OTHER BROWSERS

 When it  come to browsers, Microsoft internet explorer and Mozilla firefox are the big two. And  in terms of market share, internet explorer dominates, but there are  plenty of other browsers floating around as well. You’d think that given the fact that the browser market has been dominated by Microsoft or netscape almost since its inception, there wouldn’t be a lot of other browsers out there, but that’s not the case.

 For example, opera (http://www.operasoftware,.com/)  has a niche market. It’s small, fast, free, and available for a number of platforms, including windows, Mac  OS X, and  Linux.  It’s also standards compliant. Apple has developed a browser numbed safari that is the default web browser for Mac OS X. for UNIX users who use KDE, there’s conqueror. There are various  Mozilla offshoots, such as Camino for Mac OS X, and flock, a browser derived from firefox that is integrated with a number of websites that enable you to publish your own content on the web. Likewise, Commant-line browsers such as lynx and links are available to provide an all-text view of web pages. There are also a number browsers  that provide access to the web for people with various disabilsense; I’ll discuss them in detail in lesson 17, “designing for the real world.” It makes sense to code to common standards to accommodate all these types of browsers.

USING THE BROWSER TO ACCESS OTHER SERVICES

Internet veteran s know that there are dozens of different ways to get information: FTP, Usenet news, and email. Before the web became as popular as it is now, you had to use a different tool for each of these, all of which used different commands. Although all these choices made for a grant market for how to use the internet books, they weren’t very easy to use.

Web browsers changed that. Although the web itself is its own information system with its own internet protocol *(the hypertext transfer protocol or HTTP), web browsers can read files from other internet services also, even better, you can create links to information on those systems just as you would create links to web pages. This process is seamless and available through a single application.

To point your browser to different kinds of information on the internet, you use different kinds of information on the internet, you use different kinds of  URLs. Most URLs start with http:, which indicates a file at an actual website, to download a file from a public site using FTP, you’d use a URL  like ftp://-name-of-site/-directory / filename. You can also view the contents of a directory on a publicly accessible FTP site using an ftp: URL  that ends with a directory name. figure 1.5 shows a listing of files from the iBiblio FTP site at ftp://ftp.iblio.org/.

FIGURE 1.5

a list of files and directories available at the iBiblio  FTP site.

To access a use net newsgroup through your web browser (their by launching an external news-reading program), you can simply enter a news: URL, such as news: alt. usage. English.

You’ll learn more about different kinds of URLs in lesson5, “adding links to your web pages.”

MOZILLA FIREFOX

Mozilla firefox is the new kid on the web browser block. In 1998, Netscape communications opened the source code to their web browser and assigned some staff members to work on making it better. Seven years and many release later, the result of that effort is Mozilla firefox. Netscape communication, since acquired by America online, no longer has any official ties to the Mozilla foundation, which is now an independent nonprofit organization

Microsoft released internet explorer 6 in October 2001. Firefox and its predecessor Mozilla have seen many revisions over that time, and currently offer more comprehensive support for web standards than does internet explorer. Firefox is available for windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and is a free download at http://www.mozilla.com.

Internet explorer still dominates still dominates the web browser market, but firefox is becoming increasingly popular, especially with people who create websites.

NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR

AN OVERVIEW OF SOME POPULAR BROWSERS

This section describes the most popular browsers currently on the web. They’re in no way the only browsers available, and if the browser you’re using isn’t listed here, don’t feel that you have to used one of these. Whichever browser you have is fine as long as it works for you.

MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER

fig 1.4

 Microsoft’s   browser, Microsoft internet explorer, is included with Microsoft windows. It was also included with the Mac OS, but has since been discontinued. You can still install and use other browsers if you want, but if you’re not picky, you don’t need to do anything more.

NOTE

If you’re serious about web design, you should install all the popular browsers on your system and use them to view your pages after you ’we published them. That way, you can make sure that everything is working properly. Even if you don’t use a particular browser on a day-to-day basis, your site will be visited by people who do.  If you are

WHAT THE BROWSER DOES

 The core purpose of a web browser is to web servers, request documents, and then properly format and display those documents. Web browsers can also display files on your local computer, download files that are not meant to be displayed, had in some cases even allow you to send and retrieve email. What the browser is best at, however, is dealing with retrieving and displaying web documents. Each web page is a file written in a language called the hypertext markup language (HTML) that includes the text of the page, a description of its structure, and links to other documents, images, or other media. The browser takes the information it gets from the web server and formats and display us it for your system. Different browsers might format and display the same file in diverse ways, depending on the ca[abilities of that system and how the browser is configured.

Retrieving documents from the web and formatting them for your system are the two tasks that make up the core of a browser’s functionality. Depending on the browser you use and the features it includes, however, you also might be able to play flash animations, multimedia files, run java applets, read your mail, or use other advanced features that a particular browser offers.

THE WEB IS INTERACTIVE

THE WEB IS INTERACTIVE

yahoo news, live game update websites fig 1.2,1.3

Interactivity is the capability to “talk back” to the web server. More traditional media, such as television, isn’t interactive in the slightest; all you do is sit and watch as shows are played at you. Other than changing the channel, you don’t have much control over what you see. The web is inherently interactive; the act of ;selecting a link and jumping to another web page to go somewhere else on the web is a form of interactively. In addition to this simple interactivity, however, the web also enables you to communicate with the publisher of the pages you’re reading and with other readers of those pages.

For example, pages can be designed to contain interactive forms that readers can fill out. Forms can contain text-entry areas, radio buttons, or simple menus of items,. When the form is submitted, the information typed boy readers is sent back to the server from which the pages originated. Figure  1.3 shows an example of an online form for a rather ridiculous census.

FIGURE 1.2  Yahoo! News.

FIGURE1.3  The surrealist census form.

THE WEB IS DYNAMIC

THE WEB IS DYNAMIC

If you want a permanent copy of some information that’s stored on the web, you have to save it locally because the content can change any time, even while you’re viewing the page.

the web site for little brother fig 1.1

If you’re browsing that information, you don’t have to install a new version of the help system, buy another book, or call technical support to get updated information., just launch your browser and a check out what’s there .

If you’re publishing on the web, you can make sure that your information is up-to-date all the time. You don’t have to spend a lot of time re-releasing updated  documents. There’s no cost of materials. You don’t have to get bids on numbers of copies or quality of output. Color is free. And you won’t get calls from hapless customers who have a version of the book that was obsolete four years ago.

THE WEB IS DISTRIBUTED

THE WEB IS DISTRIBUTED

Web content can take up a great deal of space, particularly when you include images, audio, and video. To store all of the information, graphics, and multimedia published on the web, you would need an untold amount of disk space, and managing it would be almost impossible. (not that there aren’t people who try.) imagine that you were interested  in finding our more information about alpacas (Peruvian mammals known for their wool), but when you selected a link in your online encyclopedia, your computer prompted you to insert CD-ROM #456 ALP through ALR. You could be there for a long time just looking for the right CD-ROM!

HYPERTEXT OR HYPERMEDIA ?

HYPERTEXT OR  HYPERMEDIA?

if the web incorporates so much more than text, why do I  keep  calling the web a hypertext system? Well, if you’re going to be absolutely technically correct about it, the web is not a hypertext system _it’s a hypermedia system. But, on the other hand, is still text-heavy, with extra bits of media added in as emphasis. Many very educated people are arguing these very points at this moment and presenting their arguments in papers and discursive rants as educated people like to do. Whatever, I prefer the term hypertext, and it’s my book, so I’m going to use it. You know what I mean.

THE WEB IS CROSS-PLATFORM

If you can access the internet, you can access the internet, you can access the world wide web, regardless of whether you’re working on a low-end PC or a fancy expensive workstation. More recently, people began accessing the internet through their mobile phones, portable hand-held PCs, and personal information managers. If you think windows menus and buttons look better than Macintosh menus and buttons or vice versa (or if you think both  Macintosh and windows people are weenies), it doesn’t  matter. The world wide web isn’t limited to any one kind of machine or developed by any one company. The web is entirely cross-platform.

THE CROSS-PLATFORM IDEAL

THE WEB IS GRAPHICAL AND EASY TO NAVIGATE

THE WEB IS GRAPHICAL AND EASY TO NAVIGATE

In the early days, using the internet involved simple text-only applications. You had to navigate the internet’s various services using command-line programs (think DOS) and arcane tools. Although plenty of information was available on the net, it wasn’t  necessary-ily  pretty  to look  at or easy to find.

Then along came the first graphical web browser: mosaic. It paved the way for the web to display both text and graphics in full color on the same page.  The ability to create complex, attractive pages rivaling those founds in books, magazines, and new papers propelled the popularity of the web. These days, the web offers such a wide degree of capabilities that people are writing web applications that replace desktop applications.

A browser is used to view and navigate web pages and other information on the world wide web. Currently, the most widely used  browser is Microsoft internet explorer, which is built into Microsoft windows.

NAVIGATING THE WORLD WIDE WEB

NAVIGATING THE WORLD WIDE WEB

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and here you are at the beginning of a journey that will show you how to write, design, and publish pages on the world wide web.

IN THIS LESSON

Before beginning the actual journey, you should start simple, with the basics. You’ll learn the following:

§  How the world wide web really works

§  What web browsers do, and a couple of popular ones from which to choose

§  What a web server is, and why you need one

§  Some information about uniform resource locators (URLs) These days the web is pervasive, and may be most if not all of today’s information will seem like old news.  If so, feel free to skim it and skip ahead to lesson 2, “preparing to points to think about when you design and organize your own web documents.

HOW THE WORLD WIDE WEB WORKS

FIGURE 2.4

 FIGURE 2.4

 a gardening home page with a hierarchical structure.

FIGURE 2.5 your hierarchy takes you to the fruits page.

Selecting of  fruits takes you to yet another menu – lime page, where you have still more categories from which to choose (see figure 2.6). from there, you can go up to fruit, back to the home page, or down to one of the choices in this menu.

Note that each level has a consistent interface (up, down, back to index), and that each level has a limited set of choices for basic navigation. Hierarchies are structured enough that the chance of getting lost is minimal. This especially is true if you provide clues that the chance of getting lost is minimal. This especially is true if you provide clues that the chance of getting lost is minimal. This especially is true if you provide clues above where up is; for example, an easy way to find particular bits of information. If that use is one of your goals for your visitors, using a hierarchy might work particularly well.

FIGURE 2.6

from the fruits page, you can find the soft fruits page.

Avoid including too many levels and too many choices, however, because you can easily annoy your visitors. Having too many menu pages results in :voice-mail syndrome.” After having to chose from too many menus, visitors might forget what they originally wanted, and they’re too annoyed to care. Try to keep your hierarchy two to three levels deep, combining information on the pages at the lowest levels (or endpoints) of the hierarchy if necessary.

FIGURE 2.11 combination of linear and hierarchical organization.

If you’ve just come down into this page fro

m an act summary, the context makes sense: Up means go back to the summary from which you just came.

The combination of linear and hierarchical documents works well as long as you have appropriate clues regarding context. Because the visitors can either move up and down or forward and backward, they can easily lose their mental positioning in the hierarchy when crossing hierarchical boundaries by moving forward or backward.

Suppose that you’re putting the Shakespeare play Macbeth online as set of web pages. In addition to the simple linear structure that the play provides, you can create a hierarchical table of contents and summary of each act lined to appropriate places within the text, similar to what is shown in figure 2.13.

FIGURE 2.12 Macbeth’s hierarchy.

Because this structure is both linear and   hierarchical, you provide links to go forward, backward, return to beginning, and up on each page of the script. But what is the context for going up?

But suppose that you go down from a summary and then go forward, crossing an act boundary (say from act 1to 2). Now what does up  mean? The fact that you’re moving up to a page you might not have seen before is disorienting given the nature of what you expect from a hierarchy. Up and down are supposed to be consistent.

Consider two possible solutions:

·         Do not allow forward and back links across hierarchical boundaries,. In this case, to read from act 1 to 2in Macbeth, you have to move up in the hierarchy and then back down into act 2.

·         Provide more context in the link text. Rather than just up or an icon for the link that moves up in the hierarchy, include a description of where the user is moving to