The Web Superhighway Alphabet

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, create templates for websites. Style sheets provide structure to websites independent of their content. Thus, you can define an HTML tag so that it will appear the same through a website. You won't have to trust your memory as much! As cascading style sheets implies, more than one style sheet can be used on the same document, with different levels of importance. If you define conflicting styles for the same HTML tag, the innermost definition-the one closest to the tag--wins.

DHTML is a combination of HTML, style sheets, and JavaScript. It adds a touch of interactivity to static webpages. That is, it creates animation or interaction on a webpage. DHTML is often used to open or close menus upon the user moving the mouse. It's biggest use is for mouseovers and image/layer transitions.

The standard coding language that creates the display of information on a webpage. HTML can create a simple or complex display. The key to good web design is to create a clean visual display, consistent theme via the use of complementary colors. HTML is static: the user does not interact with it. With the increasing need for interactivity, HTML is transitioning toward CSS and XHTML.

Many of the newer technologies (Web TV, palm computers) pose problems for HTML. To accommodate these technologies and go beyond the ability of HTML, we are gradually moving toward XHTML. XHTML is written in XML but very similar the HTML. The tags and attributes are almost all the same but it is extremely picky about code specification. XHTML requires that all codes:

• have a beginning and end
• must be written in lower-case
• place attribute values in quotes
• use correct nesting