Glossary


absolute path.

A path to a file that provides its full and complete Web address. The great thing about absolute paths is they're always the same, no matter where they appear on your site. You can move a link with an absolute path to any level of your site without having to change the path's format. The drawback to absolute paths is that they don't work offline. You have to be online to follow a link with an absolute path. For this reason, most designers reserve absolute paths for external links only, using document-relative or root-relative paths for internal links.



accessibility.

A virtue of Web design that requires a site to make its content available to all visitors, regardless of disability. To make your site as accessible as possible, give text equivalents for all purely visual elements such as images, and observe proper markup conventions.



active link.

A link that the visitor is currently clicking or highlighting.



affordance.

A visual clue that hints at a design element's function. For example, the beveled, 3D design of a standard HTML button suggests the idea of clickability, since it stands out from the flat, 2D topography of the rest of the page.



antialiasing.

A technique for creating the appearance of smooth, flowing curves by inserting subtly blended pixels along a curved edge. Also, the process that Noel from Felicity underwent when his then-wife, Jennifer Garner of Alias, dumped him.



attaching.

Linking an external JavaScript or CSS file to an HTML document. Compare with embedding.



attribute.

A setting of a tag or CSS property that further defines the tag or property.



below the fold.

The areas of a Web page that appear off the boundaries of the screen. The visitor has to scroll to see content below the fold. Never put the main navigation for your site below the fold!



block.

The rectangular area in which an HTML element sits. Normally, a block is transparent, although you can tint it by adding a color attribute to its tag or style definition.



branding.

A design technique that borrows elements from an organization's marketing material: logos, corporate colors, slogans, lifestyle associations, and so on.



breadcrumb trail.

A navigation element that helps your visitors figure out where they are in the site hierarchy by showing the current page's relationship to the rest of the surrounding structure.



button states.

The different appearances that a graphical button takes on depending on how the visitor interacts with it. For example, in a typical rollover, the button has two states: the default state, and the way it looks when the visitor hovers over it with the mouse pointer.



Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

A client-side technology for describing the style or appearance of HTML elements. CSS greatly expands the design potential of the Web, particularly with regard to typography, but browsers are notorious for spotty support. Even the most recent browsers chop up CSS in the most annoying and unpredictable ways, so be sure to test your CSS-enhanced site in a variety of browsers.



cellpadding.

The amount of interior whitespace between the borders of a table cell and its content. In layout tables, this attribute is usually set to 0.



cellspacing.

The amount of exterior whitespace between individual table cells. In layout tables, this attribute is usually set to 0.



child selector.

A style selector that identifies all HTML tags of a particular type that have as their immediate parent a tag of another type, such as all paragraphs that are the immediate children of table cells.



class.

A custom-made style selector that doesn't necessarily apply to any particular HTML tag or sequence of tags.



colspan.

The number of vertical columns that a table cell straddles. Colspans are fine for data tables, but avoid them when you create layout tables! Use nested tables instead. Compare with rowspan.



compression.

The process of making an image file lighter in file size by losing a portion of the visual information. Too much compression gets rid of too much information, and image quality deteriorates noticeably.



contextual selector.

A style selector that identifies all HTML tags of a particular type that appear somewhere within the tag of another type, such as all strong tags that appear inside an ordered list.



data table.

An HTML table that presents rows and columns of data as per HTML specs. Compare with layout table.



dateline.

A short piece of text that gives the current date. Drop a dateline on a Web page to make its content seem fresher than it might actually be.



descender.

The portion of a letter or typographical character that dips below the baseline of a line of type, like the stem of the lowercase letter p.



destination.

In a link, the page that loads when the visitor clicks the source element.



div element.

The more technical name for a CSS layer. Div stands for division, and that's exactly what it isa division of your page.



document-relative path.

A path to a file based on the current location of the browser. Links with document-relative paths work offline, but their format depends entirely on the level of the site at which they appear. If you move the link to a different level, the path no longer works. Document-relative paths are for internal links only. You can't use these paths for external links.



drop cap.

An oversized capital letter that usually appears at the beginning of a chapter. It hangs below the baseline of the text, and the surrounding lines of type wrap around it.



Dynamic HTML (DHTML).

Dynamic HyperText Markup Language, or the combination of HTML, JavaScript, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for sophisticated, interactive Web sites.



email link.

A link that opens a blank email window when clicked.



embedding.

Including code such as CSS or JavaScript inside the head section of an HTML document between style or script tags. Compare with attaching.



end sign.

A bullet or typographical character that appears at the end of a story or article. It is also a prophecy that Armageddon is nigh.



expando layout.

A layout that automatically resizes to match the width of the browser window. This is the same thing as a liquid layout.



external link.

A link to a file outside the current site. You must use absolute paths for external links. Compare with internal link.



fieldset.

A group of logically related widgets.



File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

The method that computers use to transfer data files back and forth on the Internet.



fixed-width layout.

A design layout that uses absolute pixel measurements to determine the horizontal size of the page. Fixed-width layouts always display at the same width, regardless of the size of the screen or browser window.



floating.

Pushing an element (usually an image) to the left or right of a block of text so that the text wraps around it.



form field, form object.

More respectable names for widgets, or the thingies that you click or type text into on a form.



formatting tag.

An HTML tag that describes the presentation of a block of content without identifying the content's structure.



hanging indent.

A paragraph style where the first line of type pushes out to the left, not in to the right.



hotspot.

A clickable region in an image map.



hover state.

The status of a link when the visitor mouses over it. You don't get this link state in regular HTML. Define the hover state with CSS instead.



Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).

A computer language that describes the content of a Web page.



ID selector.

A style selector that applies to one and only one element per page.



image map.

A clickable image with one or more hotspots, or clickable regions.



inline image.

An image that appears inside a block of HTML text.



inline link.

A link that appears inside the running text of a page.



internal link.

A link to a file within the current Web site. You can use absolute, document-relative, or root-relative paths for internal links. Compare with external link.



JavaScript.

A client-side technology for adding logical functions and mathematical calculations to a Web page.



jump menu.

A quick index to the most common pages on your site that appears in a dropdown menu.



justified.

A paragraph style where all the lines of text have the same length. The browser inserts whitespace between words and characters to pad out shorter lines. Compare with ragged.



keywords.

Terms that describe the content of a Web page for the benefit of search engines. Put keywords for your page in a meta tag.



label (button).

The text on a button.



label (form).

The text that describes the function of a widget.



layer.

A CSS-based box of content on a Web page. Layers aren't flat, like table cells, so you can stack them one atop another and position them anywhere on screen. Another name for a layer is a div element.



layout table.

An HTML table that forms the structure of a page layout. HTML specs discourage layout tables. Compare with data table.



level.

The position of a folder or file in the hierarchy of the site structure.



link state.

The status of a hyperlink. Normally, there are three link states: unvisited, visited, and active, each with its own color. CSS adds a fourth: the hover state.



liquid layout.

A layout that automatically resizes to match the width of the browser window. This is the same thing as an expando layout.



local.

Pertaining to your personal computer.



local file.

A computer document on your personal computer.



local folder, local root folder.

The folder on your personal computer in which you store all the files of a site.



media.

Components of a Web site that don't fall into the image, HTML, CSS, client-side scripting, or server-side scripting categories. Common types of media are sound files, movie files, Flash animations, SVG files, and Acrobat documents.



meta tag.

A special HTML tag that contains general information about a Web page, such as keywords, the page description, and the refresh rate. The browser doesn't display the content of meta tags in the document window.



monospace.

A typeface such as Courier New that displays all characters with the same amount of spacing between them for a typewriter-like effect.



named anchor.

A location on a Web page to which you can link.



nav bar (navigation bar).

A common Web interface element that presents links to the main content categories of the site.



nested div, nested layer.

A div element that appears inside another div element.



nested table.

A table that appears inside the table cell of another table.



optimizing.

Reducing the file size of an image for faster downloading while maintaining image quality.



out of sync.

The state of a Web site when its local files don't match its remote files.



palette.

An image file's built-in color chart. GIFs and PNGs have palettes of up to 256 colors, while JPEGs don't have palettes and therefore aren't limited to 256 colors.



path.

The set of directions that tells the browser how to get to a certain file.



phrase element.

An HTML element that defines the structure of a segment of text within a larger element such as a paragraph. The em, strong, cite, and dfn tags are phrase elements, among others.



physical wrapping.

A type of word wrapping in a text area where the browser submits the text with the extra line breaks that wrapping creates. Compare with virtual wrapping.



popup menu.

A list of menu choices that appears when you hover over an item in the main navigation. You typically create popup menus with DHTML div elements.



popup window.

A separate, often smaller browser window or JavaScript alert box that the main browser window opens. If the popup is a browser window, a predetermined page loads inside it.



presentation.

The appearance of a Web page in a browser. HTML isn't supposed to get into presentation issues; the browser is supposed to handle that aspect. But traditionally, HTML has provided formatting tags, which allow designers to control the presentation of content without identifying its structure. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) allow HTML to become a purely structural language once again.



pseudo-class.

A special add-on to the anchor-tag selector that tells the browser to which link state the style rule applies.



pseudo-element.

A special add-on to an HTML tag selector that identifies a particular section of the text inside the element, such as the first line or the first letter.



ragged.

A paragraph style where the lines of type are their natural lengths, without extra spacing between the letters or words. Compare with justified.



ragged center.

A paragraph style where the browser centers lines of type horizontally, leaving both sides uneven.



ragged left.

A paragraph style where the lines of type line up on the right and leave the left sides uneven.



ragged right.

A paragraph style where the lines of type line up on the left and leave the right sides uneven.



real-time.

The designation of somethingusually informationwhen it is up-to-the-second accurate.



remote.

Pertaining to a computer to which your local machine connects over a network.



remote file.

A computer document on the Web server.



remote folder, remote root folder.

The folder or directory on the Web server that holds all the files for a site.



resolution.

The size of the pixels in an image file: the higher the resolution, the smaller the pixels and the sharper the image but the larger the file size.



robot.

Search-engine software that visits a Web site to catalog its content.



rollover graphic.

An image file that seems to change when the visitor mouses over it. What actually happens is that a JavaScript function swaps in a separate image file.



root.

The uppermost level of a site.



root-relative path.

A path to a file based on the current Web site. As with absolute paths, root-relative paths always have the same format, no matter where they appear on your site. As with document-relative paths, you use root-relative paths for internal links only, not external links. But root-relative paths only work on a Web server. For this reason, most designers prefer to use document-relative paths for internal links.



rowspan.

The number of horizontal rows that table cell straddles. Rowspans are fine for data tables, but avoid them when you create layout tables! Use nested tables instead. Compare with colspan.



rule.

An interior border in a table. Rules retain their standard thickness, no matter the size of the table's border attribute.



sans serif.

A typeface such as Arial that doesn't have little decorations on the ends of the letters. Compare with serif.



serif.

A typeface such as Times New Roman that has little decorations on the ends of the letters. Compare with sans serif.



sibling selector.

A style selector that identifies all HTML tags of a particular type that follow a tag of another type but aren't the children of this tag, like all paragraphs that follow first-level heads.



slicing.

A technique for creating layout tables in graphics applications such as Fireworks and Photoshop. First, you design the layout in the graphics editor, and then you cut the layout into divisions or slices based on the different sections of the page. When you export the slices as individual graphics files, you also get an HTML table that reassembles the pieces in a Web browser.



source.

In a link, the element that the visitor clicks to go to another page.



span.

A segment of content identified by span tags in an HTML document.



structure (in HTML).

The technical description of which pieces of content are what kinds of things on Web page. You use HTML tags to indicate structure, which the browser displays according to its built-in styles or designer-defined Cascading Style Sheets.



structure (Web site).

The way in which you organize the hierarchy of categories and subcategories of a site.



style definition.

The set of CSS attributes and values that describe how the browser should display a specific element.



style rule.

A single set of presentation instructions for the browser in CSS. A style rule consists of a style selector and a style definition.



style selector.

The CSS indicator that tells the browser to which element a style rule applies.



style sheet.

A block of CSS code that appears between style tags in an HTML page or in a separate CSS file. A style sheet consists of one or more style rules.



synchronized.

The state of a Web site when its local files exactly match its remote files.



text equivalents.

Textual descriptions of nontextual content for use in screen readers and other accessibility tools. Providing alt text for images is adding text equivalents.



tag.

An HTML keyword that identifies the structure of a piece of content.



tiling.

Repeating an image to fill a given area.



timestamp.

A short piece of text that gives the current time.



Universal Resource Locator (URL).

The exact address of a file on the Web.



unvisited link.

A link to a page that the browser doesn't remember visiting.



validating (form input).

Checking the visitor's input in a form for mistakes. Validating a form helps to prevent bad data from crashing the server-side application that processes the form submission.



validating (page).

Checking the source code of a Web page for standards compliance.



virtual wrapping.

A type of word wrapping in a text area where the form submits the text without the extra line breaks that wrapping creates. Compare with physical wrapping.



visited link.

A link to a page that the browser remembers visiting.



visual weight.

How heavy a design element appears to be. In general, larger elements tend to look heavier than smaller ones.



Web host.

A company or individual who provides the server for your Web site.



Web page.

A single HTML document, plus its images, media files, scripts, and style sheets.



Web site.

A collection of related HTML documents, plus the accompanying images, media files, scripts, and style sheets.



widget.

One of the little thingies that you click or type text into on a form. Widgets are also called form fields and form objects.





Web Design Garage
Web Design Garage
ISBN: 0131481991
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 202
Authors: Marc Campbell

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