Chapter 13. Dynamic Documents

The standard HTML/XHTML document model is static. Once displayed on the browser, a document does not change until the user initiates some activity, such as selecting a hyperlink. The Netscape developers found that limitation unacceptable and built some special features into their browser that let you change HTML document content dynamically. In fact, they provide two different mechanisms for dynamic documents, which we describe in detail in this chapter. Internet Explorer supports some of these mechanisms, which we'll discuss as well.

We should mention that many of the features of dynamic documents have been displaced by plug-in browser accessories and, in particular, applets, as well as the new Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) technologies. Nonetheless, Netscape and Internet Explorer continue to support dynamic documents, and we believe the technology has virtues you should be aware of, if not take advantage of, in your HTML documents. [Applets and Objects, 12.1]