IDK0040 Võrgurakendused I

loeng 01

Deniss Kumlander

Internet Applications

• A twelve-year-old can build a nice Web application using the tools that came standard with any Linux or Windows machine. Thus it is worth asking ourselves, "What is challenging, interesting, and inspiring about Internet-based applications?"

• Are you a loser with a big budget, a lot of ugly graphics, and no traffic?

The World Wide Web

• What is the World Wide Web? – The World Wide Web (WWW) is most often

called the Web. – The Web is a network of computers all over

the world. – All the computers in the Web can

communicate with each other. – All the computers use a communication

standard called HTTP.

The World Wide Web

• How does the  WWW work? – Web information is stored in documents

called Web pages.  – Web pages are files stored on computers

called Web servers. – Computers reading the Web pages are

called Web clients. – Web clients view the pages with a program

called a Web browser. – Popular browsers are Internet Explorer

and Netscape Navigator.

Internet Applications: Types, Categories, Reasons

• “Person” to “Person” / cross domain

• Person to web (person place independency => mobility)

• in between => Sharing/Collaborative work

• Agents, Applications, Crawlers

None-stop

Services

Web-Publishing

Web(-based) Application

Web Publishing: Think twice

Why are users coming to your site?• Is user extremely bored and wishes to stare at a blank screen for several

minutes while a flashing icon loads, then stare at the flashing icon for a few more minutes."

• User wants to look at product brochures• User wants to look at fancy graphics

(CD etc.)

First of all decide “why you are doing that?” and only then “what you are going to include”

If you can anticipate user questions and make sure that your site answers them, you will be a successful Web publisher.

HP

• Contacts

• How to reach

• Photo

• Details

• Sharing information

Company page

• Manual

• How to get fixed

• Maps of service centers

Monitor your page

• What questions are asked by user (email, search engine etc)

• Automate routine work

• Add information which is constantly asked/searched etc.

Some advices

• Put up some magnet content.

• Develop technical means for collaboration.

• Be prepared to interact with users

Some advices

• See the web from the users point of view when planning site's content / navigation etc.

Notice that users normally are not IT nerds

“users don't understand the difference between RAM and disk and further, that they don't understand the file system or directory hierarchies “

• Computers/webs etc should simplify users’ life instead of producing troubles

Draw a Site Map

Draw a Site Map

Is content static or you need to store previous months’ news?

Avoid “entry tunnel” like “Welcome to my super homepage”: you should not be oriented to persons visiting only once; have links to many services and sections

Plan links and ways back to the main page (could arrive to a random page using Google or something like that)

Draw a Site Map

Keep site logic simple/easy to use. If users start browsing manuals then something is wrong: do you read manuals after buying a car?

Structure content: physical location by physical/logical categories

• /doc/ for documentation on the server itself, e.g., this directory spec

• /tutorial/ for a textbook for learning photographers, with its own index page and links from each chapter back to the index.

• /travel/ for travel guides to various photographic destinations. Multi-document guides with custom illustrations, e.g., maps, will have their own subdirectories.

• /technique/ for specialized how-to documents, e.g., "taking photographs of star trails" or "macro photography". Any article that needs helper drawings will be in a subdirectory.

• …• /about/ for general credits (a masthead), explanations of how

the site works, editorial/submission policy.

Structure content: other

• Use file names convention

• Avoid dublications: extract similar parts into a standalone file/include – organise?: Content independent site

• Keep the site clean:– ?: text only, “right” colours (Google, blogs)– hire a graphic designer

“bad graphic design is far harder on the user than no graphic design. ... remember that nobody will laugh at a plain text site and say "look at these losers who spent $50,000 on design for a content-free site."

Info

• http://www.w3schools.com/

Lisa:

• http://www.ttu.ee/it/vorgutarkvara/wav3080

• http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/

The World Wide Web

• What is the World Wide Web? – The World Wide Web (WWW) is most often

called the Web. – The Web is a network of computers all over

the world. – All the computers in the Web can

communicate with each other. – All the computers use a communication

standard called HTTP.

The World Wide Web

• How does the  WWW work? – Web information is stored in documents

called Web pages.  – Web pages are files stored on computers

called Web servers. – Computers reading the Web pages are

called Web clients. – Web clients view the pages with a program

called a Web browser. – Popular browsers are Internet Explorer

and Netscape Navigator.

The World Wide Web

• How does the browser fetch the pages?– A browser fetches a Web page from a

server by a request. – A request is a standard HTTP request

containing a page address. – A page address looks like this:

http://www.someone.com/page.htm.

The World Wide Web

• How does the browser display the pages?– All Web pages contain instructions for

display – The browser displays the page by reading

these instructions. – The most common display instructions are

called HTML tags. – HTML tags look like this <p>This is a

Paragraph</p>.

The World Wide Web

• Who is making the Web standards?– The Web standards are not made up by

Netscape or Microsoft. – The rule-making body of the Web is the W3C. – W3C stands for the World Wide Web

Consortium. – W3C puts together specifications for Web

standards. – The most essential Web standards are HTML,

CSS and XML. – The latest HTML standard is XHTML 1.0.