World Wide Web

Short

history of WWW application

Using WWW
Functioning principles of WWW
URL System
Creating Web pages
HTML

language
HTML Editors

World Wide Web

a

hardware & software context which

ensures user-friendly access to
information stored on thousands of
Internet web servers
The most popular Internet information
application

user-friendly interface
ensures obtaining a large amount of information in
an expressive form & in a short amount of time

World Wide Web short history

Web evolved from an application used for
displaying results of particle physics experiments
appeared in 1989 at CERN, Geneva - Tim
Berners Lee
aim to ensure efficient network sharing of
experimental results
first prototype presented at Hypertex91
Conference (December), San Antonio, Texas
February 1993 - first graphical interface - Mosaic
- NCSA (National Center for Supercomputer
Applications)

World Wide Web - evolution

Marc Andersen founded Netscape
Communications Inc., dedicated to developing
Web software - Netscape Navigator
Netscape became a public company in 1995
(1.5 billion dollars)
1994: CERN & MIT form the WWW
consortium, aiming at developing the Web

protocol standardization, site compatibility

Address: http://www.w3.org

Using WWW
Web - a collection of information spread on
web servers, structured in pages & sites
pages may contain links to other pages hypertexts, hyperlinks
click on a hyperlink the associated is page
is loaded (transferred / the associated
resource is accessed)
browsing a large amount of information in a
user-friendly manner (limited only by time ,
connection speed)

Using WWW
Web Browsers - programs that browse web
pages, accessing their hyperlinks (associated
resources)
browsers bring the requested page & display
their content, interpreting containing commands
(text formatting , object inclusion )
Web page elements : text, hyperlinks, mail
addresses, objects integrate (images, graphics,
multimedia objects )

Using WWW
Navigation / web browsing - using hyperlinks,
Back, Forward buttons + bookmarks
browser configuration options
other interfaces: text (lynx), voice based
hypermedia pages - contain multimedia
sequences (some objects may be opened with

specific programs ie Media Player)

The problem of loading images / large objects

(first texts, then resolution is successively improved;
compressions)

WWW - special pages

Maps

allow zooming on selected

zones
Forms - accessible fill in Web forms
(using specific dialogue objects) which
ensure information collecting
data

will be retained in web databases

Applications: e-commerce (on-line orders,

e-transactions, e-payments), web surveys,

quiz tests, forms to fill-in personal
information for accessing la various Internet
services

WWW Application
Search

engines : www.google.com,
www.altavista.com, www.yahoo.com
Navigated pages are retained in cache
memory
browsers may run on computers that are
directly connected to the Internet (phone
line, TV cable) or to an Internet server /
router (Internet integrated )
information transfer is based on TCP
connections

WWW Functioning Principles

HTTP

(HyperText Transfer Protocol) =

protocol that describes (client) requests+
(server) answers in accessing web pages
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) - resource
addressing system
protocol://server/resource
How? Where? What?
URL accesses within browsers various
types of resources (implicitly http protocol)

WWW Functioning Principles

for

transferring a requested web page

(specified by URL) the browser:
gets

the servers IP (based on DNS

addressing) & establishes a TCP connection
sends a FTP transfer command for the
requested file (the connection is released
consequent to the transfer)
displays file in specified format (interprets
HTML source)
HTTP

= simple ASCII protocol (MIME type

requests & answers)

WWW Functioning Principles

Web server

Page
request

Client 1

Hard: computer
Soft: web pages, web
server

Page
transfer
FTP!!

Client n

Hard: computer
Soft: browser

WWW Functioning Principles

proxy
Are

Servers

used as communication gateways

between browsers - the web server
proxy solution - physical & logical (programs)
a proxy server may be used for more client
computers within a LAN, as a gateway that
ensures Internet browsing for those computers
cache memory mechanisms for browsed
pages
access configuring mechanisms for certain
web addresses by using proxy web servers

URL System
a uniform system for addressing web pages +
various other resources by means of web
browsers
protocol://server/resource - integrate in an
accessible form, various services Internet
accessible using browsers
implicit protocol = http (for web pages )

appear in the addressing line, hyperlinks or bookmarks

http://www.euro.ubbcluj.ro, http://www.ubbcluj.ro/,
http://www.yahoo.com, http://www.netscape.com,
http://www.microsoft.com/, http://www.unige.ch/eua

implicit main file - index.htm (index.html)

URL System - protocols

http - native protocol for web pages
ftp - compatibility with File Transfer Protocol

ftp://ftp.ubbcluj.ro/ , ftp://ftp.utcluj.ro

file opening a local file -name+path

telnet remote connection
news - access to news (from the browser)

news://comp.infosystems.www.providers

gopher - system that preceded WWW

(created at the Univ. of Minnesota)
mailto opens an e-mail form

mailto:euro@euro.ubbcluj.ro

HTML Language
HyperText

Markup Language describes

web pages format
HTML files are interpreted by browsers
based on tag principles (tags)
<tag> </tag> text file
files

written in tag languages are portable,

their interpretation being uniform & similar in
different contexts (LaTeX compared to Word)

Usual

document processors hide tags

(What You See Is What You Get)

HTML Evolution
Object Type

HTML
1.0

HTML
2.0

HTML
3.0

HTML
4.0

Hyperlinks

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Images

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Lists

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Maps

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Forms

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Formulas

No

No

Yes

Yes

Toolbars

No

No

Yes

Yes

Tables

No

No

Yes

Yes

Creating web pages

directly

in HTML using a text processor

user un-friendly (syntax has to be well known)

Using

an HTML editor, which

automatically generates code HTML
consequent to introducing the objects
using a visual interface
Examples:

Netscape Composer, Microsoft

Front Page, Front Page Editor

using

Microsoft Office web integration

facilities & saving in HTML format

HTML Elements
Tags

(simple & parameterized)

<type_object> ... </type_object>

<type_object param1=value1 param2=value2 >

Tag

types

basic

- page delimiters, title, body

document structuring - subtitles, paragraphs
formatting text & lists
hyperlinks
object insertion - tables, formulae, images,
multimedia objects, forms
latest versions - frames, Java applets, PHP
tags

HTML Language
Basic

tags

header

<HEAD> </HEAD> ; contains

page title <TITLE> </TITLE>
body <BODY> </BODY>
Tags

for document structuring

subtitles

<H1> </H1> <H6>

</H6>
new line <BR> ; horizontal line <HR>
new paragraph <P> </P>

HTML Language
Text

formatting tags

bold

- <B> </B>
italic - <I> </I>
Underline - <U> </U>
fonts & colors <FONT SIZE=x COLOR=y> </FONT>
List

tags

list

element - <LI> </LI>

ordered list - <OL> </OL>
unordered list - <UL> </UL>

HTML Language
hyperlink

tags- <A></A>

addresses

URL
files / local resources (local links )
internal links, to document zones
Parameters:
HREF = URL address or local file path
NAME = name hyperlink or page zone
METHODS = access methods

Examples:

<A HREF=resource> text </A> - local link / URL

<A NAME=s-name> - internal link

HTML Language

Tags

for inserting objects

Tables:

<TABLE> </TABLE>

parameters: BORDER, RULES

title: <CAPTION>; header <TH> </TH>
columns: <COL> with ALLIGN parameter
(=LEFT, CENTER, RIGHT)
new line : <TR> ; cell <TD> (with ALLIGN)

Images:

<IMG> </IMG>. Parameters:

SRC = image / local file path - URL

ALLIGN = TOP, MIDDLE, BOTTOM (allign)
ALT = text d to display instead of the image (if
image display is deactivated ) ; ISMAP - map
specific parameters for multimedia objects

HTML Editors
MS

Front Page Editor

User-friendly,

visual interfaces
Generates HTML language (files are saved as
HTML files)
Web

file saving options in Word, Excel,

Powerpoint

Extensions

XML - eXtended Markup Language different

types of tags can be defined
Actions: programming language sequences:
Java, ASP (database), php (database) php
system example: facebook)