1.3. Types of websites
Basing the classification on the technologies used while
building the websites and the interaction with the user, we can have the
following types of websites:
· Static website
A static website is made up exclusively of website files
stored on a server and sent directly to the client browser to enable the
display of pages. Updating a static site is performed by the addition of HTML
files in the storage site. There is no back office. The daily management of
such a site can quickly become laborious: To add a link to a new page, add this
link to all existing pages and therefore modify each file one by one. This is
made easier by specialized software, but it is tedious.
Primarily a static site is coded in Hypertext Mark-up Language
(HTML). Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used to control appearance beyond
basic HTML. Images are commonly used to affect the desired appearance and as
share of the main content.
This kind of website usually displays the same information to
all visitors. Similar to handing out a printed brochure to customers or
clients, a static website generally will provide consistent, standard
information for an extended period of time. Although the website owner may make
updates periodically, it is a manual process to edit the text, photos and other
happy and May require basic website design skills and software. Simple forms or
marketing examples of websites, Such As classic website, a five-page website or
a brochure website are often static websites, because they present pre-defined,
static information to the user. This may include information about a company
and its products and services through text, photos, animations, audio / video,
and navigation menus.
Static websites can be created of edited using the following
categories of software:
- Text editors, such as Notepad or Text Edit, where HTML codes
are manipulated directly from the program editor
- A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) offline editor,
such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver with which the site is edited
using a GUI (Graphical User Interface) and the final HTML codes is generated by
the editor software automatically.
- WYSIWYG online editors, used to create rich media online
presentation like web pages, widgets, blogs, and other documents.
- Template-based editors, such as Rapid Weaver, which allow
users to create and upload quickly web pages to a web server without detailed
HTML knowledge, as they pick a suitable template from a pallet and add pictures
and text to it in a desktop publishing fashion without directly handling of
HTML code.
Static websites may still use Server Side Includes (SSI) as an
editing convenience, such as sharing a common bar across many pages menu. As
the website's behaviour to the reader is still static, this is not considered a
dynamic site.
· Dynamic website
A dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself
frequently and automatically, here, clients can interact with each other and
with the application, the information is automatically updates and sometime
those website offer an administration space.
Server-side dynamic pages are generated "on the fly" by
computer code that produces the HTML and CSS. There are a wide range of
software systems, such as CGI, Java Servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP),
Active Server Pages and ColdFusion that are available to generate dynamic web
systems and dynamic sites. Various web application frameworks and web template
systems are available for general-use programming languages like PHP, Java-EE,
Perl, Python, and Ruby, to make it faster and easier to create complex dynamic
web sites. But amongst all those languages PHP is the most used and belong to
the ten most used programming languages in the world with Java.
When interviewing a website, a server sends an HTML/CSS code
for your browser displays the web page you request. To build the HTML/CSS code,
the server can use two methods:
- It only reads files present on a hard drive (this is called
static site)
- It builds the code from a model (static part) and data
stored on a database (the dynamic part)
· Benefits of dynamic websites
- Ease of Use: Dynamic websites are more frequently used.
Indeed, they allow users, for example through the use of CMS, to easily add to
and edit a website without having to intervene directly in the source code for
it.
- Construction of elaborate web sites: Thanks to the use of a
database, it is possible to produce pages that can adapt to the user request,
which may otherwise also contribute content. One can for example propose
research with custom criteria, or the opportunity to comment on a page.
· Disadvantages of dynamic websites
- Slower than a static site:
The main disadvantage of a dynamic site is that it is slower
than a static site. Indeed, it must go through an intermediate step of querying
the database, wait for data and send them to the user after compilation.
- Server Resource Consumption
For the same reasons, dynamic websites require more resources
to operate machine. This is what drives some organizations to turn to static
sites like Jekyll systems.
- Greater complexity
Dynamic web sites might be more convenient to use for users,
they are nevertheless much more complex computer systems perspective. A static
site requires zero maintenance and is easy to install, but a dynamic website
should be regularly updated to work and requires more complex starting
configurations (eg for the connection with the database). A dynamic site also
requires additional resources to operate (PHP).
- Less Security
Of course, from the moment it is possible to connect to a site
management system (back office) and where there is connection to a database,
the security holes are more than a static site. We must therefore ensure the
integration of security aspects in the design of a dynamic website, including
and especially when using a CMS like WordPress or Joomla market.
· Full flash website
Flash is a vector animation system developed by Adobe editor.
To play a flash animation, a plug-in (Flash Player for example) must be
installed on your browser. The full flash websites have only one web page
index.html. Calling this page from the server causes the page to load a flash
file like "animation.swf". Thus the index.html page contains a link to the
animation file that contains all the animations of the site. So the full flash
websites may have the following characteristics:
- They create vector animations of great quality;
- They offer the ability to create interactive applications by
using action script
- This technology is still the preferred way to add video
content on sites
- There are no compatibility issues when that flash technology
is installed on the browser
- By creating a flash animation, it is ensured that the design
will remain the same from one computer to another or from one browser to
another.
Note that flash animations are already used on many website
but partially like on YouTube where it is used to display video content.
· Site 2.0 with AJAX
This category of web site is based on the AJAX architecture
(Asynchronous JavaScript and XML).
In a web application, the conventional method of dialogue
between a browser and a server is as follows: at each manipulation made by the
user, the browser sends a request containing a reference to a web page and the
web server performs calculations and sends the result as a web page to the
browser. This will display the page he has just received. Each manipulation
results in the transmission and display a new page. The user must wait for the
answer to perform other manipulations.
Using Ajax, the dialogue between the browser and the server
takes place mostly in the following way: a program written in JavaScript
programming language, embedded in a web page, is executed by the browser. It
sends in the background requests to the Web server, and then changes the
content of the page currently displayed by the web browser based on the result
received from the server, thus avoiding the transmission and display of a
complete new page.
Instead, the operation of Ajax programming requires JavaScript
exchanges between the browser and the Web server. It also requires you to
program the changes to make in the Web page to receive responses; otherwise the
dialogues are unknown to the user.
Ajax requests are made asynchronously: the Web browser
continues to run JavaScript program while the application is part he does not
expect the response sent by the web server and the user can continue to perform
manipulations during this time.
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