Introduction

This chapter starts with a brief overview of the World Wide Web and web sites, and then describes some of the key elements of a web page. This chapter covers the enhancements that have been added to web pages to add dynamic and graphical content: animated GIFs, dynamic HTML, and Flash vector graphics.

The Web, for many people, has become synonymous with the Internet. The use of the Web has become ubiquitous, from the cyber-caf in a backpackers' hostel to high bandwidth corporate intranets. But universal adoption of the web browser as the user interface, for many, has masked the fact that the Internet provides the communication fabric; the Web refers to the linked pages of content. The Web is only one of the several applications that use the Internet. The earlier applications popular in the academic community include gopher, TELNET, and FTP. Streaming media came along later, and also is delivered over the Internet. However, streaming is intimately linked to the Web. Web pages often embed the pointers to streaming media, and the media player itself can be embedded in a conventional web page, so that video appears alongside the text and still images. The Internet is just one delivery channel; streaming can be delivered to a set-top box for display on a television or via cellular radio to hand-held wireless devices.

The original Web was text based. Great strides have been made by the more creative web designers to create dynamic sites without using streaming video. Vector...