.0, HTML 3.0, HTML 3.2, HTML 4.0, HTML 4.01 and todays final version HTML 5 is in development.
XHTML is another markup language based on HTML 4.01 with addition of XML. Various XHTML versions are XHTML 1.0, XHTML 1.1, XHTML 2.0 and todays final version XHTML 5.0 is in development. We can say HTML is an application of SGML and XHTML is that of XML. Today in web developments, XHTML is adopting very quickly. Various other versions of XHTML are also there for mobile devices and for voice and visual interactions . They are XHTML Basic, XHTML Mobile Profile, XHTML + Voice, etc.
DHTML (Dynamic HTML) is a combination of HTML, Scripting Language, Cascade Style Sheets (CSS), Document Object Model, etc. This DHTML is developed to create animated and interactive websites.
In this posting i wish to provide you free HTML, XHTML and DHTML Ebooks which will help you to get familiarize with HTML, XHTML and DHTML coding. These free ebooks will teach you how to use XHTML and CSS, how to insert Flash into XHTML, provides you with various coding examples, etc.
Following are the free HTML, XHTML and DHTML ebooks download links. Visit these links and master in web development with HTML, XHTML and DHTML.
- HTML Ebook Collection View/Download
- HTML Code Tutorial View/Download
- HTML and DHTML Reference View/Download
- Using HTML 4 View/Download
- HTML and CSS Tutorials and Stuff View/Download
- HTML and XHTML: The Definitive Guide View/Download
- Introduction to Dynamic HTML View/Download
- Beginners Guide to DHTML View/Download
- XForms Essentials View/Download
- Introduction to XForms, Part 1 : The new Web Standard for FormsView/Download
- Introduction to Web Design View/Download
- XHTML 1.1 Reference View/Download
- HTML and Dynamic HTML View/Download
- Writing HTML View/Download
- Gecko DOM Reference View/Download
- HTML Tutorial View/Download
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- Hyper Text Markup Language: HTML View/Download
- HTML Tutorial Ver 0.8.2 View/Download
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- How to correctly insert Flash into XHTML View/Download
- Using HTML Second Edition View/Download
- Web Publishing with HTML View/Download
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- Introduction HTML View/Download
- HTML by Examples View/Download
- How to Use HTML 3.2 View/Download
- HTML 3.2 and CGI Unleashed View/Download
