Website Design Glossary

Acrobat:

Acrobat is another word for PDF file, but technically it is the program you need to read/create PDF files (Adobe Acrobat reader/distiller)

Ajax:

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), is a group of interrelated web development techniques used to create interactive web applications or rich Internet applications. With Ajax, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. The use of Ajax has led to an increase in interactive animation on web pages.

ASP:

Active Server Pages. A specification that enables Web pages to be dynamically created, or to access information from a database. The default language for writing ASP pages is VBScript, but other languages can also be used.

Bandwidth:

The amount of data that can be sent over a connection in a fixed amount of time. Bandwidth is measured in bits per second (bps), kilobits per second (kbps), or megabits per second (mps).

Blog:

Short for weblog, which is an online journal that is usually created for public viewing. Some blogs are interactive, in that readers can comment on entries within the blog.

Browser:

The window that you view the website in. Can be powered by Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, Firefox and many more.

Content:

The pictures and copy (text) that make up a website.

Cookies:

Small files created by a programming/scripting language to hold information like the times and dates you have visited websites or user and password validation on member sections in websites.

CSS:

Acronym for cascading style sheet An external document specifying things like colour and font types that your website reads to get it's style attributes from.

DHTML:

Dynamic HTML. Refers to the use of a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript to create small animations, effects and dynamic menus on a website.

Download & Upload:

Download is when you 'get' a file from another computer on the Internet. Upload is when you 'give' a file to another computer on the Internet.

DNS:

Domain Name Service is a system that translates domain names into IP numbers using a DNS server.

Domain Name:

The address of your website (e.g. coza-web.co.za or google.com)

Extension JS:

Ext JS is a cross-browser JavaScript library for building rich internet applications. It includes high performance, customizable UI widgets, well designed and extensible Component model and an intuitive, easy to use API.

Flash:

2D animation created in Macromedia Flash. Can have an swf extension for websites or an exe extension for digital presentations. You will need a flash player installed on your machine to view SWF files.

Forum:

An online discussion where readers can state their opinions and ask or answer each others questions regarding a specific subject using online forms.

Frames:

Two or more HTML pages combined within a single browser screen. This allows scrolling regions on different sections of a web page.

FTP:

File Transfer Protocol. Downloading or uploading files from or to computers using an FTP program or your internet browser in folder view. Usually you will need a log in and password for the particular computer you want to upload to or download from in order to this.

GIF:

Graphic Interchange Format. A type of picture file usually with a small file size. GIF files can be animated or stationery, transparent or opaque. GIF files derive their size from the number of colours in the picture rather than PPI.

HTML:

Hyper Text Markup Language. The language used for creating web pages.

Hyperlink:

An image (referred to as a hotspots) or text that link to another page or within the same page (referred to as bookmarks)

Image Optimisation:

The act of reducing the file size of a picture while still retaining an acceptable amount of quality for the web.

IP Address:

Internet Protocol Address. Every machine connected to the Internet has a unique IP Address. This is one avenue that the authorities use to track down hackers, although I believe there is software available to create a dynamic (always changing) IP address.

Javascript:

A scripting language that can be embedded in an HTML page or accessed by an HTML page as an external document (.js) to create effects or useful programming, such as form validation.

JPEG:

Joint Photographic Experts Group. A type of picture file usually with a small file size. JPEG files derive their size from the PPI (pixels per inch).

Meta Data / Tag:

Part of the backend (not visible to the viewer) of an HTML page providing information about the page like the title, whether or not the data should be cached and the description & keywords for search engine optimisation.

Mouseover:

The action of moving the mouse over a targeted area or link. This (like mouseUp, mouseDown, onKeyPress, onChange etc.) can be used to trigger an event using a script.

MySQL:

An open source relational database management system that uses SQL (structured Query Language). Typically used in conjunction with PHP and run on Apache server, but it can be run on IIS aswell.

Page Rank:

Google Page Rank is an algorithm developed by Google to measure the quality and number of links to a given page. Rank ranges from 0 (poor) to 10 (phenomenal).

Pixel:

The smallest part or single grid point of a raster image.

PNG:

Portable Network Graphics. A type of picture file that can be transparent or opaque. Often used within flash files because of it's superior compression.

PHP:

The inventors of PHP are vague about what it stands for, but despite this, many insist that it stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. An open source programming language that enables Web pages to be dynamically created, or to access information from a database. The most used and fastest growing of programming languages and arguably the easiest to learn. Ususally used in conjunction with MySQL.

Pop Ups:

An advert or content that opens in a separate browser window to the one that you are currently viewing.

Roll Overs:

Graphics that change when you move your mouse over them. For example, a button that has an up state and an over state.

Screen Resolution & Refresh Rate:

Your screen resolution is the size that your screen is set to. The default was 800x600, but is moving towards 1024x768. Resolutions like 640x480 are not really used anymore, but can be useful if your monitor is smaller than a 15 inch monitor. Your refresh rate is the rate at which your monitor picture refreshes. The default is usually too low (60 or 65) and can cause headaches and eye strain. Set your refresh rate to at least 70!

SEO:

Search Engine Optimisation. The job of optimising a website so that search engine bots can crawl it without errors, and extract necessary meta data, and keyword density to give a good ranking.

Serif & Sans Serif:

Serifs are the short strokes that appear on the ends of some characters of a typeface (font) like This. Sans serif means "without serif" and refers to clean typefaces (fonts) like this.

Sitemaps & Google Sitemaps:

An ordinary sitemap is a page with links to all the pages within the website laid out in a tree format. A Google sitemap is an XML document that lets Google know what parts of your site are important.

URL:

Uniform Resource Locator. The address of a webpage or file. Starts with 'http://' (hypertext transfer protocol) and usually, but not always has 'www' (world wide web) followed by a domain name and or folder name and or page name, and ends with an extension like '.co.za' (South Africa) '.co.uk' (Britain) '.com' (commerce) '.net' (network) '.biz' (business) '.org' (organisation, usually non-profit) etc.

WYSIWYG:

What you see, is what you get.