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Perl CGl Programming: No experience required.
(Publisher: Sybex, Inc.)
Author(s): Erik Strom
ISBN: 0782121578
Publication Date: 11/01/97

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Bringing HTML to the World Wide Web

The Hypertext Markup Language began as a rather simple set of text markup commands. It is a constantly evolving standard, however. When the first version of HTML was released for public comment in 1990, the Internet was a more insular world than it is now, with fewer people (using less-powerful computers) on it.

The first Web browsers didn’t need to do any more than display text. In fact, the relatively slow speed of the average consumer-level modem at the time precluded doing anything more complicated than text.

Obviously, that’s all changed since 1990.

The Web is a graphical place now, as personal computers have leapfrogged in power and the average modem is capable of pulling down large and complex images in seconds. The Internet’s population has increased commensurately, too, to the point that some pundits have been predicting its imminent collapse for a couple of years.

HTML has grown along with the Internet and the World Wide Web. It continues to grow, shepherded mainly by the IETF HTML working group, which is the official body of research, debate, and approval for the HTML standard. Some commercial efforts, notably Netscape’s, have had a dramatic impact on the direction of HTML.

International standards are usually set by committees. HTML 2.0 is one of those. But sheer popularity can define a standard, too. Netscape and Microsoft made their Web browser packages the two most popular in the world by virtually giving the browsers away. Thus, the “standard” became what these browsers can support.

There has been some criticism of Netscape and Microsoft (which has a couple of HTML extensions of its own) for deviating from the official HTML standard, supposedly without the rigorous scrutiny that would have been applied by the IETF group. However, when you consider that many of the Netscape extensions have been added to HTML 3.2’s list of capabilities, the criticism rings hollow.

Browsing the World Wide Web

Netscape’s Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer—like ’em or not—are used by more people in their Web adventures than any other browsers. There are differences in the look and feel of the packages. Figures 10.2 and 10.3 illustrate the varied looks.


Figure 10.2:  The Sambar server’s default home page in Netscape Navigator


Figure 10.3:  The same page called up in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer

Microsoft seems intent on burying Netscape these days, but the fact remains that Internet Explorer became a “contender” in large part because it supports the HTML extensions that Netscape developed for their Navigator 2.0. Netscape frames are an especially big issue. Not too long ago, many Webmasters were actually setting up dual pages, with hyperlinks to HTML documents that didn’t use frames for browsers that didn’t have the capability. You don’t see that too much any more. There seems to be a tacit assumption that browsers will be frame capable these days.

Likewise with Netscape’s <APPLET> tag, which allows the browser to run Java applets downloaded from a Web site. Java is very popular on the World Wide Web, but without the Netscape extensions in your browser, you can’t run it.

Let’s look at frames and applets and some of Netscape’s other extensions to the HTML standard.

Extending HTML with Applets and Frames

Netscape made nine additions to HTML 2.0, detailed in Table 10.2. The most visible, in terms of a Web page, are applets and frames. However, all of these extensions will have a significant impact on any future versions of HTML.

Table 10.2: Netscape Extensions to HTML 2.0

Element Does This

CENTER Centers the enclosed text.
NOBR Marks a block of text that cannot contain any line breaks.
WBR Specifies a point within <NOBR> where a word break can be inserted.
BASEFONT Specifies the default font size for the document.
FONT Changes the font size of the enclosed text.
BLINK Marks enclosed text as blinking text (should be used with caution!).
APPLET Enables inline “applets” or small applications. Intended to be general, but supports only Java now.
FRAME, FRAMESET The foundations of HTML frames.
SCRIPT Includes program scripts (such as JavaScript) in an HTML document.


NOTE:  Microsoft also created two small extensions to the HTML 2.0 standard. The MARQUEE element creates scrolling text marquees on a Web page and BGSOUND provides inline audio capabilities. These only work with Internet Explorer.


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