Electronic Commerce

1
Electronic Commerce

• MIS 6453 -- Spring 2001

2
Overview

• Web Page Development
• HTML Basics
• Working with Tables
• Editors (Arachnophilia, NotePad, FPExpress, . . .
  )
• Systems Development Process
• IS Components
• eMetrics
• Papers Cronin Delio

3
HTML Basics

• An HTML document is a text file with markup tags
  to indicate how things are to display
• Tags are instructions to the browser
• Browser ignores tags it cant understand
• White space, indentation, etc. are also ignored
• Objective basic understanding of whats going
  on behind the scenes (not to develop ability to
  create pages at the source code level)

4
Anatomy of a Markup Tag

• Indicate tags with lt gt
• Typically lt . . . gt contents lt/ . . . gt
• Opening tag
• lttagname attr1 . . . attr2 . . . . . . gt
• Attributes provide specific information
• Example
• ltfont facearial size4gt Hello! lt/fontgt
• Note white space and indentations are ignored

5
HTML Conventions

• Use lowercase for tags
• Always use closing tag if one exists
• Dont overlap nested tags
• Quote attribute values
• Use indents to clarify nesting

6
Types of HTML Tags

• Document structure
• Display (font, style, etc.)
• Segmenting (lists, divisions, paragraphs, etc.)
• Embedded content (images, applets, etc.)
• Links
• Tables
• Forms
• Optional (meta, comment, style, etc.)

7
Structure Tags

• Defining overall document
• lthtmlgt tells the browser the document type
• ltheadgt provides basic document information
• lttitlegt is optional but should always be used
• ltbodygt contains the actual document content
• Basic minimal document
• lthtmlgt
• ltheadgt
• lttitlegt Simple HTML Document lt/titlegt
• lt/headgt
• ltbodygt
• Hi Mom! Look at my web page!
• lt/bodygt
• lt/htmlgt

8
Display Tags

• Font attributes ltfont . . . gt
• Special text features
• ltbgt
• ltigt
• ltsubgt
• . . .
• Headings lth1gt (largest) through lth6gt (smallest)
• Alignment (usually as attribute rather than
  independent tag)

9
Segmenting Tags

• Block definitions/specifications
• Paragraphs ltpgt
• Line breaks ltbr /gt (no closing tag)
• Divisions ltdivgt
• Preformatted ltpregt (displays exactly as shown)
• Lists
• Ordered ltolgt and ltligt
• Unordered ltulgt and ltligt
• Definition ltdlgt and ltdtgt
• Horizontal rule lthr /gt (no closing tag)

10
Embedded Content

• Includes images, applets, ActiveX controls
• Most common is ltimg . . . /gt (no closing tag)
  typical attributes include
• src
• width height
• alt
• Border
• Example (note absolute reference)
• ltimg srcwww.astate.edu/asu.gif /gt
• Being replaced by ltobjectgt

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Links

• One of two uses for ltagt tag
• Hyperlinks (href . . . )
• Targets (name . . . ) aka bookmarks
• Standard link example (note target)
• lta hrefsyllabus.htmgradinggtGrading Schemelt/agt
• Use relative references if possible
• syllabus.htmgrading rather than
• clt.astate.edu/mis6753/syllabus.htmgrading

12
Tables

• Traditionally, the primary means of controlling
  where things display on pages
• Tags (table, row, column)
• Each lttablegt lt/tablegt contains lttrgt tags
• Each lttrgt lt/trgt contains lttdgt tags
• Actual cell contents are within the lttdgt lt/tdgt
• All have attributes that can be specified
• Being replaced with stylesheets for controlling
  display formatting
• Easy, if done using WYSIWYG editor

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Table Example

• Two rows by three columns (six total cells)
• lttablegt
• lttrgt
• lttdgt 11
• lttdgt 12
• lttdgt 13
• lt/trgt
• lttrgt
• lttdgt 21
• lttdgt 22
• lttdgt 23
• lt/trgt
• lt/tablegt
• All attributes here are at default values

14
Forms Optional Tags

• Forms -- next week
• More important for what can be accomplished
  strategically
• Technically mostly beyond our scope
• Optional tags can make or break a web site
• Comments
• Meta
• Style
• Script
• More (but not much) info on these next week

15
Editors

• Source code
• Arachnophilia
• HoTMetaL
• NotePad
• MSWord
• WYSIWYG
• Composer
• FP Express
• FrontPage
• DreamWeaver

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Systems Development

• Analysis
• Design
• Construction
• Implementation
• Maintenance

17
Information Systems Components

• Any information system
• People
• Data
• Procedures
• Information technology
• Hardware
• Software
• Networking?

18
eMetrics

• Traditional metrics
• New concepts
• Clickstream
• Stickiness
• Other . . . ?
• Products available

19
Articles (General Comments)

• Cronin
• Delio