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A website is a collection of related pages that are interconnected through hypertext.
A web page can be static or dynamic. Static pages are hypertexts in HTML format, and dynamic pages use scripting languages.
Each web page has one or more URLs (Universal Resource Locator), which is a permanent link to be able to reach the page. The URL is the address that users type in their browser to display a page.
HTML (Hyper Text Mark-Up Language) was developed in the 1980s by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Geneva, and it was used by researchers to use and share documents. HTML is a public domain language, and the syntax is established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): over the years it has been considerably revised, and the latest version is the 4.01, released in 1999. Following a period of inactivity, when the W3C concentrated mainly on the definitions of XHTML (HTML application of rules and syntax in XML style) and stylesheets (Cascading Style Sheet, CSS), work started again in 2007 to define HTML5, which is still in the draft stage but widely used. As HTML is a mark-up language, and not a programming language, there are no means of interacting with it: it does, however employ markers, that are called "tags", which indicate how the various elements in a page are to be displayed. HTML pages all have an identical structure: §DTD (Document Type Definition) or "doctype". The DTD passes the URL of the HTML specifications being used for the document to the browser, so that this knows which elements, attributes and entities can be legitimately used. §Start <html> tag §HEAD section This section gives information that is not directly displayed by browsers, which indicate how the document is to be interpreted. the meta tags (including those for search engines), JavaScript script, stylesheets, etc. are included in this section §BODY section This section contains the actual contents of the document. §End </html> tag HTML has tags for many different formatting requirements and for many features. It is as well to remember, though, that it was conceived to define the logical content and not the final aspect of a document. Although it has long been used for the latter purpose, it still remains a language that should be used only to define a document's structure. Style sheets should be used to define a document's aspect. |
HTML5 is an evolution of HTML 4.01 and introduces many new features, mainly aimed at separating a page's structure (defined by the tags) from its aspect (define by CSSs) and the actual contents. It introduces functions that, up until now, were implemented with non-standard methods, and it guarantees cross-browser compatibility, and web-based applications can be used in even the absence of the Internet. Although widely used, HTML5 is still in the draft stages, and the W3C has announced that it will be officially released in July 2014. |
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language for describing how a document written in a markup language (e.g. HTML and XHTML) are to look like (for example, fonts, spacing and colors). It was introduced due to the need to separate the contents from the formatting, so offering a clearer and easier programming, both for HTML page authors and the users. The rules for creating style sheets are maintained in Recommendations that W3C has been publishing since 1996. the CSS 2 specifications are the natural evolution of CSS 1. They were first published in 1998, and CSS 2.1 in 2004. The CSS 3 specifications have not yet been published, although the W3C issues regular communications on the development progress. |
WebSite X5 automatically generates HTML5 code and uses CSS 2.1 or CSS 3 style sheets, according to browser support, to define how contents are to be displayed. The advantages of using this code are: §adherence to international standards; §ample compatibility with the main browsers; §greater possibilities for a correct and complete indexing by search engines. Pages are created so that they can be used even when the user has deactivated the CSSs during navigation. In this case, the pages are linerized, which means they lose some formatting and graphics but the contents are presented in sequential order and maintain internal links (skip links not otherwise visible), which make navigation easier. Browsers provide the necessary commands to check whether CSSs have been disabled.
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