My friend and I were recently discussing HTML and web layout (he's just getting started with it) and we came upon an issue: is it possible to do anything with HTML besides determine page layout?
For example, addition
int x = 5 + 4;
is perfectly valid and easy to use in most languages (looking at you, Erlang). However, is it possible to somehow contort <html> to allow for similar functionality? In other words, can <html> be forced to be a more basic version of a scripting/interpreted language without any external help (javascript, etc.)? Why or why not?
Personally, until this conversation, I had never even considered the idea, but now it's got me intrigued and I need a definite answer. I figured it can't be possible because HTML is like XML, which is for data storage, not data manipulation.
HTML, as its name suggests is a mark-up language for hypertext. In other words, it describes the elements of data that need to go on a web page.
If you need to do any calculations or other processing, you'll first need to decide WHERE you want it to happen. For example, if you want to do calculations on the browser itself, you should look at languages like Javascript or Java. In some cases, software like Flash are also suitable through their scripting commands.
If you want the calculations to take place on a server using the data from the browser, you're looking at a server-side scripting language like PHP, ASP or JSP.
Take for example PHP... It's a powerful language with database capabilities. But you CANNOT expect to create a simple text box for user input using PHP as its role is on the server. So you shouldn't look at it like a restriction of PHP.
Likewise html has a role and that is to present data on the browser. Calculations should be using a scripting language like Javascript and layouts are best done using CSS.
Related
I'm learning basic web dev and started with HTML, CSS, Bootstrap. Haven't touched PHP or anything server side yet.
What I've done so far is I've created a pretty basic registration form with 5 fields and what I'm trying to do is display the input of those fields in a table that I've created on another page. The submit button has the "method" and action. Now, I've Googled a ton to find some solutions and have gone through most of the questions of this site but I still can't find out to achieve what I'm trying to do without the use of PHP/JS.
So, is it even possible to read form data from another page like this without the use of JS/PHP? If so, how do I proceed and what needs to be done? I can post the source code but I don't think it's going to help since there isn't much there, everything else is working fine except for finding a solution to this.
Thank you.
You need a programming language.
If you want to do it entirely client-side, then that has to be JS.
If you want to do it server-side (which allows you to access the data and, optionally, make it available to other people, instead of limiting it to the user of the browser) then you can use any programming language at all (although JS and PHP are among the most common choices).
Since you are trying to create a registration page, you'll need to use server-side programming.
You necessarily need to use JavaScript / PHP.
Since you are just starting, I would highly recommend you to check out the W3Schools tutorials on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Bootstrap and jQuery.
:)
So this is long gone but I was actually able to resolve my problem without using anything other than basic HTML , so here's how I did it for anyone else who's trying to find the answer to problem (probably not, you don't usually do this professionally and basically this was a challenge from a friend).
So, two things.
SessionStorage
LocalStorage
This is built-in to your browser and you can use it to achieve simple tasks by simply assigning values to it. They'll remain there and you can use however you want.
But, as the name implies, sessionstorage will only retain those values during the session (the time you have your browser open for) while localstorage can retain it indefinitely. Not sure if I can link other sites over here so just Google these terms to learn more and how to use them.
Let's say I'm looking at a webpage that has a title including the year, such as "StackOverflow 2016". Is there a way, by inspecting the page source, to find out is this string is variable (function automatically updates it every year), or if it is a hardcoded string?
HTML is for navigator and is the result of a php (or python, etc.) script, so no you can't. (But you can if it is powered by javascript)
There is no way, unless the web site has been specifically coded to make that possible.
I know of one website that does enable marking the variables in its output, but even then, this functionality is turned off for most page requests – it doesn't work unless you explicitly turn it on for that request.
Certainly, there is no standard way in html to notice this.
If it is a string variable it is inserted when the page gets created, so to tell if it's hard coded or not you would have to have access to the file which constructs the page - usually a template or a PHP file, etc.. So no, you can't tell if it was a variable or a plain text just from inspecting the source on the client's side.
With one word: No, you can't...
Different scenarios:
By looking at the HTML alone... no, there is no way. Unless, in your specific case, you refresh the page at NYE or something like that... which is silly.
In the HTML is processed on the server.. there is still no way you can know if it is a hardcoded string or a variable.
There might be a chance to see that by looking at front-end source code if the HTML is processed in the client-side of the app...
You have to undestand that the web page you see is often generated by code that resides on a server, potentially miles away from you. When you ask for a web page you get simply an HTML page, no more.
So, generally, all the methods that generates the data you see on the page cannot be seen client side. Try to imagine what could happen if, let's say, StackOverflow would give you the "power" to see the logic the exists behind web pages of the entire app. You could use these information to do a lot of damage or to steal informations or complex algoritms.
I've said generally because data on web page could be generated by javascript, a client side language that can be used to modify the DOM.
In this case you could see if your string is update by a function.
As far as I'm aware there would be no way to know this as the source you can see will be what is rendered. So there will be no way to know if this was added with php or js etc.
First, a short disclaimer. I have next to no knowledge about web applications. I come from an iOS background where I exclusively wrote native code, so if you write your answers like I know nothing outside the shallow parts, that would be great.
I'm interested in learning a stack to develop web applications, but I'm not sure what the right way to build the GUI is. I know that a web front end consists of html and CSS to create the display and javascript as the bridge between the back end and the GUI, but I don't know the best way to put something together.
I know in iOS, you can use the Interface Builder (part of xcode that lets you graphically create the xml that describes the display) to create GUI's without any knowledge of how iOS translates the xml to some rendering, or even what is written in your xml files. Is there any analog to the web front end?
I'm mainly just looking for a list of the accepted ways to develop the GUI for a web application. If I have to learn HTML and CSS, so be it, but I'd like to know what my options are and the tradeoffs between each of them.
I can answer shortly stating that (technically) you can design web pages without coding in HTML or CSS, or even Javascript - although, you would be somewhat limited in your creative abilities and applications.
You can read about WYSIWYG html editors on this link, or try out ckeditor (someone said it's good)...
...I think a bit of background will help you reach a correct decision...
so here goes:
The Long Answer
I would start by trying to put the world of web programming and design into concepts that correlate with iOS coding.
If we look at the whole of a web app from an MVC perspective, then the browser is the view, the server is the controller and the database is the model... although this is very simplified.
Just like in iOS, each of these can be (but doesn't have to be) broken down into sub-MVC systems.
Just like any model in MVC, the view (the browser) can talk to the model (the database), but really it shouldn't. that's just bad practice.
If we break down the main-view (the browser) to a sub-MVC system, I would consider the HTML as the model, the CSS as the view and the browser (through links and javascript) as the controller.
It's not all that clear cut, but thinking like this helps me practice better and cleaner coding.
The HTML is the view's model for the web-app - it contains the data to be displayed or used.
HTML is a variation on the XML format and it contains data organized in a similar way to an XML file.
The basic HTML file will contain:
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
this should look familiar to you if you read any XML.
The CSS (cascading style sheets) is the view - it states HOW the html DATA should be displayed.
if your web app does't have any CSS, it will use the browser's default CSS/styling to be applied on the data in the HTML.
This "language" makes me think more about dictionaries in iOS (I think that's what they're called in Objective C). They have properties and values (like key-value pairs) that determine how the HTML data is displayed (if it's displayed).
They could look something like this:
body
{
color: white;
background-color: black
}
The browser is the web-app's view's controller - it makes it all work together and serves it up to the screen.
Javascript and links help us tell the controller what we want it to do, but it is the browser that acts (and willfully at times).
You can have a whole web app that acts without javascript, using only the default actions offered by links - in which case the browser will usually ask the server (the main controller) what to do.
Javascript helps us move some of the legwork from the server to the client, by allowing us to have a "smarter" controller for our view - just like in iOS.
The issue of the errant main-view / browser
Not all views are created equal, and not all browsers are the same.
Because the browser is used as the controller for the web-app's view, and because some browsers act differently then others, we web coders have the problem of working around someone else's idea of how our view's controller should behave.
You might see us complaining about it quite a lot (especially complaining about Internet Explorer).
These days, this issue is not as big of a problem as it used to be... it's just that some people don't update their computers...
WYSIWYG web editors
There are website builders and editors that try to work like X-Code does, by allowing us to build the website much like we would write word documents.
But, unlike X-Code which codes only the graphical interface of the view, these website builders write the model as well and usually add javascript into the mix.
When we use these tools (which I avoid), the whole MVC model breaks apart.
We can use them as a starting point for dirty work, but then we take their code apart and adjust it to our needs - usually by taking the code we need for the view (CSS) and applying it where we need it (and discarding much of the nonsense they add to the code and the HTML).
To summarize
As you can tell, HTML and CSS (and Javascript) are only a small part of a web app - as they all relate to the main view of the web app.
To write the controller and models for web apps, we use other tools (such as Ruby, PHP, js.node, MySQL and the like).
Coding the HTML and CSS isn't as hard as you might think, although it might be harder then I present it to be.
You can avoid writing code for web apps and use applications that offer WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), but that would limit your abilities and will take away from your control over what you want to create.
The website I'm currently working on is supposed to be in multiple languages (4 in this case).
What's the "best" way to achieve this?
It seems like most people use a php table for it. Is this the "best" way right now?
Alas I only know some HTML and CSS, so my idea was to simply copy the whole website tree and make a seperate html tree for each language starting with index.html as the default language and three other trees starting with index_lang2.html, index_lang3.html, index_4.html.
On the index site you could switch the language and go down each seperate html tree.
Is this solution acceptable? I seems quite easy to generate but hard to maintain.
it depends on how much pages you have! There is no reason in making a language system if you only have 10 plain html pages and have no clue about php. And such systems are "only for" UI Elements and not for the real content if you plan to post information there...
If that are static pages, then using no such system is a nice solution!
But if you have more, then there are several solutions:
Take an existing Framework with language support
Write your own language class with vars on the different places
... there are for sure more possibilities, but nothing which comes in my mind :)
As already stated, I think as long as your site only has limited static HTML webpages then it's not worth trying to implement a fancy PHP solution (especially if you have to learn PHP to do so!)
It seems the most common aproach to web design is to use HTML/XHTML & CSS in conjunction with other technologies or languages like Javascript or PHP.
On a theoretical level, I'm interested to know what other languages or technologies could be used to build an entire site without using a single HTML tag or CSS style for styling/positioning?
Could a website be made only using XML or PHP alone, including actual styling and positioning?
Presumably Flash sites are till embedded in HTML tags?
Thanks
There are actually several solutions that allow you to nearly completely avoid CSS and HTML.
GWT: Google Web Toolkit
Written in Java and will allow you to build both server and client code in Java. Used to build Google Wave.
Cappuccino and Objective-J:
Objective-J is to JavaScript as Objective-C is to C. It extends JavaScript with many near features, including type-checking, classes and types.
Cappuccino is like Cacoa (Mac OS X GUI toolkit).
Using these two you can build incredibly rich and desktop like webapps. They run mostly on the client side and you can use whatever you want on the server.
A good example is 280slides
SproutCore is similar to Cappuccino, but it uses pure JavaScript instead. Apple is using SproutCore to make me.com.
I should also mention that knowledge to HTML, CSS, JavaScript is a good skill to know, just like understanding your compiler is a good skill.
EDIT:
As said above Adobe Flash can also be used.
You can make a website with out a single html tag. Just give folder read access to all your directories, have sensible file names. From here you user will be able to browse images , read text files, download videos and depending on the content he may or may not come back ever again, but you do achieve the goal of setting up a "website" with out a single line of html or css or any other code for that matter.
:-) :-) :-)
You can host a telnet server with anonymous access and a specialized shell that restricts the user to doing whatever it is you want the site to do. ;)
Lets make the distinction between what is required by the web browser, and what you as a developer use to create that markup.
Remember that HTML nowadays is xml. You could use any markup language you like and convert that to HTML using XML.
eg ASP.NET uses markup such as which is converted on the server to .
As long as the content going down the wire to the browser is HTML, or generates HTML through script, you can use any approach you like.
However these approaches have mostly failed as developers prefer having direct control over the markup. It makes css as well as scripting much easier when you are certain what the html is going to be.
ASP.NET MVC is a product created in response to criticisms leveled at the ASP.NET webforms model.
Also, this is another answer because it's a completely different technology, but you can write an application in XUL and it'll run in Mozilla-based browsers without any HTML.
There's also XML. You can create websites with XML only. A well known one is World Of Warcraft. Check the page source. An XSL is used as stylesheet. There exist even XML based web frameworks like OpenLaszlo. You can let it serve either DHTML or Flash on reqeust out of a single XML template.
The Wt C++ Web Toolkit.
You can write your web application in C++ using Qt-style widgets (input boxes, buttons, tabs etc) and hook up client-side events to C++ code on your server. All without writing any HTML or CSS.
A sample application from their website (you may also want to look at this excellent tutorial):
HelloApplication::HelloApplication(const WEnvironment& env)
: WApplication(env)
{
setTitle("Hello world"); // application title
root()->addWidget(new WText("Your name, please ? ")); // show some text
nameEdit_ = new WLineEdit(root()); // allow text input
nameEdit_->setFocus(); // give focus
WPushButton *b = new WPushButton("Greet me.", root()); // create a button
b->setMargin(5, Left); // add 5 pixels margin
root()->addWidget(new WBreak()); // insert a line break
greeting_ = new WText(root()); // empty text
/* when the button is clicked, call the 'greet' method */
b->clicked().connect(this, &HelloApplication::greet);
}
void HelloApplication::greet()
{
/* set the empty text object greeting_ to greet the name entered */
greeting_->setText("Hello there, " + nameEdit_->text());
}
Curl (requires a browser plugin)
Wikipedia article
A webpage looks like this:
{curl 1.7 applet}
{value
let b:int=99
let song:VBox={VBox}
{while b > 0 do
{song.add b & " bottle(s) of beer on the wall,"}
{song.add b & " bottle(s) of beer."}
{song.add "Take one down, pass it around,"}
set b = b - 1
{song.add b & " bottle(s) of beer on the wall."}
}
song
}
Source
Since browsers view HTML, I'm assuming you mean create a site without ever having to edit/write HTML/CSS. The framework/app environment/whatever taking care of everything for you - yet still allowing you control over the presentation layer.
Seems like that is certainly possible on a theoretical level.
I ran across Noloh (not one line of html) a while back. Was intrigued, but never actually tried it out.
From various places on the Noloh site:
Because NOLOH does not rely on HTML or pages, maintaining complex rich Internet applications is significantly easier than with other methods.
Developing applications with NOLOH only requires using a single, unified language: a superset of PHP that completely maintains all aspects of server-client communication for you!
I think you could build a site entirely in SVG.
The front page of emacsformacosx is almost entirely SVG, for example.
Downsides: It wouldn't be viewable in IE (at least through version 8). And last I looked, text support, like flowing and justification, was weaker in SVG. (You could embed HTML inside an SVG element when you needed sophisticated text features, but that would violate your no-HTML rule.)
You'd probably still want to use CSS with SVG, because it's a good idea there for the same reason it's a good idea with HTML, but it wouldn't be necessary.
A website is always viewed through a browser (at least always if you are human :)). Browsers understand HTML. Whatever the technology - you have to basically render HTML. Even in cases with rich technologies like flash, the flash object that is rendered by a browser plugin is embedded inside the HTML.
In theory it is possible to do it without HTML, but the question becomes how much does the product diverge from the definition of a website...
One really short, simple answer... you can't :D
Flash requires an embed tag, an image requires an embed tag etc, so you'd have to use HTML in some method or another.
PHP is an embedded language, it is used to generate HTML on which the browsers renders, with XML, well technically a browser like Ie or FireFox will render it in it's own way for readability, but I would not class that as a website.
The major developments in the world of web technologies involves the development of HTML and CSS to improve them, there isn't any need for an alternative. In fact we're pushing towards a standard, what point would there be in introducing a new language to negate these standards. The whole IE saga would simply get worse.
Like the others have suggested, you could directly load an image or a flash file, but an image is useless on it's own, and a flash interface throws up loads of problems like SEO, accessibility etc, not least it's very heavy and usually completely misused. In my mind I wouldn't even class this method as a website, it just doesn't tick any of the boxes (IMO).
I think you can have an URL pointing directly at a hosted Flash (SWF) file, I've certainly done this though I don't know if all browsers work.
Anyhow, I tested this when developing MyDinos.
e.g: http://mydinos.com/home.swf
You can use Emscripten and its SDL subset.
You could try using quickstatic. You can code HTML templates from Python3. What is super cool about it is the fact that if you put in a for-loop for a certain item, you can generate that many items (maybe even use it to print items from a directory or quickly serve thousands of links).