Re: The *New* HTML!

Subject: Re: The *New* HTML!
From: Scott Gray <scotty -at- CM -dot- MATH -dot- UIUC -dot- EDU>
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 01:14:48 -0500

Several lies here. DHTML is actually almost half Netscape JavaScript
developed by Netscape. In fact developers are rather confused these days
by the different uses of the word DHTML. Netscape has JavaScript and
DHTML while Mircosoft has JScript and DHTML.

MIrcosoft made JScript and completely copied a really early version of
Netscapes JavaScript when they released to terrible Internet Explorer 3.0.
Then when Microsoft released Internet explorer 4.0 they again copied half
of Netscapes JavaScript 1.1 and 1.2 (which is very Dynamic). But instead
of calling it JavaScript they called it DHTML.

Netscape on the other hand has JavaScript 1.2 and later added what THEY
call DHTML I suppose to copy Microsoft.

What they both have does the same things (Both have legitimate claims to
being better). The difference is that Netscape calls 80% of what they have
JavaScipt and the other 20% DHTML and Microsoft calls 90% of what they
have DHTML and the other 20% JScript.

Now supposedly WC3's HTML 4.0 will lump all of this into one heap and call
it the Document Object Model.

With the world split into 50-50 on browser use it is unwise to commit to
either Microsoft or Netscape.

Scott

On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, George Mena wrote:

> Since we've had more than a few posts on Front Page and hand-coding
> HTML, I thought I'd post some excerpts from an article.
>
> According to the March/April 1998 issue of the Microsoft Developer
> Network News, a new form of HTML now exists. It's called Dynamic HTML
> (DHTML) and programmers using the Microsoft Visual Basic development
> system and Visual Basic for Applicatons are already using it.
>
> David Stutz, author of the article, writes in part "Many programmers
> using the Microsoft Visual Basic development system and Visual Basic for
> Applications already use Web infrastructures such as HTML, MIME, and
> HTTP to reduce the amount of code that they must write to solve common
> programming problems.... With Dynamic HTML (DHTML), Microsoft has
> pioneered a new and entirely different way to use HTML. No longer is it
> limited to describing browser "content." Instead, DHTML now forms the
> basis for a broad new programming model that can provide a rich,
> interactive UI for any application for Microsoft Windows. DHTML can be
> used to produce customized client/server front ends not only in
> so-called "thin client" scenarios, but also in traditional EXE-based
> clients....Programmers can declaratively describe the appearance of a
> form, a help page, a control or other programmatic visual element using
> DHTML's simple, text-based file format. Because this description is
> declarative, many lines of code that might have existed to handle
> resizing, positioning and layout can remain unwritten!"
>
> Besides rich declarative formatting, DHTML also offers the following
> features:
>
> Dynamic layout and resizing behavior
> Table-based layout
> Scrolling and bottomless forms
> Rich typographical support
> More measurement units
> Built-in graphics types
> Style sheets
> Multimedia effects
> Object plumbing features such as:
>
> * event bubbling, where events raised by visual DHTML elements are
> propagated through the structural hierarchy of the document, which means
> multiple objects can share an event handler and that multiple handlers
> can be called for a single event.
> * event canceling of DHTML events propagated along the page's tree
> of tags by the event handlers being used.
> * styles (the ability to apply a single style to multiple objects
> dynamically and to apply multiple styles to a single object in
> sequence).
> * property inheritance, where multiple styles can be combined and
> applied to a single object.
>
> Accessing the Dynamic HTML Object Model is done from within Visual Basic
> 5.0, according to Stutz's sidebar article on page 4 of the MSDN News.
> To understand the subtleties, Stutz also recommends consulting the
> Microsoft Internet Software Development Kit in his original front-page
> article.
>
> To read the MSDN news articles on Dynamic HTML in their entirety, go to
> http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/news/devnews/ You'll probably have to
> register with the Developer Web site as a developer, but that's not a
> big deal to do.
>
> The question I have for everyone is how Dynamic HTML is expected to
> impact the TW community. There's been some discussion on hand-coding in
> Notepad as a workaround for Front Page, but something tells me the rules
> just changed.
>
> Next.
>
> George Mena
> Technical Writing Consultant
> George -dot- Mena -at- esstech -dot- com
> @-->--> @-->--> @-->--> @-->--> @-->--> @-->-->
> @-->--> @-->--> @-->--> @-->--> @-->--> @-->-->
>
>
>




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