Browsers, Plugins, Editors

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Browsers, Plug-ins, Editors

• A detailed description
• (maybe too detailed)

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What will we talk about?

• Browsers
• History
• Functionality
• Future
• Plug-ins and helper applications
• Definition
• Examples
• Editors
• Advantages and Disadvantages

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Browsers The Current Landscape

• From thecounter.com
• Statistics for December 2002
• MSIE 6.x -- 50
• MSIE 5.x -- 41
• MSIE 4.x -- 1
• Netscape 4.x -- 1
• Other -- 7
• Includes Netscape 6/7, Opera, Netscape 1-3, IE
  1-3
• Statistics compiled from 331,874,742 visitors

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A Long Time Ago...

• 1991 - Tim Berners-Lee invents the WWW
• Actually creates his own web browser
• http//www.w3.org/History/1994/WWW/Journals/CACM/s
  creensnap2_24c.gif
• 1992 - ViolaWWW developed at UC - Berkeley
• 1993 - Cello developed at Carnegie-Mellon
• 1993 - NCSA at UIUC releases Mosaic

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Mosaic

• First browser with cross platform support
• Mac, PC, UNIX
• First browser to support sound, video clips,
  forms, bookmarks, history file, etc.
• 1994 - Andreessen leaves to found Netscape
• August 1994 - Mosaic assigns commercial rights
  Spyglass, Inc.
• Spyglass, Inc. licenses this technology to
  Microsoft

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Netscape 1 through 3

• Things are going pretty well for Netscape
• Netscape wisely builds three important Internet
  applications into the program
• email, newsgroups, and WWW
• Netscape 2 builds in support for Javascript,
  cookies, Java applets, and more plug-ins

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What is a Plug-In?

• Browser has built in ability to handle HTML,
  ASCII, GIF, and JPEG
• A plug-in allows a user to view or play media
  that the WWW browser cant handle alone
• Integrated into the main HTML window
• A popular example of this is Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Not to be confused with a helper application
• opens a separate window

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Netscape continues...

• Netscape strives to support multiple platforms --
  Mac, PC, UNIX
• 1995 -- Netscape has the third largest IPO in
  Nasdaq history
• Netscape 3 is considered by many to be the most
  popular computer program on the planet

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Browser Wars Episode IThe Phantom Menace

• 1995-1996 -- Microsoft declares war on Netscape
• Internet World, March 1996 article
• Microsoft releases Windows 95
• bundles Internet Explorer with the system
• Netscape decides it will charge users after a
  trial period
• Netscape doesnt worry, IE is a bad browser
• no frames support, bad plug-in support, pathetic
  Javascript support

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Prophecy

• Macintosh founder Steve Jobs
• We have a two-year window. If the Web doesn't
  reach ubiquity in the next two years, Microsoft
  will own it. And that will be the end of it.
• Wired, February 1996

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Browser Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones

• Internet Explorer 3.0
• Released mid-1996
• Improved support for plug-ins, better support for
  HTML 3.2
• Also includes new support for JScript
• own version of Javascript
• Nominal support for CSS standard
• Netscapes market share begins to dwindle

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Browser Wars Episode 4A New Hope

• Level 4 browsers released in 1997-98
• Both contain support for CSS, Push technology,
  and Dynamic HTML
• combination of Javascript, CSS and other
  technologies
• IE -- more JScript, CSS and ActiveX
• Netscape -- Finally CSS support, more Javascript
  and tag
• A headache of incompatibility

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Netscape gets a little cocky
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Browser Wars Episode 5The Empire Strikes Back

• November 1998 -- Netscape sold to AOL
• Early 1999 Microsoft releases IE 5.0
• more reliable, nifty search feature, small
  download
• much faster than Netscape 4.x, esp. cached
  documents
• Netscape decides to completely rewrite browser
  and make it open source
• Mozilla project -- http//www.mozilla.org

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What is a cache?

• The cache stores information from downloaded web
  pages like text and graphics
• Netscape contains two caches
• Disk cache -- persistent information
• Memory cache -- emptied upon exiting
• IE calls their cache Temporary Internet Files

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Mozilla

• Early code name for Netscape
• Mozilla.org is now a project supported by
  Netscape that will
• make Netscape Communicator free
• make it open source
• allow other browser manufacturers to use Mozilla
  components for their own browsers
• K-Meleon, IBM Web Browser for OS/2
• Chimera for the Macintosh

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Browser Wars Episode 6Return of the Jedi (?)

• November 2000 -- Netscape releases version 6
• The product is full of some pretty bad bugs
• some cant install, wont load, wont show
  images, loses mail, wont save bookmarks
• Mozilla project is ticked off
• Worst browser upgrade in history

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Future of things to come

• Cool sidebar concept
• Neato skins make interface customizable
• Faster surfing, better HTML rendering
• Gecko engine
• Great cookies/security management
• New Translate feature
• Almost complete standards support
• CSS, XML, HTML/XHTML, ECMAScript, DOM

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What are Web standards?

• Developed by W3C (directed by Berners-Lee)
• Make development faster
• Ensure information on the web is available to all
• Enhance inter-operability between web
  applications

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Important Web Standards

• HTML
• all browsers need to be able to read this
• XML -- eXtensible Markup Language
• the future of markup languages define your own
  tags!
• CSS -- Cascading Style Sheets
• consistently define the appearance of an entire
  site outside of your code!

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Web Standards continued

• DOM -- Document Object Model
• gives scripting language consistent access to
  structure, content, and presentation
• ECMAScript
• International standard version of Javascript
• XHTML
• XML compliant version of HTML

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Mozilla Today

• Currently up to version 1.2.1
• Tabbed browsing
• Ability to turn off pop-up windows
• Multiple skins or themes to change appearance
  and functionality of browser
• Many, many different add ons
• http//www.mozdev.org/projects.html

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Plug-ins

• Browsers can only handle certain types of media
  HTML, text, GIF, JPEG
• Plug-ins extend the functionality of the browser
  and fully integrate themselves into the browser
• Helper applications open outside of the browser

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Common Plug-ins

• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• for PDFs (portable document format)
• RealPlayer
• for audio and video streaming
• Apple Quicktime
• still an important video format
• Windows Media Player
• Quickly becoming the media player of choice

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Other Common Plug-ins

• Macromedia Shockwave
• Allows for animation, video, sound, and
  interactivity all in one
• Commonly used to create games
• Created by Director files dont have to be web
  based
• Macromedia Flash
• quickly becoming most popular plug-in
• Stream for quick download, smooth graphics,
  sound, interactivity
• Allow designers to spruce up pages without
  creating huge downloads

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What is the difference?

• Flash is smaller and has a faster start up time
• typically used for interfaces to sites to provide
  a quick, creative impact
• Shockwave is a deeper player
• offers multiuser chat, XML parsing, HTML
  manipulation, etc.
• Used for more complex work and web work that is
  beyond the browsers capabilities.

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Nielsen Flash 99 Bad

• Breaks Back button
• Cannot make text bigger or smaller
• Reduces accessibility for blind users
• Find in Page feature does not work
• Can be disconcerting
• Encourages gratuitous animation
• http//www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html

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Flash Examples

• http//www.rayoflight.com
• Elegant example
• http//www.shagthesheep.com
• Fun example
• http//www.vectorlounge.com
• Bad example
• http//newman.baruch.cuny.edu/about/
• Library example select Virtual Tour

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Editors

• Two types of editors
• WYSIWYG
• What you see is what you get
• Composer, Dreamweaver, FrontPage
• Text Editor
• Pure HTML code
• Has the ability to insert code for you, but only
  if you know what you want
• Homesite, Editplus

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Advantages

• Makes HTML page creation easy
• Create HTML pages more quickly
• WYSIWYG No need to know HTML
• Can also include Javascript, CSS, Java, etc.
• Color codes and indents
• Especially easy to use when converting an Excel
  spreadsheet to HTML

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Disadvantages

• Adds goofy code
• proprietary code
• extraneous code
• WYS in one browser/editor is not always WYG in
  another browser/editor
• Discourages learning HTML
• Discourages innovation

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Free Editors

• HTML-Kit
• http//www.chami.com/html-kit/
• 1st Page 2000
• http//www.evrsoft.com/
• Netscape/Mozilla Composer
• http//www.mozilla.org
• http//channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.
  jsp