Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 8. Meeting HTML's Powerful Friends

In This Chapter

• Discovering Web technologies

• Exploring the server side

• Inspecting the client side

When you want to take a Web site to the next level, you add bells and whistles to your designs that make things happen. There are many ways to achieve interactivity on a Web site. Flash is one solution. But we're talking HTML here, and HTML interactivity comes in two flavors: server side (interactivity that occurs by code that is interpreted by the server) and client side (interactivity that occurs by code that is interpreted in the client's [the person viewing the Web page) browser]. Yes Virginia, that's right; you're actually writing a program to get the interactivity you want. This chapter introduces you to Web technology that is written for both sides of the street.

Web Technologies Defined

All interactive technologies contain code that must be interpreted before the interactivity occurs. What separates the technologies is how the code is deciphered. The software that deciphers the code and causes the interactivity is either a plug‐in for the user's browser (client side) or the Web server (server side). When you're deciding what type of code to use, a couple of factors come into play:

• If you're deciding to use software that must be interpreted by the user, you need to know if your client's intended audience has the plug‐in. If not, will they have the inclination to download the applicable plug‐in?

• If the technology relies on software that is housed ...