HTML.co.uk

Since its evolution in 1994, the most impressive web developer language VRML has been through a lots of modifications and upgrades. In the year 1997, VRML was upgraded for the first time and its name was changed from VRML94 to VRML97 (which is also known as VRML2 or VRML 2.0). This upgraded version of the web language became an ISO standard and was used to design home pages and sites offering 3D chat facilities.

As the web graphics and vectors began to improve, a lot of alternate languages emerged in order to provide better options for virtual 3D modeling and stood in the competition. The various alternatives to the traditional VRML language are:

A) COLLADA: It stands for COLLAborative Design Activity for developing interchangeable file format for 3D applications. This language defines an open standard XML schema which lays down the standards for exchanging the digital files among a number of graphic software applications.

COLLADA documents use XML files having a .dae (digital asset exchange) extension. This language was originally produced to facilitate transfer of digital data from one digital content creation tool to another DCC. This language is used by a number of popular applications such as Maya, 3D Studio Max, Google Earth etc.

B) U3D: Short for Universal 3D, U3D represents the compressed file format for 3D data. It was developed to get a universal standard for exchanging all types of 3D data.

C) X3D: It is a successor of VRML which was developed to enhance the VRML capabilities. X3D features various extensions to VRML such as Humanoid Animation, NURBS, GoeVRML etc. X3D defines a large number of extensions which are used for various purposes. Some of the popular X3D extensions are X3D Core, X3D Interchange, X3D CAD, X3D Geospatial and X3D Immersive.

D) 3DMLW: It is short for 3D Markup Language for Web. This is an XML based standard file format which is used for representing both three dimensional as well as two dimensional interactive content on the World Wide Web. 3DMLW is an open source engine and is licensed under GPL (General Public License).

In order to view and ripe the amazing benefits of 3DMLW, a 3DMLW plug-in or a 3DMLW standalone web browser has to be installed on the PC. The plug-in renders the 3D and 2D effects using the OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) standard. Thus it can be used under cross language, cross platform environments.

3DMLW separated the 2D and 3D objects and uses a text file format based on the XML 1.0 standard.

All the different 3D applications and graphic standards have their own abilities and disabilities. Therefore, one should keep in mind the objective of using these applications, the features of the applications, the cost and scalability factor while choosing one of them. You can also use more than one application and standard simultaneously to have a larger pool of exciting features as most of them supports cross platform functionality as well as backward compatibility.

Since its evolution, the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) has been revised and upgraded a number of times in order to make the World Wide Web a better place to live virtually. HTML is a derivative of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), but its major flaw is that it is not extensible. Thus HTML is not appropriate for deployment under a network environment.

So, the World Wide Web Consortium (popularly known as W3C) decided to develop a new breed of extensible language and came up with XML, which stands for eXtensible Markup Language. Web developers use XML to dynamically describe the information stored on a web page. Though XML, the new generation web pages describes themselves which is helpful to gain good rankings in search engine listings and help the developers to write codes for custom search tools.

• XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet.
• XML shall support a wide variety of applications.
• XML shall be compatible with SGML.
• It shall be easy to write programs that process XML documents.
• The number of optional features shall be kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero.
• XML documents shall be human-legible and reasonably clear.
• The XML design should be prepared quickly.
• The design of XML shall be formal and concise.
• XML documents shall be easy to create.
• Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.

(Source: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/)

XML is referred as a Metalanguage which describes other languages. It is called so because XML allows the web developers to create documents which describes themselves to their reader. Though the XML tags look like the HTML ones, the main difference between the two is that the HTML documents do not tell the web browser how to display the web page. On the other hand, the XML documents are downloaded by the web browser along with a style sheet or Document Type definition (DTD) which guides the web browser on how to display the web page.

In its raw form, an XML document looks like the HTML and SGML documents, but all are functionally different. The main difference between the HTML and XML coding is that the XML tags are very rigid. For example; the HTML language has tags which have a closing and which don’t have a closing section. But in XML either all the tags must exist in pair or announce to the reader that a closing tag is not present.

For example: in HTML you can use <BR> tag without having to close it, but in XML you have to use it as <BR>…</BR> or simply as <BR/> which announces that there is no closing tag for BR.

Another prominent difference between the two languages is that the XML requires all the tag attribute values to be enclosed within quotation marks. For example:

<font color=red>……</font>, this is wrong in XML. It should be like <font color=”red”>…….</font>

Just like Microsoft FrontPage, Dreamweaver is also a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web development software. It was originally created by Macromedia, but later on in the year 2005 it was owned by Adobe systems. Thus Dreamweaver is now known as Adobe Dreamweaver. This application is used for developing high quality web pages without getting involved in HTML coding. All the designing can be done in the design mode easily.

If we look at the sole objective, there is no difference between FrontPage and Dreamweaver. Both of them offer excellent tools to create exciting web sites. But still, some people prefer Dreamweaver as they find it more interesting, easy and rich in functions than FrontPage. Dreamweaver allows viewing websites in many popular browsers. It has got a variety of tools and functions which can be used to add multimedia in the web pages. For example tools like flash tool, real player tool, windows media player tool and quick time tool can be used to embed and watch movies in different formats on the web sites.

One unique feature of Dreamweaver is that you can configure it to write the HTML code in the way you want. For example; if you want that all the tags should be in bold, then you can configure the Dreamweaver to generate the code in that way. Dreamweaver also supports syntax highlighting for the codes. It makes it easy to use java scripting and DHTML to control the behavior of different objects. There is a library which makes it comfortable to use and modify an HTML element which has been repeatedly used in different web pages of a web site. For example; suppose you need to use and design a navigation table on every page of your web site. In that case instead of putting the formatting the table on every page, you can define it in the Dreamweaver library. Once added in the library, you need to put the table and design it on any one page of the web site and it will automatically get added and updated on the rest of the web pages.

Apart from this, Dreamweaver supports a lot of other useful functions such as CSS, templates, forms, tables, automatically updatable hyperlinks, interactive frames, rollover images and much more. Adobe Dreamweaver can be used on both Macintosh and Windows operating systems. The recent version of the application has been improved to support CSS, java scripts, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, java server pages and PHP. Overall, Dreamweaver is fully power packed with captivating features. This program is used worldwide and is a real head turner. It is a mighty competitor of FrontPage.

The whole look and design of Dreamweaver is better than any other HTML editor. FrontPage 2003 supports Dreamweaver compatible web templates. You can use both of them creatively to make stunning web pages. Dreamweaver has been improved to work hand in hand with Microsoft Word and Excel. The latest version of Adobe Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver CS3 is fully loaded with high end features such as fireworks, spry effects, browser compatibility check, CSS management and lots more. No doubt, Dreamweaver is all time favorite of most of the web designers and HTML professionals.

HTML is used to create and design static web pages. It proved to be very useful and easy to understand and soon after its evolution it gained world wide popularity rapidly. But with the growth of internet and its related applications the internet users demanded something more in the websites. Web surfers were vigorously expecting more interactive, entertaining and exciting web content. Thus DHTML was introduced. Some people call DHTML as an advanced version of HTML, but some did not consider it a language or a new specification of HTML. Rather, they perceive DHTML as a new way of controlling the HTML commands and functions. DHTML is basically an amalgamation of four different techniques i.e. HTML, Scripting, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Document Object Model (DOM). Using all these tools we can create more interactive and animated web pages to arrest the attention of the internet users. DHTML is used to insert special effects to a website such as mouse rollover effects, drop down lists, animations, advanced marquee effects etc. It allows you to control the HTML elements and change them.

The four techniques which are harmonically used in DHTML are:

1) HTML: DHTML uses the standard HTML code as its base.
2) Scripting: A client side scripting language such as Java Script is used to control the elements in DHTML
3) CSS: Cascading Style Sheets are also used to define and manage the style and layout of the web pages.
4) DOM: Document Object Model allows you to access any portion of a DHTML document and change its properties.

DHTML adds life to static HTML pages. The user feels that he is interacting with the website in real time. DHTML can add an effect with any event. For example when you click on an image, it background changes. In this the effect is related with the mouse click event. Similarly a lot of events such as mouse rollover, drag n drop, scroll etc. can be associated with one or more DHTML effects.

The four properties of DHTML are:

1) DHTML is used to modify and control the standard HTML tags and their attributes.
2) DHTML gives you real time interactivity with the web page. It can position different objects, images and text dynamically within the web page.
3) DHTML is also used dynamic fonts. Only Netscape Navigator supports this function.
4) Another important feature of DHTML is Data Binding. With the help of this property the web surfer can easily access databases from the websites. This feature is only supported by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

It is clear from the above discussion that DHTML has many advantages and some disadvantages too. DHTML is more complex than HTML. The DHTML editors are very costly. Apart from this some of the features of DHTML are browser specific but still DHTML is used worldwide as it has proved itself a great utility to enhance the quality and usability of web pages. Anyone can use DHTML in any form. From a small piece of creativity to large complex codes, DHTML can be used to make web sites better than ever before.

Scripting is used to make the web pages capable of processing the data in real time. HTML documents support client side scripting. The scripts can be developed in separate files or it can be directly embedded in HTML documents. Scripts are very necessary for a web page. Scripts invoke life into the static HTML pages. With the help of scripts HTML pages get power to process the information supplied by the user in real time and produce output for the same. HTML pages are static in nature. Scripts make them dynamic and intelligent so that they can respond to the user queries. With the help of scripts, the HTML pages can be tailored more precisely to perform special tasks. The web pages can work with different plug-ins to perform better.

By using scripts, HTML can communicate with the QuickTime browser plug-in or with the ActiveX control when displaying QuickTime-compatible content or related components in the web browser. It will let the user to control the attributes of the object being displayed such as image scaling, audio volume, auto play, looping, linking a series of movies, launching media player, opening a specified URL when the user clicks the movie etc. Various types of dynamic objects and elements can be integrated and modified in the HTML documents by writing the appropriate script. The web authors can create compelling and powerful web content once they know how to write an appropriate script. The client-side script is like a program which gets executed on the client’s machine when a web document gets loaded or when a link is activated. One of the major advantages of HTML is that it supports scripts independent of their languages. Thus, the web developer can design the scripts in the language he knows. Via scripting the web authors can extend HTML documents in highly active and interactive ways. Some of the prominent benefits of using scripts in HTML are:

1) Scripts can be run as soon as the web document is loaded to change its contents dynamically.
2) Scripts are used to process the input in the forms provided by the user. Scripts are also used to verify whether the inputs of the form are correct or not. Developers also use the scripts to automatically and dynamically fill out some data in the form according to the inputs provided by the user.
3) Scripts are often linked to the graphical objects on a web page such as buttons, check boxes, option buttons, drop down lists etc. in order to control them and optimally the Graphical User Interface (GUI).
4) To make the web page more interesting and exciting, scripts are written to influence the behavior of the scrolling, mouse cursor movements, marquee and static text and a lot of other elements.

Two types of scripts can be used by the developers. One which are executed only one time when the web page gets loaded. The other type of scripts are those which get executed every time an event occurs such as a mouse click, a scroll etc. As per the requirements, either or them or both types of scripts can be used in order to make the web page full of fun and excitement.