Dynamic web page
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This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (December 2012) |
A dynamic web page is a web page with web content that varies based on parameters provided by a user or a computer program.
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Client-side scripting[edit]
Client-side scripting is changing interface behaviors within a specific web page in response to mouse or keyboard actions, or at specified timing events. In this case, the dynamic behavior occurs within the presentation. The Client-side content is generated on the user's local computer system.
Such web pages use presentation technology called rich interfaced pages. Client-side scripting languages like JavaScript or ActionScript, used for Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and Flash technologies respectively, are frequently used to orchestrate media types (sound, animations, changing text, etc.) of the presentation. The scripting also allows use of remote scripting, a technique by which the DHTML page requests additional information from a server, using a hidden Frame[disambiguation needed], XMLHttpRequests, or a Web service.
The first "widespread used" version of JavaScript was in 1996 (with Netscape 3 an ECMAScript standard).
Server-side scripting[edit]
A program running on a web server (server-side scripting) is used to change the web content on various web pages, or to adjust the sequence of or reload of the web pages. Server responses may be determined by such conditions as data in a posted HTML form, parameters in the URL, the type of browser being used, the passage of time, or a database or server state.
Such web pages are often created with the help of server-side languages such as ASP, ColdFusion, Perl, PHP, Ruby, WebDNA and other languages. These server-side languages often use the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) to produce dynamic web pages. Three notable exceptions are ASP.NET, JSP, and LSP, which reuse CGI concepts in their APIs but actually dispatch all web requests into a shared virtual machine.
Dynamic web pages are often cached when there are few or no changes expected and the page is anticipated to receive considerable amount of web traffic that would create slow load times for the server if it had to generate the pages on the fly for each request.
Combination[edit]
Ajax is a web development technique for dynamically interchanging content which sends a request to the server for data. The server returns the requested data which is then formatted by a client side script. This technique reduces server load time because the client does not request the entire webpage to be regenerated by the server's language parser; only the content that will change is transmitted. Google Maps is an example of a web application that uses Ajax techniques.
A Web client program (such as a web browser) can access data from many different servers, such as Gopher, FTP, NNTP (Usenet) or HTTP. The HTTP server was designed specifically for the Web, and employs a protocol (system of messages) that supports sending documents from the server to a browser, and that also support sending complex data from the client back to the server. There are several HTTP methods for doing this (in HTTP, methods is a technical term for the way in which data are sent between a client browser and server).
History[edit]
It is difficult to be precise about "dynamic web page beginnings" or chronology, because the precise concept makes sense only after the "widespread development of web pages": HTTP has been in use since 1990, HTML, as standard, since 1996. The web browsers explosion started with 1993's Mosaic. It is obvious, however, that the concept of dynamically driven websites predates the internet, and in fact HTML. For example, in 1990, before general public use of the internet, a dynamically driven remotely accessed menu system was implemented by Susan Biddlecomb, at the University of Southern California BBS on a 16 line TBBS system with TDBS add-on.database.
Execusite introduced the first dynamic website solution for the professional marketplace in June 1997. Execusite was acquired by Website Pros (now Web.com) in January 2000. During the bust cycle of the Dot-com bubble, the original Execusite founders bought back the company from Website Pros (December 2000). Execusite was later acquired by Wolters-Kluwer in December 2001 and was re-branded as CCH Site Builder.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- "The Information Revolution", J. R. Okin. ISBN 0-9763857-4-0. Ed. Ironbound Press, 2005. 350 pp.
- "Learning VBScript", P. Lomax. ISBN 1-56592-247-6. Ed. O'Reilly, 1997. sec. C13.
