A Beginning Look at JavaScript.
JavaScript has been in use almost as long as HTML itself. The main use of JavaScript is to add some dynamic behavior to websites, which means seeing results without having to wait for a page to refresh itself every time there is a change.
The main use of JavaScript in web pages adds the ability to:
- Dynamically generate HTML code into your webpage.
- Setup responses to events, like page loads and user clicks.
- Form Validation—JavaScript can code can check the information in the input fields is present and in the correct format.
- JavaScript can detect what web browser you are using and change to a webpage made for that browser. This used to be more important than it is now.
- JavaScript can be used in the passage and storage of information in cookies. This is usually the result of filling out a web form.
To use JavaScript, one embeds scripting code into the HTML code of their web page. A basic example would be that of dynamically writing test. Normally this would be apart of an function called on a page load or if a button was clicked, but for the purpose of the example, this code is just in the body of the page and will run when the page is first loaded up.
<html>
<body>
<script type= “text/javascript”>
document.write(“document is the current web page being viewed. The red text is just for effect”);
</script>
</body>
</html>
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Like popup windows, the use of animated gif pictures has undergone a love/hate relationship with website designers and webpage visitors. Before flash and streaming media content was common place, if you wanted to add a little animation to your page without getting into JavaScript, you had to make use of animated pictures. The gif file format supported animation much like a cartoon. Multiple scenes could be combined together to form one image.
For the most part the animations chosen were of simple concepts, like a spinning CD or a color changing horizontal/Vertical bar. But as time went on, we came to see whole scenes from movies downsized into an animated gif file.
Animated Gifs were great for adding a little flair to your webpage or used to emphasize a portion of the page. The problem came when people started to overuse these pictures. People made pages of nothing but animated pictures, which looked tacky and took a long time to load. Unless it was just meant to be a picture gallery, the point of the page was lost. Sadly, because of events like this, the use of animated gif pictures has been listed on many of the bad web design practices lists.
There are still many Animated Gif websites on the net, from fan pages to full on archives. The usual image categories are animals, business supplies, computers, alphabets, navigation buttons, and horizontal and vertical rules.
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