Glossary

A-C

absolute URL

A complete path, or address, of a file on the Internet (such as http://www.someserver.com/somedir/somepage.html). Also called a complete URL.

See also relative URL.

adaptive palette

The term used in Adobe Photoshop to describe an optimized palette. Indicates that the palette is adapted to the image, rather than the other way around.

alternative text

Text describing an image that is included in an IMG (Image) tag using the ALT attribute. Important to include for accessibility reasons; search engines also index alternative text.

anchor

A hypertext link, formed by the A (Anchor) element.

See also destination anchor.

anti-aliasing

The blending of colors along the edges of letterforms to smooth out the "jaggies" along diagonals and curved edges. Since the edges are blended with the image's background color, this can cause a problem when saving the image as a transparent GIF if the color and tone of the image and page backgrounds do not match.

See also halo effect.

applet

A client-side Java program that is downloaded from the Internet and executed in a Web browser.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Defines a standard minimum character set for computer text and data.

ASP

Active Server Pages. A server-side scripting protocol developed by Microsoft for dynamically generating HTML code or pages in response to client requests. Active server pages end with a file extension of .asp. The latest form is referred to as ASP.Net.

attribute

A property (or attribute) assigned to an element, generally in the form of an attribute/ value pair (width="200", for instance). Some attributes can be minimized, with an implied value.

See also minimized attribute.

bandwidth

The transmission capacity of a network, but also the amount of capacity being consumed by a connection.

binary file

A non-text file, such as an image or program file.

BinHex

The standard method on the Macintosh of converting a binary file into ASCII (text) so it can be transferred as an e-mail attachment.

bitmap

An image where bits are mapped to displayed pixels. Bitmap images are not resolution-independent (the pixels are scaled along with the image), whereas vector-based images, which are not mapped to displayed pixels, are resolution-independent. GIF, JPEG, and PNG images are bitmap images, for instance.

block element

An HTML element that is displayed as a separate block, starting on a new line and usually with space displayed above and below it. The P (Paragraph) element is a block element, for instance.

See also inline element.

BMP

BitMaP image format. An uncompressed image format developed by Microsoft for use in Windows. BMP images should never be used for display over the Web, since an uncompressed BMP image can be many times larger in bytes than the same image saved as a JPEG image. Although Internet Explorer will display BMP images, most other browsers will not.

bookmarks

A means, in Netscape Navigator, for "bookmarking" the URLs of favorite Web sites so they can easily be returned to.

See also favorites.

boolean attribute

A standalone attribute (without a value), which only has an effect if present. The term boolean comes from programming, where it can denote a variable or value that has only two values, true or false.

See also minimized attribute.

Cascading Style Sheets

A means for defining styles, using the STYLE element, to control the display of HTML elements. Also commonly referred to by its initials alone, CSS.

CGI

Common Gateway Interface. An interface to a gateway through which a Web server can run programs and scripts on a host computer.

client

A computer on a network that makes a request to a server.

client-side

A process or program that is downloaded and run by a user agent (or browser).

See also server-side.

container element

An element with a start tag and an end tag that can bracket other text or elements.

See also empty element.

crippleware

See also shareware.

See also demoware.

CSS

See Cascading Style Sheets.

CSS1

Cascading Style Sheets, level one. The initial CSS specification, broadly supported by current browsers.

CSS2

Cascading Style Sheets, level two. The current CSS specification, only partially supported by current browsers.

CSS3

Cascading Style Sheets, level three. The next CSS specification, currently in draft status.

customized palette

See optimized palette.