Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Dreamweaver is a web development application originally created by Macromedia and now owned by Adobe Systems which acquired Macromedia in Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems Recent versions have incorporated support for web technologies such as CSS JavaScript and various serverside scripting languages and frameworks including ASPNET ColdFusion JavaServer Pages and PHPAs a WYSIWYG Prestobased editor Dreamweaver can hide the details of pages HTML code from the user making it possible for noncoders to create web pages and sites professional criticism of this approach is that it produces HTML pages whose file size and amount of HTML code is much larger than they should be which can cause web browsers to perform poorly This can be particularly true because the application makes it very easy to create tablebased layouts In addition some web site developers have criticized Dreamweaver in the past for producing code that often does not comply with WC standards though this has improved considerably in recent versions Dreamweaver the version prior to the recently released within CS performed poorly on the Acid Test developed by the Web Standards Project However Macromedia has increased the support for CSS and other ways to lay out a page without tables in later versions of the application with the ability to convert tables to layers and vice versa
Dreamweaver allows users to preview websites in many browsers provided that they are installed on their computer It also has some site management tools such as the ability to find and replace lines of text or code by whatever parameters specified across the entire site and a templatization feature for creating multiple pages with similar structures The behaviors panel also enables use of basic JavaScript without any coding Dreamweaver can use Extensions small programs which any web developer can write usually in HTML and JavaScript Extensions provide added functionality to the software for whoever wants to download and install them Dreamweaver is supported by a large community of extension developers who make extensions available both commercial and freefor most web development tasks from simple rollover effects to fullfeatured shopping carts
ActionScript
ActionScript is a scripting language based on ECMAScript JavaScript used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player platform in the form of SWF files embedded into Web pages Originally developed by Macromedia the language is now owned by Adobe which acquired Macromedia in which continues its development ActionScript was initially designed for controlling simple D vector animations made in Adobe Flash formerly Macromedia Flash Later versions added functionality allowing for the creation of Webbased games and rich Internet applications with streaming media such as video and audioActionScript started as a scripting language for the Adobe Flash authoring tool The first three versions of the Flash authoring tool provided limited interactivity features Early Flash developers could attach a simple command called an action to a button or a frame The set of actions was limited to basic navigation controls with commands such as play stop get URL and goto and play
With the release of Flash in this simple set of actions matured into a small scripting language New capabilities introduced for Flash included variables expressions operators if statements and loops Although referred to internally as ActionScript the Flash user manual and marketing documents continued to use the term actions to describe this set of commandsActionScript primarily consists of fundamental or simple data types which are used to create other data types These data types are very similar to Java data types Since ActionScript was a complete rewrite of ActionScript the data types and their inheritances have changedActionScript code is free form and thus may be created with whichever amount or style of whitespace that the author desires The basic syntax is similar to the C++ programming languageThe Adobe Flash Player is a widely distributed multimedia and application player created and distributed by Macromedia a division of Adobe Systems Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool by Adobe Flex or by a number of other Macromedia and third party toolsAdobe Flash or simply Flash refers to both a multimedia authoring program and the Adobe Flash Player written and distributed by Adobe that uses vector and raster graphics a native scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional streaming of video and audio Strictly speaking Adobe Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files but in colloquial language these have become mixed Flash can mean either the authoring environment the player or the application filesFlash Player has support for an embedded scripting language called ActionScript AS which is based on ECMAScript Since its inception ActionScript has matured from a script syntax without variables to one that supports objectoriented code andcompared in capability to JavaScript another ECMAScriptbased scripting languageThe Flash Player was originally designed to display dimensional vector animation but has since become suitable for creating rich Internet applications and streaming video and audio It uses vector graphics to minimize file size and create files that save bandwidth and loading time Flash is a common format for games animations and GUIs embedded into web pages
ColdFusion
ColdFusion is an application server and software development framework used for the development of computer software in general and dynamic web sites in particular In this regard ColdFusion is a similar product to Microsoft ASPNET JavaServer Pages or PHPThe primary distinguishing feature of ColdFusion is its associated scripting language ColdFusion Markup Language CFML which compares to JSP ASPNET or PHP and resembles HTML in syntax ColdFusion is often used synonymously with CFML but it should be noted that there are additional CFML application servers besides ColdFusion and that ColdFusion supports programming languages other than CFML such serverside Actionscript and embedded scripts that can be written in a JavaScriptlike language known as CFScriptOriginally a product of Allaire released in ColdFusion was originally developed by brothers JJ and Jeremy Allaire In Allaire was acquire Macromedia which was in turn acquired by Adobe Systems inPrior toAllaire began a project codenamed Neo that would rewrite the basis of ColdFusion using Java which would allow for greater portability among different platforms
On January Allaire announced that it would be merging with Macromedia Shortly after the merger Macromedia continued with the incremental release of ColdFusion Macromedia released Macromedia ColdFusion MX extending the naming convention of Macromedias line of products ColdFusion MX was completely rebuilt from the ground up and was based on the Java Enterprise Edition JEE platform ColdFusion MX was also designed to integrate well with Macromedia Flash using Flash RemotingStarting from the MX release ColdFusion is compiled to bytecode like JSP and ASPNET The compiled class files are readily accessible and are cached until their source changes like JSPsWith the release of ColdFusion MX the CFML language was also extended to support basic OOPColdFusion Server includes a subset of its Macromedia Flex technology Its stated purpose is to allow for rich forms in HTML pages using CFML to generate Flash movies These Flash forms can be used to implement rich internet applications but with limited efficacy due to the ActionScript restrictions in place on Flash forms by MacromediaFlash forms also provide additional widgets for data input such as date pickers and data gridsIn previous versions of ColdFusion some form validation and additional widgets were available using a combination of Java applets and JavaScript This option persists for those who do not wish to use Flash however not all features are supported
XHTML
XHTML is the successor to HTML As such many consider XHTML as the current or latest version of HTML check the link Latest version of HTML in However XHTML is a separate recommendation the W C continues to recommend the use of XHTML XHTML and HTML for web publishing and HTML is currently being actively developedThe need for a reformulated version of HTML was felt primarily because World Wide Web content now needs to be delivered to many devices like mobile devices apart from traditional desktop computers where extra resources cannot be devoted to support the additional complexity of HTML syntax In practice however HTMLsupporting browsers for such constrained devices have emerged faster than XHTML support has been added to the desktop browser with the largest market shareAnother goal for XHTML and XML was to reduce the demands on parsers and user agents in general With HTML user agents increasingly took on the burden of correctingerrant documents Instead XML requires user agents to give a fatal error when encountering malformed XML This means that an XHTML browser can theoretically omit error recovery code even though it may even need slightly more error detection checks The recommendation that browsers post an error rather than attempt to render malformed content should help eliminate malformed content Even when authors do not validate code and simply test against an XML browser critical errors will be revealedAnother goal for XHTML and XML was to reduce the demands on parsers and user agents in general With HTML user agents increasingly took on the burden of correcting errant documents Instead XML requires user agents to give a fatal error when encountering malformed XML This means that an XHTML browser can theoretically omit error recovery code even though it may even need slightly more error detection checks The recommendation that browsers post an error rather than attempt to render malformed content should help eliminate malformed content Even when authors do not validate code and simply test against an XML browser critical errors will be revealed
An especially useful feature XHTML inherits from its XML underpinnings is XML namespaces With namespaces authors or communities of authors can define their own XML elements attributes and content models to mix within XHTML documents This is similar to the semantic flexibility of the class attribute in an HTML element but with fewer restrictions Some WC XML namespaces schema that can be mixed with XHTML include MathML for semantic math markup Scalable Vector Graphics for markup of vector graphics and RDFa for embedding RDF dataHTML is the antecedent technology to XHTML The changes from HTML to firstgeneration XHTML are minor and are mainly to achieve conformance with XML The most important change is the requirement that the document must be wellformed and that all elements must be explicitly closed as required in XML In XML all element and attribute names are casesensitive so the XHTML approach has been to define all tag names to be lowercase
XSL Transformations
Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations XSLTis an XMLbased language used for the transformation of XML documents into other XML or humanreadable documents The original document is not changed rather a new document is created based on the content of an existing one The new document may be serialized output processor in standard XML syntax or in another format such as HTML or plain text XSLT is most often used to convert data between different XML schemas or to convert XML data into HTML or XHTML documents for web pages creating a dynamic web page or into an intermediate XML format that can be converted to PDF documentsAs a language XSLT is influenced by functional languages and by textbased pattern matching languages like SNOBOL and awk Its most direct predecessor was DSSSL a language that performed the same function for SGML that XSLT performs for XML XSLT can also be considered as a template processorThe XSLT language is declarative rather than listing an imperative sequence of actions to perform in a stateful environment template rules only define how to handle a node matching a particular XPathlike pattern if the processor should happen to encounter one and the contents of the templates effectively comprise functional expressions which directly represent their evaluated form the result tree which is the basis of the processors output
The processor follows a fixed algorithm Assuming a stylesheet has already been read and prepared the processor builds a source tree from the input XML document It then starts by processing the source trees root node finding in the stylesheet the bestmatching template for that node and evaluating the templates contents Instructions in each template generally direct the processor to either create nodes in the result tree or process more nodes in the source tree in the same way as the root node Output is derived from the result treeXSLT processor implementations fall into two main categories serverside and Although clientside XSLT processing has been available in Microsofts Internet Explorer since or even earlier but in a form that was incompatible with the specifications adoption has been slower because of the widespread deployment of older and alternative browsers without XSLT support For similar reasons adoption of XSLT in such environments is likely to be some years awayXSLT processors may be delivered as standalone products or as components of other software including web browsers application servers frameworks such as Java and NET or even operating systems For example Windows XP comes with the MSXML library which includes an XSLT processor Earlier versions may be upgraded and there are many alternatives see the External Links sectionBecause the two languages originate in different communities XSLT is stronger in its handling of narrative documents with more flexible structure while XQuery is stronger in its data handling for example when performing relational joins
JavaServer Pages
JavaServer Pages JSP is a Java technology that allows software developers to dynamically generate HTML XML or other types of documents in response to a Web client request The technology allows Java code and certain predefined actions to be embedded into static contentThe JSP syntax adds additional XMLlike tags called JSP actions to be used to invoke builtin functionality Additionally the technology allows for the creation of JSP tag libraries that act as extensions to the standard HTML or XML tags Tag libraries provide a platform independent way of extending the capabilities of a Web serverJSPs are compiled into Java Servlets by a JSP compiler A JSP compiler may generate a servlet in Java code that is then compiled by the Java compiler or it may generate byte code for the servlet directly JSPs can also be interpreted onthefly reducing the time taken to reload changesArchitecturally JSP can be viewed as a highlevel abstraction of servlets that is implemented as an extension of the Servlet API Both servlets and JSPs were originally developed at Sun Microsystems initially created by Manohar Rao Mankala and later elaborated on as a specification by Satish Dharmaraj Starting with version of the JSP specification JavaServer Pages have been developed under the Java Community Process JSR defines both the JSP and Servlet specifications and JSR defines the JSP specification As of May the JSP specification has been released under JSR as part of Java EE
Netscape Navigator also known as Netscape is a proprietary web browser that was popular during the Once the flagship product of Netscape Communications Corporation and the dominant browser in usage share its user base had almost completely evaporated by partly due to the inclusion of Microsofts Internet Explorer web browser with the Windows operating system but also due to lack of significant innovation after the late Netscapes demise was a central component of Microsofts antitrust trial where the court ruled that among other things bundling Internet Explorer with Windows was an illegal monopolistic business practiceThe Navigator browser was succeeded by the Netscape Communicator internet suite followed by later releases Netscape Netscape Netscape BrowserHowever it was confirmed on the Netscape Navigator name would once again be re generated in the next release of Netscapes browser Netscape Navigatorofficially stopped development of Netscape Navigator on and plans to continue support for the browser in the form of security updates until Afterwards AOL will cancel support but will allow nostalgic users to download archived versions of the browser AOL will also continue to maintain the Netscape website as an Internet portal
Wireless Markup Language
Wireless Markup Language based on XML is a content format for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol WAP specification such as mobile phones and preceded the use of other markup languages now used with WAP such as XHTML and even standard HTML which are gaining in popularity as processing power in mobile devicesWML documents are XML documents that validate against the WML currently version DTD Document Type Definition The WC Markup Validation service httpvalidatorworg can be used to validate WML documents they are validated against their declared document typeWireless Markup Language is a lot like HTML Hyper Text Markup Language in that it provides navigational support data input hyperlinks text and image presentation and forms A WML document is known as a deck Data in the deck is structured into one or more cardspages each of which represents a single interaction with the user The introduction of the terms deck and card into the internet and mobile phone communities was a result of the user interface software and its interaction with wireless communications services having to comply with the requirements of the laws of two or more nationsWML decks are stored on an ordinary web server trivially configured to serve the textvndwapwml MIME type in addition to plain HTML and variants The WML cards when requested by a device are accessed by a bridge WAP gateway which sits between mobile devices and the World Wide Web passing pages from one to the other much like a proxy The gateways radio the WML pages in a form suitable for mobile device reception This process is hidden from the phone so it may access the page in the same way as a browser accesses HTML using a URL for example httpexamplecomfoowml provided the mobile phone operator has not specifically locked the phone to prevent access of userspecified URLsWML has a scaled down set of procedural elements which can be used by the author to control navigation to other cardsIt is an error and misconception to think of WML as a pinhole view of the Internet The real magic and value of WML is that it provides an interface with the phone hardware to initiate a call based on web content requested by user query for example the telephone number of a taxi servicing your zip codeMobile devices are moving towards support for greater amounts of XHTML and even standard HTML as processing power in handsets increases These standards are concerned with formatting and presentation They do not however address cellphone or mobile device hardware interfacing
WML can be a very powerful and effective cellphone add on It lets you for example enter a zip code and obtain a list of clickable phone numbers of pizza parlors and taxicabs in your immediate locationThe acceptance of WML has been limited by the fact that cell phone providers require separate activation and additional fees for data support and also because telecommunications companies have sought to limit data access to only approved data providers operating under license of the signal carrierThe approach and efforts of the telecommunication giants to limit the free and universal access to WML enabled URLs is very offensive to the neutrality and openness of the Internet It is the same as limiting your access to the web from your ordinary browser by only letting you select domains from among a short list of preapproved list of sponsored URL bookmarks specified by your Internet provider or only letting you use your cell phone to call preselected vendors who have paid a sponsorship fee