HTML & Web Design

Analysts now estimate that across the Internet, over 100 million domain names are in use
(for Internet statistics, visit http://www.nua.com/surveys). With fast DSL and cable-modem
connections available to the masses, and with companies offering low-cost Web hosting, tens of
millions of users are now creating personal Web sites. Further, with the estimates of online users
now exceeding 500 million (and with that number growing at a rate of 7 percent per month!), Web
developers must find ways to exploit new technologies to attract and capture the attention of users as
they “surf” the Web.
Throughout this book’s chapters, you will learn ways to put Web technologies immediately to
use on your Web pages. Each chapter presents ways you can quickly integrate a technology, such as
dynamic content, security, database access, as well as client-side and server-side processing. You will
first learn a technology’s fundamentals and the best ways to exploit the technology within your Web
pages. Then, you can take advantage of ready-to-use solutions you can simply cut-and-paste into your
Web pages. Finally, you will examine behind-the-scenes settings and techniques you can use to unlock
your Web site’s full potential.
If a fast, state-of-the-art, eye-catching Web site is your goal, this book will help you achieve it.


Who Should Read This Book

Across the Web, millions of users and professional Web developers work with Web pages daily. To
simplify their efforts, many Web developers rely on numerous Web development software programs
to help them with Web page design. Unfortunately, to exploit new Web technologies fully and to drive
Web site performance, developers must at some point roll up their sleeves and dig into HTML tags,
attributes, Cascading Style Sheet rules, JavaScript, Active Server Pages, PHP, and more.

Despite the vast number of sites that make up the World Wide Web, you would be hard pressed to
find a Web developer who would not be happier if his or her site were faster, more secure, or easier
to manage. Further, the users who visit sites not only want entertaining and current content, but also
want that content to download quickly. Most users assume that the sites that present themselves as
secure truly are secure. Regardless of the content you place on a Web site, users expect quality, speed,
and security.

This book examines hundreds of ways Web developers can improve their site’s performance,
security, content, and ease of management. You do not have to be an experienced programmer or
network administrator to perform the operations this book presents. Each Tip presents step-by-step
instructions you can easily perform, as well as solutions you can cut-and-paste into your Web pages.
Within the books chapters, you will learn:

• The HTML fundamentals you must know to create your first Web site, and the steps you must
perform to host that site on the Web
• Ways you can use HTML-based tables to organize information you present on a Web page, and
how to use tables to arrange text and graphics
• How you can use Cascading Style Sheets to gain full control of text formatting within a Web page
and to simplify future updates
• How XHTML differs from HTML, new XHTML capabilities you can exploit within your
pages, as well as ways you can migrate your HTML pages to XHTML
• Techniques you can use to better exploit graphics within your Web pages while reducing the
time users must wait for images to download
• How to create dynamic Web page content using PHP and Active Server Pages
• Behind-the-scenes operations you can perform to use HTTP and CGI settings to automate
solutions that exploit your user’s browser type, connection speed, and more
• Ways you can secure your system from hackers and identify potential security holes in your
system that malicious users can exploit
• How you can integrate e-commerce solutions and credit card processing into your Web site
• And much more!

What You Need to Perform the Techniques We Present

This book presents a myriad of ways you can improve your Web site’s content, performance, security,
and ease of management. Within each chapter, you will find operations you can immediately perform
on your Web site.

To take advantage of the techniques we present, you do not need high-end software or other
graphics arts tools. You simply need to spend five to ten minutes performing the Tip’s step-by-step
instructions. The Tips will help you download from the Web (for free!) any tools that you will need.

For high-end Web developers and programmers, this book examines ways you can use scripts
to access many low-level operations. Each programming language this book presents is built into
browsers, servers, or is readily available for download from the Web. If you have not programmed
in these languages before, do not worry. Each chapter’s introduction will provide the foundation
you will need to exploit the language.

What This Book Covers

This book contains 12 chapters. Each chapter examines a specific Web technology, programming
language, or design technique. Within each chapter, you will find a thorough discussion of a technology
or language followed by Tips you can quickly perform to enhance your Web pages and the overall
design and performance of your Web site.

Chapter 1: HTML Basics To start, this chapter lays the foundation that designers new to Web
development need to exploit the techniques they will learn throughout the remainder of the book.
Designers will learn how to create HTML pages, how to display pages from files that reside on their
own PC, and then how to use a Web server to make their pages available to visitors across the Web.

Chapter 2: HTML Tables Within a Web page, tables provide designers with a powerful way to organize
large amounts of data for display onscreen. Many Web designers also use tables to gain better control
over the alignment of text and graphics that appear on a page. A designer might, for example, use tables
to flow text around an image. In addition, a Web page may present a table of thumbnail images from
which users can select the pictures that they want to download as a larger graphic.

Chapter 3: HTML Forms Across the Web, millions of sites use forms to interact with visitors. Forms
may ask the visitor to provide a wide range of information, such as a shipping address, personal data,
or credit card numbers for purchases. In addition, forms let visitors search for specific products, services,
or content available at the site, or perhaps elsewhere on the Web. Developers create forms using
HTML tags. After the user submits his or her information, the Web server runs a special program
(which developers call a script) that processes and likely stores the data. In this chapter, you will
learn how to create forms using HTML, how to validate the information a user enters using JavaScript,
and then how to process the data the user submits.

Chapter 4: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Within a Web page, developers use a wide range of HTML
tags to format text, graphics, and links. Using only HTML tags, such for bolding, for italics,
and so on, a Web developer can format Web page text as he or she desires. Unfortunately, if the
formatting must later be changed, the developer must change numerous tags. Cascading Style Sheets
make Web sites much easier to manage. Using Cascading Style Sheets, Web developers can assign
font, color, alignment, and many other attributes to the text that appears on a page. If the developer
must later change the page appearance, he or she can simply change the style definition and the
changes will immediately appear within the styled text. Further, for Web designers looking for
high-end designs, Cascading Style Sheets allows precise positioning and even stacking text and
graphics to create countless effects.

Chapter 5: XHTML and Emerging Trends To ensure that your Web pages work and look the way you
want them to in the next generation of Web browsers, you must adhere to the World Wide Web
Consortium’s recommendations. When followed carefully, the “rules” within the XHTML standard
prevent you from creating Web pages with improper syntax, missing or proprietary tags, and invalid
attributes. By avoiding such bad code, you ensure your Web pages will look great and will work with
all standard Web browsers. Moreover, by guaranteeing the correctness of your Web page description
(by making it compliant with the XHTML standard), you allow browser manufacturers to omit code
designed to “guess” the intentions of malformed HTML. Browsers designed to run on non-PC devices
(such as cell phones, palm organizers, onboard computers within cars, and so on) must be small, because
these devices have limited memory capacities. This chapter shows you how to run an application
(HTML Tidy) which checks your Web page HTML, corrects any errors, and converts your HTML
to XHTML. You will also learn how to use online validation programs that check new Web pages
you create to ensure they comply with the XHTML standard. Then you will find Tips that show you
how to extend the capabilities of the markup language by adding new tags and attributes, as well as
Tips that let you detect the user’s browser type so your pages display quickly and correctly in browsers
running on non-PC devices.

Chapter 6: Graphics Across the Web, pages make extensive use of graphics. Unfortunately, many
sites that offer great visuals lose impatient visitors who are not willing to sit through long download
times. In this chapter you will learn techniques, such as caching and preloading, you can use, as well
as settings you can fine-tune to reduce image download times. You will also learn about the various
graphics file formats and when you should use each. Further, the chapter discusses color palettes and
ways you can ensure your content is “Web friendly.” Finally, graphics professionals will learn ways
to simplify the migration of images to the Web.

Chapter 7: Animation, Sound, and Video With high-speed cable-modem and DSL connections
becoming readily available, many Web sites use animations, background music, and video to capture
users’ attention. In this chapter, you will learn how to integrate a range of animations, from simple
animated graphics to high-end Flash animations. Further, you will learn how to play background
music as users view your pages and how to deliver streaming video content on demand. Finally,
you will learn how to broadcast audio (just as a Web-based radio station) from your Web site.

Chapter 8: JavaScript JavaScript is a programming language Web designers can use to automate
tasks within a Web page. Web developers place JavaScript statements within the HTML tags that
define a Web page. The JavaScript statements may, for example, validate the information the user
entered into a form. (The program or script may ensure each field has a value or that the values
appear correct and meaningful.) Or, JavaScript statements may perform specific processing as the
user performs operations on the page. For example, you might use JavaScript to display a pop-up
window that contains help text when a user clicks on a help link. Just as the user’s browser displays
the contents of an HTML page, the browser also executes the JavaScript statements. In this chapter,
you will first learn how to create simple JavaScript applications. Then, you will examine many
JavaScript solutions that you can cut-and-paste into your own Web pages.

Chapter 9: Java Applets and ActiveX Objects For years, programmers have used the Java programming
language to create applets that can run on a variety of platforms; meaning, the same Java applet can
run under Windows, Linux, and on a Mac. Java applets provide programmers a way to automate tasks
without introducing the risk of computer viruses to users who download the applets. Across the Web,
there are countless “generic” Java applets you may want to leverage within your own pages. In this
chapter, you will learn how to integrate Java applets into your HTML content. Further, the chapter
examines how to provide support for ActiveX objects for Windows-based sites. Unlike Java applets,
which do not provide security risks to the users that download them, ActiveX objects do not restrict
the operations the code can perform. Therefore, it is important that you only integrate ActiveX
objects you received from reputable developer sites that contain certificates of authentication.
Chapter 9 details the precautions you should take.

Chapter 10: PHP4 PHP is a programming language that developers use to create dynamic (changing)
Web page content on-the-fly. Using PHP, for example, you can customize your Web page content
based on the information a user provides within a form, or perhaps based on information you glean
from a cookie your site previously stored on the user’s disk. Across the Web, over 1,000,000 sites use
PHP to create dynamic Web pages. Before you can take advantage of PHP, you must download and
install a PHP processor on your system. This chapter will walk you through the installation process.
Then, you will learn how to create simple PHP-based applications. As discussed, PHP is a programming
language and the chapter’s introduction will lay the foundation you need to create, test, and debug
PHP programs. Then, the Tips section will present several PHP-based solutions you can put to immediate
use within your Web pages.

Chapter 11: Active Server Pages (ASP) Like PHP, Active Server Pages provide a way for Web
developers to create on-the-fly content. To create an Active Server Page (a dynamic Web page), you
can use a myriad of programming languages that include VBScript, JScript (the Microsoft version of
JavaScript), PerlScript, Python, Rexx, and more. This chapter lays the foundation from which you
can develop your own Active Server Page solutions. In addition, the chapter’s Tips provide solutions
to a range of common Web page needs, such as creating and processing cookies, processing forms,
interacting with databases, using usernames and passwords to control site access, displaying and
tracking banner ads, and more.

Chapter 12: Security and Performance This year, hackers and computer viruses will cost users and
businesses over 12 billion dollars! In this chapter, you will learn steps you should take immediately
to protect your site. If you are not currently using a firewall to protect your site (or simply your PC),
you will learn how to download, install, and configure a site. You will also learn how your choice
of file system (the software the operating system uses to store files and directories on your disk) can
affect your ability to protect files (using permissions and encryption). Further, the chapter presents
the steps you must perform to create secure transmissions (that exchange packets behind the scenes
using encryption), and how to perform credit card transactions. Finally, the chapter looks at ways
you can improve your site’s performance.

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