Glossary of Terms

Accessibility
Web accessibility refers to the practice of making web pages accessible to all users, especially those with disabilities. Many of the Recommendations published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are intended to make websites more accessible.
Anchor Tag
Anchor tags are links that point to a place within a webpage. For instance, when you click on this link it takes you to the definition for "Validate" on this page. For more information on anchor links, look at "The Anchor Tag and the Name Attribute" section of this tutorial on html links.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
CSS is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language like HTML. The website css Zen Garden is a great example of the power of CSS. The website invites graphic designers to use the sample HTML file and transform it with their own stylesheet.
Directory
Directory is another word for a folder on your computer or a server.
Document Object Model (DOM)
The DOM is a description of how an HTML or XML document is represented as object-oriented. Object-oriented refers to a programming paradigm in which a computer program is thought of as comprising a collection of individual objects that act on each other as opposed to a collection of functions or procedures or a list of instructions to the computer. This is an advanced topic of web development, but an important one to understand if you are interested in web standards, accessibility, and interactive sites.
Domain Name
A domain name is a name that stands in for the IP address of a server. When you store your website on a server, you will generally also register (or be assigned) a domain name. This name is stored in the global DNS so that whenever someone types in your domain name, it will be linked to the right IP address (and set of files on a server). More than one IP address can be assigned to a domain name and more than one domain name can be assigned to an IP address.
Every domain name ends in a top-level doman (TLD) name, like .com, .edu, .net, .org, or a country code TDL like .fr, .ir, or .au. A domain owner can give away or sell infinite subdomains of their domain name. example.edu is a domain name, and foo.example.edu or foo.bar.example.edu are subdomains of example.edu.
Domain Name System (DNS)
The Domain Name System (aka Domain Name Server) is a system that stores all the information associated with domain names in a database. DNS is used to attach easy-to-remember domain names to hard-to-remember IP addresses in the form ofURLs and email addresses.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
See SFTP
Host
A web hosting service provides individuals or organizations server space to store their files. The most basic hosting service is web page and file hosting, where the user uploads their files via FTP or a web form. Many Internet Service Providers and email services (like Yahoo!) offer free web hosting to their subscribers. Many free web hosting services are supported by advertisements and have limited space and capabilities. A complex site requires more than simple web hosting, like database support and application development platforms (such as PHP, Java, and ASP.NET).
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
HTML is a markup language used for web pages and other information intended for web browsers. Markup languages combine text and information about the text, including the text's structure and presentation.
Hyperlink
A hyperlink, or link, is a reference in a hypertext document (web page) to another document or resource online. The most common form of a hyperlink is an embedded link. In html, embedded links take this format:
<a href="url you are linking to">link text</a>
IP Address
span class="def">IP stands for Internet Protocol. An IP Address is a unique number used by computers and other devices to identify and communicate with each other on a network. Routers, computers, printers, internet fax machines, and some telephones will each have their own IP address.
A comparable analogy to an IP address is a telephone number. On a telephone network, the phone numbers must be unique. Generally speaking, each location has one phone number that allows anyone to dial that phone directly by using their unique phone number. Likewise, a computer is assigned a unique IP address which lets any other computer to connect directly to it by using their unique IP address. In reality, it is possible for a location to have multiple phone numbers (perhaps primarily larger businesses) and a computer can also be assigned multiple IP addresses.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a scripting programming language invented by Netscape. JavaScript is often embedded or included in HTML documents and interact with the Document Object Model (DOM) of the page to perform tasks that would not be possible with HTML alone. Some common examples are pop-up windows, a validating web form, and images with roll-overs.
Local
The Local directory or folder is the folder on your computer that you are currently in. In this example of a file structure, "C:\web" is the local directory.
Open Source
Software that is open source is freely distributed software whose source code is freely available. Users and developers can thus freely modify it to improve it.
Permissions
Permissions are the access rights to specific users or groups of users for a particular file or directory -- they determine who can see or run a file and also who can edit it. There are three specific permissions that apply to files on the internet: the read, write, and execute permissions. Each permission can be turned on or off by the owner of the file (you) for the owner, a specific group of users, and the world.
The permissions of a file are often represented with a string of characters representing the read, write, and execute permissions respectively or as a three-digit octal number (base 8). Web pages often have "-rw-r--r--" permissions, which allow the owner to read and write the file while everyone else is only allowed to read the file. In octal notation, "-rw-r--r--" would be represented as 644.
Remote
The Remote directory or folder is the folder on the server that you are currently in. In this example of a file structure, "/hmt/skol/u/4/a/ao260/public_html" is the local directory, although just saying "public_html" would probably be specific enough.
SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
SFTP is a network protocol that allows you to transfer files and do things like change the permissions of a remote file. When you publish your website to the Eclipse server, you will transfer them via SFTP.
Server
A server is the computer that your files are hosted on. It is where they are stored. Generally, you will connect to the server to upload or download files via FTP. Server and host are almost interchangeable terms.
Secure Shell (SSH)
SSH is both a computer program and a network protocol used for logging into and running commands on a networked computer or server. If you remember using telnet to log into Pine, SSH commands should be somewhat familiar to you. At Barnard, we recommend using SSH Secure Shell client or Terminal if you are using MacOS X to run SSH commands on the Eclipse or Cunix servers.
Stylesheet
A stylesheet is a file written in a stylesheet language (like CSS) used to describe the style of elements in a document written in a markup language (like HTML). A stylesheet determines how a website looks, including colors, fonts, and general layout.
Supporters of web standards recommend that your website's design be completely determined by a stylesheet, independent of the site's markup code (HTML).
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
A URL is the web address of a particular website. For example, "http://www.barnard.edu/resnet" is the URL of the Barnard Resnet site.
Validate
Code (HTML, XML, or CSS) that is compliant with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) standards and recommendations is "valid" code. The W3C provides free validation services on their website for HTML, CSS, and links. You can find links to the W3C's validators on their tools section of their website.
Web Master
A Web Master is the person in charge of managing a website. The Web Master may have also designed the website, but not necessarily.
Web Standards
Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and technical specifications that define aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term "web standards" has been more frequently associated with the web standards movement, a growing trend of endorsement of a set of standardized best practices for building web sites and a broader philosophy of web design. Although the term can refer to all aspects of the Internet, and just the World Wide Web, most advocates within the web standards movement tend to use the term selectively to refer only to the higher-level standards that most directly affect the usability of web sites in popular web browsers.
WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG (pronounced /wiziwig/), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is used to describe software where the content that you see during editing is very similar to the end result. For example, when you use Microsoft Word in "Print Layout" mode, what you see is what you get because the program emulates what your document will look like printed on letter-sized paper.
Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML)
XHTML is a markup language that can do everything that HTML does, but it has a stricter syntax. XHTML 1.0 became a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation on January 26, 2000.

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Resnet Tutorials

Other Resources