Splat | WiseTome.com

As part of the ‘Creating Websites’ series, we have looked at the different reasons one would want to start a website, the different options one would have depending on these reasons in terms of budget (time and money). Assuming, you have these figured out by now, let us look at the different technological options you have in building or creating the actual webpages.

Before we go into that, let me briefly explain what these webpages are. If you notice, all web address start with a ‘http’. For example, the URL for this blog is:

http://www.wisetome.com/splat

The http, if you do not already know, stands for ‘Hyper Text Transfer Protocol‘. It is a protocol to transfer hyperlinked text. When one types an address into the address bar of their browser, a request is made to the server, with the help of domain names, and the server returns with a HTML document. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. So, it is that simple. To have a website, you just need to place the HTML documents in a place from where the server can pick it up and send it to who ever is requesting it.

You can do this in several ways.

• Static Pages
  • Hand Coded
  • WYSIWYG Editors
• Dynamic Pages

Let me explain a few of them briefly.

Static Pages

These were the only types of pages you found in the old times. (The era, the net savvy call as Web 1.0). But this is still a good method if you intend to have only a handful of pages for website, and they do not need to be updated often.

• Hand Coding - You can create a web page, just with your notepad or any plain text editor. You can also use fancy editors that highlight the syntax. For simple pages, this method is the best, and all you need to know is the basic HTML language.
• WYSIWYG Editors - You can use ‘What You See Is What You Get’ Editors. As the name states, you create the documents like you would for any other document and then save it as an HTML page. But note that these editors tend to create bulky markup even for the simplest pages. If you do know HTML and only handful of pages need to be created, then you should consider the option of hand coding those pages.

Dynamic Pages

If you need to create a website that has hundred or even thousands of pages, then the static pages becomes a difficult option. Also, if you need visitor interaction on the pages and the content of pages to change frequently, then I would advice you to go for one of the dynamic page creation methods.

How do these systems that generate dynamic pages work?

Remember that the server needs to just give an HTML document when it is requested for. The visitors browser is not bothered as to how the content is stored on the server - all it cares for is a properly marked up document. This is what these dynamic page creation systems rely on. When a request is made for a particular page in a website, the server creates the HTML marked up document and presents it. Depending on the system or engine, the data for doing so may be stored in plain text files or in databases.

What are the different dynamic page systems available?

You have already heard of two types of systems - blogs and forums. These are engines that do not necessarily store any of the content in files. All the data will be stored in a database, and when there are requests for particular pages by the visitors, it generates a valid HTML and responds with it. This is how, there are blogs out there with large amount of posts that seemingly is shown in uncountable variations.

There are also generic content management systems like Drupal that you can use to manage a website. These CMS cater to general purposes than blogs and forums - they may themselves have blogs and forums with in them.

Conclusion

So, what method do you go for? It depends on lots of choices you make in terms of budget for your website, and more basically, what the purpose of the website is.