LESSON 11 – USING WEBPAGE SCRIPTS

 

HTML LIMITATIONS

 

HTML only provides limited options when it comes to displaying your site.  This is even more true when you want to create interactive menus and tools on your site.  We therefore have to turn to other technologies that are also supported by our web browsers. 

 

OTHER TECHNOLOGIES

 

Flash – Interactive animation tool with full programming capabilities.

 

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets is a language used to specify the style of html documents.  This language allows for greater customization and precision of web content placement.

 

Scripting – There are a few types of scripting languages.  The most known and used is JavaScript.  These languages allow for the easy addition of interaction on the webpage.  Javascript is used in mouseovers that we did in previous lessons.

 

TWO FAMILIES OF SCRIPTING

 

There are two types of scripting:

 

·         Client-side scripting or browser-side scripting; and

·         Server-side scripting.

 

Client-side scripting (like JavaScript) is understood by your browser.  So, if you add that type of script to your webpage, your browser will understand the commands and respond correctly.l

 

Server-side scripting is not understood by your browser.  In fact, such scripts are never even sent to your browser.  Such web pages will only work if they are placed on a server.  Here is

 

1.    Browser sends request to server for webpage.

2.    Server checks for server side scripts and executes the scripts.

3.    Server sends the result (a webpage) to the browser.  There is not even evidence that a server side script was there.

4.    Browser displays script to user.

 

The most popular server-side scripting languages are ASP and PHP.

 

 

CLIENT SIDE SCRIPTING

SERVER SIDE SCRIPTING

Most used languages

JavaScript

PHP, ASP

Supported by browser?

Yes.  Nothing is needed to test your code.

No.  Access to a server is needed to test your code.

Functionality

A lot, but not as much as server side languages.

More than client side languages.

Need special webspace?

No

Yes.  The server that provides your webspace needs to provide support for the language that you are using.

Our focus?

Yes

No

 

 

ONLINE RESOURCES

 

Learning a scripting language is a big job.  We could easily spend half of a semester on it.  Because of time limitations, we will only experiment with such scripts by using online resources.

 

One excellent online resource is http://www.dynamicdrive.com.  On this site, you see a demo of what a specific script does and directions on how to embed that script into your webpage.

 

GRADE 12

 

In grade 12, we will learn both CSS and JavaScript.