What is XHTML and How Can I Use It to Create Dynamic Webpages?

[jeff1evesque]

Hello,

I posted earlier about flash videos (which I am still interested about), but after a quick review of some concepts I think I would like to get into designing http://www.wix.com/ysepulveda/Fuze---Community-Design?partner_id=WMGs4POB1ko-a&orgDocID=lmry4u1Lq3I-a&wixComputerID=emqOuHalPrn%2B7Vbc0DbOb0TBRICnqbUz6v2jPHNHxjI6fbKoKOgUjxNqjdcVB3ZE0psLvBM2y3w3jvk6T8XcJA%3D%3D&wsess=229f537d-525f-4411-aab9-6b0d6cc1f34f&gu_id=dc092b73-9aff-4734-918c-6b19f4e5e2b7&experiment_id=g_Web_page_templates" Could someone point me to a source (perhaps a book) that I could learn from?

Thanks.

 

[minger]

I'm not sure what you mean by "dynamic". The first link you posted is really just an overly-bloated, bandwidth-hogging site. To me dynamic means dynamic data. Data that is called up during the page loading process, e.g. using PHP and mySQL for one.

If by dynamic you mean using flash interaction, then again, you'll need the software and plenty of time to learn it. If you want to pull data from databases, then google php and mysql, its free and not too bad.

Also not sure what you mean by "interactive features". Hyperlinks are interactive, no?

 

[DavidSnider]

As minger pointed out there are multiple meanings to dynamic.

There are server-side dynamic pages that refresh the entire page for every request, such as PHP, ASP .NET, Ruby on Rails, Java Struts, etc.

Then there are client-side dynamic pages where only portions of the page are updated for a specific action performed on the page. This is almost always done with a mixture of Javascript and one of the frameworks above.

Learn Javascript:
http://eloquentjavascript.net/

and jQuery
http://jquery.com/

XHTML is unrelated to whether or not a page is dynamic.

 

[harborsparrow]

XHTML is HTML with stricter syntax rules so that it is easier for browsers (and related programs) to parse.

Some years ago, Microsoft had a version of HTML that was specific to the IE browser, called DHTML (Dynamic HTML). It was not usable in non-Microsoft browsers and so did not survive.

Nowadays, a "dynamic web page" most likely refers to a web page for which the HTML (or XHTML) is constructed at the last instant by a program, executing on the web server, which gets information from a database. The database must be reachable by the web server. For such a "dynamic web page", the HTTP request sent by a browser results in a program running on the web server, and the output of the program is HTML (or XHTML) that is then sent back to the browser as a web page.

If you want to write "dynamic web pages" that pull information from a database, you have to choose a programming language that can run on the web server, and you need a database or something that acts like a database. Some languages, such as PHP, *can be* (but are not automatically always) installed on either a Microsoft-based web server or a Linux/UNIX based ("Apache") web server. Other languages are specific to which type of web server you are using. For example, Microsoft's languages (C# and VB.NET) can be used on a Microsoft web server with its default ASP.NET web framework. Java language can be used on an Apache web server, but only IF an extra framework (typically called a servlet container) has been added to the web server. Likewise, special installations must take place on the web server if you want to use, say, Ruby or Python to write a program that outputs "dynamic web pages".

Hope this helps.