HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
prices. he challenge now is to choose a website framework that will accom-
modate your business needs as they evolve over the next few years. Planning
for success means being prepared for the possibility that your idea may be even
more popular than you ever imagined. It does happen sometimes.
A website built of iles provides lexibility, because everything that goes into
presenting a page to a visitor is under your direct control and can be changed
with simple editing tools. An entire website can physically consist of just a
single directory of text and media iles. his is a good approach to start with
for content-delivery websites. But if the website's prospects depend on carefully
managing a larger amount of content and/or customers, storing the content in
a general-purpose, searchable database is better than having it embedded in
HTML iles. If that is the case, it is just a question of choosing the right CMS
for your needs. If the content is time-based—recent content has higher value
than older material—blogging sotware such as WordPress or Movable Type
may be appropriate. If the website does not have a central organizing principle,
using a generalized CMS such as Drupal with plugin components may be the
better choice.
he diferent approaches can be mixed. Most content management systems
coexist nicely with static HTML iles. Although the arguments for using a
CMS are stronger today, it is beyond the scope of this topic to explain how to
use any of the content management systems to dynamically deliver a web-
site. Because this is a book about HTML, the remainder of this chapter deals
with the mechanics of developing a website with HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and
media iles.
Or
webspaces
? he terms are almost interchangeable. Both are logical concepts
and depend less on where resources are physically located than on how they
are intended to be experienced.
Webspace
suggests the image of having a place
to put your stuf on the Web, with a home page providing an introduction and
navigation. A
website
has the larger sense of being the online presence of a per-
son or organization. It is usually synonymous with a domain name but may
have diferent personalities, in the way that search.twitter.com difers from
m.twitter.com, for example.
When planning a website, think about the domain and hostnames it will be
known by. If you don't have a domain name for your planned site, think up a
few that you can live with, and then register the best one available. Although
there is a profusion of new top-level domains such as .biz and .co, it is still best
to be a .com.
