HTML
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the code used to construct a web page. It is not a programming language but rather a
markup language. Think of it like
writing an essay or designing a page in InDesign.
Here is a heading,
there is a paragraph and in the corner lies an image. An HTML page is made up of any number of
tags
that define various parts of the page, such as headings, paragraphs or images. For example, the tag for an image looks like this:
<img src="url_to_image" />
A complete listing, with explanations and examples, of all HTML tags can be found at
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp.
CSS (Cascading Stylesheets) is what controls the
look of your page. It is what you use to
style HTML tags but it is also used to position elements on the page. It behaves very much in the same way as an InDesign stylesheet does, defining style information
such as colours, borders, fonts, sizing etc. CSS allows you to define styles for specific HTML tags, but also lets you create your own
classes - custom style definitions - that can be applied to
any
element. For example, this documentation uses two link styles:
internal and
external, to give a different look to links that point to pages within the documentation, and those that send readers to another website.
This is how the HTML code looks for an internal link:
<a href="url" class="internal">Internal Link</a>
And the CSS for the class called
internal:
a.internal {
color: #842FAF;
}
a.internal:hover {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #842FAF;
}
CSS is very powerful and can change the look and feel of an entire website just by changing a few lines of code. Any HTML outputted by The Secretary can by styled by CSS, giving you full control.
For more information about CSS take a look at these great links:
Think of HTML as the raw structure of the page - the bones of your body - and CSS as the styler - how long is each bone? what colour are they? are they wrapped in skin? how much? where is each located on the body?
JavaScript
JavaScript is a scripting language that is most often used in web development to add usability features and effects to a web page. It is not essential to know JavaScript to use The Secretary, but of course it can
be used to further enhance your website. A lot of The Secretary's own interface is controlled and aided by JavaScript, and a lot of the
View Functions take advantage of its power
to display content in an engaging way.
Take a look at these links for more information:
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is what is used to transfer files to and from a web
server. There are many FTP programs available, but here are some good ones:
Transmit,
Cyberduck,
Fetch and
FileZilla
The Absolute Path of a page is a type of web address similar to a
URL. It differs slightly in form and is used by
the system to access certain files on your
server. While your web host can provide you with your absolute path, The Secretary will, in most cases, attempt to determine it on its own. If you ever need to double check the absolute path to your installation, navigate to the
Home > About page, where you will find various information about the system.
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the web address of a web page/document.
Domain
A domain name is the address of a website, for example google.com or staer.ca.
Front-end vs. Back-end
The term "front-end" (or "frontend") refers to the actual viewable page - your website itself, while the backend refers to an automated system that powers the frontend, such as The Secretary.
Server
A server is where all the files that make up a website are stored. Think of the server as your house. In your house you have rooms (folders or directories), and in each room there are many things (HTML files, images, etc). Your house also has an address, so that people (including you!) know how to get there - think of this as the
URL or
domain.
This documentation will sometimes refer to something called "the system" - this is simply another way of referring to The Secretary itself.
View Functions
View Functions are what are used to display content on your web page or in templates. A function is a chunk of code that performs an action. Often a function requires one or more parameters and will use that information to carry out its action. For example, the Gallery module has a view function called
set_author() which can display information about the user who created a particular set. This function accepts one parameter which tells it which piece of information to show, which in this case is the username, display name, email or user level. Think of a parameter as an option for a function - depending on the value of the parameter, a different result will be returned by the function.
For example:
set_author( "username" );
would show something like "mikael", while
set_author( "email" );
would show "mikael@staer.ca".