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Glossary
This page is designed to show that reference works can be placed online -- and that they can download relatively quickly. When a section of the Website provides significant detail, links are included, making it also a bit of an index. Links to other sites open a second window; close it to return to this page.
The list of acronyms and initialisms below is designed to save space. Definitions in bold-face are described in the Glossary.
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ADSL
ASCII
bps
BWA
CGI
CSS
DHTML
DLL
DOM
DSL
DTD
DTP
ERP
FAQ
FTP
FTS
GB
Gb
GIF
HAT
HTML
HTTP
HWG
IE
IP
ISO
JPEG
JVM
LAN
MB
Mb
NS
OHJ
O-O
OTS
PDA
PDF
PNG
RGB
RMIUG
RTF
SGML
STC
TCP/IP
URL
W3C
WAN
WRUG
WYSIWYG
XHTML
XML
XSL |
asymmetric digital subscriber line
Amer. Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)
bits per second (bps)
Boulder Writers Alliance
common gateway interface (scripts)
Cascading Style Sheets
Dynamic HTML
dynamic link library (DLL)
document object model
digital subscriber line
document type definition
desktop publishing
enterprise resource planning
frequently asked questions (FAQ)
file transfer protocol
full text search
gigabyte (storage)
gigabit (transmission speed)
graphics interchange format (GIF)
help/HTML authoring tool (HAT)
Hypertext Markup Language
hypertext transfer protocol
HTML Writers Guild
Internet Explorer (IE)
Internet Protocol IP
International Standards Org.
Joint Photographic Experts Group JPEG
Java Virtual Machine
local area network
megabyte (storage)
megabit (transmission speed)
Netscape
Oracle Help for Java
object-oriented
off-the-shelf
personal digital assistant (PDA)
Portable Data Format
portable network graphic
red/green/blue (RGB)
Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group
rich text format (RTF)
Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)
Soc. for Technical Communication
telecommunication protocol /Internet protocolTCP/IP
uniform resource locator(URL)
World Wide Web Consortium
wide area network
Windows on the Rockies UG
what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG)
Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML)
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
extensible style language (XSL) |
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- A - |
- Acrobat
- A suite of programs produced by Adobe that converts word processing and DTP files to its proprietary Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF files display as originally produced on nearly all platforms and are considered online documents; but because they have limited hypertext capability, they are primarily a linear medium. The Acrobat Reader is free and easily downloaded. Several of the documents in the Scribble & Count Archive are in PDF; to view them, the Reader is required.
- Active-X
- Microsoft's combination of (1) HTML-based successor to their legacy DLLs, and (2) entry into the scripting competition. The are commonly called "controls" and carry an .OCX file extension. See also: scripts.
- Alertbox
- The biweekly usability newsletter (wwww.useit.com/alertbox/) published by usability guru Jakob Nielsen. (Nielsen's works are also cited in the Hypertext Resources.)
- appliance
- A scaled-down computing device (such as a palmtop, PDA, or Web TV) which operates below an unspecified minimum of sophistication. The term has not yet been applied to "thin clients" or "Network PCs". For the foreseeable future, it will be very difficult to include appliances in single sourcing plans.
- ASCII
- American Standard Code for Information Interchange, the standard for how the most common Western characters and keyboard commands are coded [Some flavors of Unix are not in compliance with the basic set (0-127), and there is wide diversity between font families with some of the extended set (128-255).] For example, a capital "A" is ASCII 065, the <Tab> character is ASCII 009, and the superscript (tm) is 153 on all ASCII systems; but the ASCII code 204 is variously represented on platforms (and within font families on any given platform). HTML 4.0 (and Unicode) recognize all of the first, and most of the second, 128 codes; the European Opera browser, recognizes all of the codes used by this Website.
This Website has a reference page that lists the ASCII codes for characters often used in Websites, but not normally found on computer keyboards, noting those which HTML does, and does not, support.
- attribute
- A variable permitted within an HTML tag. Different tags allow different attributes; but most permit the CLASS attribute, which is crucial to styles. Only large HTML reference books list all attributes and their permitted values. [Issue 2:4/3:1 (1999) of the Scribble & Count newsletter contains an evaluation of the HTML 4.0 Specification.]
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- B - |
- baud
- An outdated (precompression) term indicating characters transmitted per second, when each 8-bit byte contained one character. With compression, more than one character is transmitted in a bit, so a 28K modem transmits significantly more than 28,000 characters. Because of this, the relationship between baud and amount transmitted was irretrievably broken; and bps (bits per second) replaced the term.
- Berners-Lee, Tim
- The creator of HTML and current head of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). His goal with HTML was to develop a system, compatible with Internet protocol, that he could use to page through long scientific documents while online. His main goal as wagonmaster of Internet's competing interests is to produce standards everyone can live with. Essay #3 ("Development") discusses his successful development of hypertext; Newsletter issues 2:1 and 2:2/2:3 describe various aspects of his frustrating experiences at the W3C.
- Bilgatus of Borg
- Subject of the cover of the March 1996 Boardwatch Magazine. It depicted a younger Bill Gates, in Star Wars drag, with the motto "Resistance is Futile; You Will Be Assimilated." The cover (and resulting T-shirt and poster) have become classics; because the magazine is local and Marci has brought the ex-editor to speak at various events, several Microsoft engineers consider us to be their personal source of the mementos.
- Boulder Writers Alliance (BWA)
- Group of technical (and other) writers based in Boulder, CO. Description is on the Colleagues page. Both Marci and Bill are members and have presented at their meetings.
- bps
- Bits per second, the term that replaced baud as a measurement of telecommunications transmission speed. Dividing by 8 (the number of bits in a character), and dividing again by 5 or 6 (the number of characters in the average word) produces a very rough measure of words/second of standard text; so 44K (which is all a 56K modem can reliably transmit) is approx. 1,000 words per second.
- "Browser-Safe Palette"
- A term coined by Lynda Weinman for the 216 8-bit colors that IE4/Netscape4 could agree on. (See Resources for the URL to her Website; see Cautious Colors for our 140-color palette that also considers further limitations imposed by hand-held PDAs.
- Browser Wars
- The competition between IE and Netscape to control HTML standards. It resulted in poor compliance with W3C specifications and proprietary features the other didn't recognize. At its nadir (circa 1997-98), the browser wars resulted in two incompatible variants that all Websites had to try to satisfy. Newsletter issue 2:2/2:3 reported critically on what this meant to everyone concerned.
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- C - |
- cache
- From the Fr. cacher ("to hide"), but the French often used it to mean prepositioned provisions, and that's the computer meaning. A cache is information so accessible (either in user's RAM or in early sectors on the hard drive) that accessing it is much faster than retrieving it from its usual location (which may even be on a distant server). There are several levels of cache, varying in speed, size, and cost (i.e., as speed goes up, so does cost, and size goes down).
L1: Very fast (c. 2.5 nanosec seek). Often < 64K.
L2: Fast (c. 10 nanosec). Often 1-2 Mb.
L3: Slower, more common, and often configurable.
The legal implications of caching Websites is discussed briefly in Newsletter 1:2 ("TechnoTips").
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
- A list of tags and styles associated with them. HTML 4.0 supports ver. 2 (CSS2), but browser support is haphazard. The S&C Website has been rewritten to use the basics of CSS1 and will be revised as browsers become more compliant. Use of style sheets will eventually replace the inline styles used in previous versions of HTML, and will become absolutely necessary as HTML becomes XML-compliant. The URL for the latest CSS specifications is on the Resources page; and Issue 2:4/3:1 (1999) of the Scribble & Count newsletter contains an evaluation of the CSS2 Specification. S&C offers a document conversion / single sourcing service that uses CSS.
- chunking
- The division of online material into small segments. Screens are hard to read and have limited scope -- so "chunks" have to be small. Creating logical chunks, and assigning object-oriented designators such as classes to them, makes single sourcing much more effective. S&C's document conversion / single sourcing service uses chunking extensively.
- class
- A property of object-oriented constructions, an attribute in HTML 4.0, and an indispensable element of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and HTML's transition to XML. (Classes can be used to correspond to Microsoft's "topic types", a technique very useful in single sourcing.
- color map / color palette
- A selection of colors: either the 256 that are normally displayed in one byte, a larger superset (up to the 17.6 million that can be described in 24-bits), or a customized group. Lynda Weinman has identified 216-color browser-safe palette, and our Cautious Colors page lists the 140 colors supported by IE4, Netscape4, and most hand-held PDAs.
- common gateway interface (CGI)
- A type of script. It has been around for more than a decade -- so it works on all platforms and is supported by most Web servers.
- Contentious
- An eclectic e-zine written by Amy Gahran. The perspective favors content over "fluff" -- and, since Gahran is vociferous and assertive, the title is also a bit of a pun. Contains a highly selected resource list of interest to hypertext authors. URL: www.contentious.com/.
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- D - |
- database mining
- The retrieval and display of selected materials from a database (a directory from a membership database, for example). Scribble & Count has an alliance with a database programmer to provide db mining.
- deprecated feature
- An HTML feature supported by the current standard, but discouraged (normally in anticipation of removing support in the future). Most of 3.2's inline formatting has been deprecated in 4.0.
- DHTML
- Dynamic HTML, W3C's attempt to integrate scripting with HTML for dynamic customization of Web displays. Vital to the success of DHTML is the development and acceptance of ECMAScript, an attempt to standardize JavaScript variants. See also: scripts.
- dithering
- One method of achieving colors beyond the 256 colors that can be defined in a single byte. Dithering mixes pixels from two defined colors in the ratio that best approximates the desired color. Dithering is slow and results vary from browser to browser; so, except in JPEGs, it is best avoided by using Lynda Weinman's Browser-Safe Palette or our own, more conservative Cautious Colors.
- DLL
- Dynamic link library, code used repeatedly by Windows to perform certain functions: sort of macros on steroids. Microsoft is replacing most DLLs with Active-X controls.
- Doc-To-Help
- One of the major WinHelp authoring tools making the transition to HTML. It is described briefly in Newsletter 2:2/2:3. Scribble & Count is proficient in Doc-To-Help and often chooses it for material that will be single sourced or that is primarily linear (for nonlinear WinHelp, we normally choose ForeHelp). Our article on HAT selection in the Archive is now dated, but the description of the differences between the tools is still accurate.
- document type definition (DTD)
- A separate file or the first section of an HTML, XML, or SGML document. It identifies the language version in which the document is written and possibly defines the divisions and tags that will be used. The SGML DTD is very detailed; the XML DTD is less so (in fact, not strictly required). HTML's DTD is extremely brief, and few know it exists.
- domain
- The organization listed to the right of the "@" sign in email, or between the "www" and the "com/org/gov/net/edu/etc" in a URL. Until early this year, Network Solutions had a monopoly on administering the domain name system; now several companies can compete for your Internet identity. Most comprehensible domain names have already been taken, and there will soon be additional extensions (S&C will grab "scribble-count.info" when it comes out).
- Dreamweaver
- The highest-rated WYSIWYG HTML authoring tool for several years in a row, and the one S&C uses for scripting and pixel-accurate placement on the page. (The latest version comes packaged with HomeSite, which has long been S&C's text editor.)
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- E / F / G - |
- ECMA script
- W3C's attempt to standardize JavaScript variants (and to pressure Microsoft to close ranks).
- element
- A generic term designating a portion of the HTML, XML, CSS code or spec. Most equivalent terms have special significance, so "element" is commonly used for generic purposes. [Issue 2:4/3:1 (1999) of the Scribble & Count newsletter contains an evaluation of the HTML 4.0 Specification.]
- event
- A specified instance which triggers a specified action; one of the essences of object-oriented programming and the one which makes the Web dynamic. For example, if text changes appearance when the cursor passes over it, that text contains an object with the event called "MOUSEOVER". If clicking on the text transfers the user somewhere else, it has an event called "ONCLICK".
- FAQ
- Frequently asked question, a popular format for introductory material. Its Internet popularity has spilled over into user guides and other types of documentation. S&C's FAQ page.
- ForeHelp / ForeHTML
- One of the "major" WinHelp HATs, which have made the transition to HTML. ForeHTML is ForeHelp's HTML authoring tool, which supports both Microsoft's HTML Help and its own InterHelp. Our article on HAT selection in the Archive is now dated, but the description of the differences between the tools is still accurate.
- FrontPage
- Microsoft's WYSIWYG HTML authoring tool. It is worse than most HATs in the clutter it leaves behind, and S&C still objects to the extraneous code pre-2000 versions added for the sole purpose of confusing Netscape's browsers. (Note: The Microsoft/Netscape struggle (vintage 1998) was described briefly in Newsletter 2:2/2:3.)
- GIF
- Graphics Interchange Format, a graphics file format compatible with the Internet. It compresses well, and uses only 256 colors. There are two popular variants, GIF87 and GIF89a; only the latter can be made transparent or interlaced. GIFs are used for most graphics; JPEG images are generally used for photographs. (PNG, which has been lurking for several years, but has never caught on, will eventually replace both GIF and JPEG.)
- Greenbrook Technical Communication
- A technical writing business run by Alec Sonenthal. Alec is one of two tech writers who wrote the Doc-To-Help training manuals, is certified in RoboHELP, and founded Help University. (Note: in early 1995, Alec came to Denver expressly to provide S&C partner Bill Sanders with his first WinHelp training.)
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- H - |
- HAT
- Originally, "help authoring tool"; but since HTML also begins with an "H", the acronym is still useful. S&C issued an article several years ago that argued for defining your project first and then choosing the major HAT (Doc-To-Help, ForeHelp, RoboHELP, or HDK) that was appropriate to your project. The advice is still valid, but for HTML authoring tools, the criteria are somewhat different.
- help
- Originally (and primarily) the assistance program provided with most software releases. There are many kinds:
HTML Help. Microsoft's proprietary successor to WinHelp. Both WebHelp and ___ were created partially because HTML Help is proprietary, and particularly because its release has been slow.
HTML-based help. A generic term for several variants which are not as proprietary as HTML Help: InterHelp, JavaHelp, Oracle Help for Java, and WebHelp.
InterHelp. ForeHelp's system that provides features HTML Help has not yet developed.
JavaHelp. Sun's help system that can be used on any platform that supports the Java Virtual Machine.
WebHelp. RoboHelp's system that provides features HTML Help has not yet developed.
WinHelp. The original. WinHelp 4 (32-bit version, used on Windows NT 4 and Windows 95) is the most powerful form hypertext yet devised.
Scribble & Count began writing WinHelp in 1994, and can provide software documentation in the help format of your choice.
- hexadecimal (B16)
- The base-16 numerical notation (F = 16, 10 = 17, 2F = 32, etc.). S&C has provided reference tables decimal numbers to hexadecimal and binary equivalents.
- hexadecimal triple
- A six-character hexadecimal notation (000000 through FFFFFF) indicating a color's red/green/blue composition; it is the most common way to express an RGB color. S&C has provided tables that show the hexadecimal triple notation of 140 8-bit colors that are in the Browser-Safe Palette and are commonly supported by appliances.
- HomeSite
- The top-rated Windows-based HTML text editor for several years in a row, and Scribble & Count's preferred authoring tool; it automates the mundane, but leaves you close enough to the code to see what's happening. It is used in both the Dreamweaver (DTP) and Cold Fusion (database mining) packages.
- HTML
- Hypertext Markup Language. HTML 4 (latest ver.4.02) will be the last HTML release: XHTML 1.0 might be called HTML 4.1. XHTML will continue to evolve, but slowly, with most attention being directed toward XML. [Issue 2:4/3:1 (1999) of the Scribble & Count newsletter contains an evaluation of the HTML 4.0 Specification.]
- HTML Help
- Microsoft's HTML-based help which will eventually replace WinHelp (but not as fast as Microsoft would like). Problems deploying HTML Help have led to the development of InterHelp and WebHelp.
- hypertext / hypermedia
- Traditional text, electronically displayed, with embedded links. Pretty simple really; but printing was once just a letter carved in a block of wood. The term "hypermedia" was coined because the link can be embedded in either text or a graphic, and can lead to text, a graphic, or a sound or video file. (Literally "hypertext" means "super text" -- but it's both a little more and a lot less than that.) Both the newsletter and the essays (all are in the Archive) deal with hypertext extensively.
- Hypertext Forum (CompuServe)
- A CompuServe forum is a combination archive/discussion group/FAQ page/freeware repository. The Hypertext Forum is run by Denver's Dana Cline, owner of Tanstaafl Software. In 1996-97, Bill was a Technical Assistant on the Forum.
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- I - |
- IE
- Internet Explorer. The following releases are important:
IE 3.02: Full-featured and stable, it was the first IE release to truly challenge Netscape. It was so popular that the S&C Website supported it until recently.
IE 4.x: Still the most commonly used browser. This Website supports it.
IE 5: Released in Q2, 1999, to less than rave reviews. Primary criticism: incomplete support for 18-month-old HTML 4.0. Cynics see remnants of the Browser Wars Microsoft promised were over.
Scribble & Count favors limiting the amount of legacy baggage collecting behind the computer revolution; and in this case, correcting the situation involves only a 10-minute free download. Therefore, we have discontinued support for IE 3, except when a client specifically requests it. (The exact revision number of most browsers can be determined from the Help > About... menu selection). S&C also supports Opera 3.5 and Netscape 4. Download instructions for all supported browsers are on the Site Info page.
- Information Power Co. (IPC)
- A small Denver database programming business run by Bill Trowbridge. IPC is described in more detail on our Colleagues page.
- inline styles
- Styles that are defined at the spot where they take effect (and limited to that location only). Inline styles can be separate tags, or the STYLE attribute assigned to another tag. Inline styles are the most specific and take precedence over more general styles. They are deprecated in HTML 4.0 in favor of style sheets.
- InterHelp
-
- ForeHelp's HTML-based help format, promoted because of the slow release of features in HTML Help that WinHelp users had come to expect. See also: RoboHelp's WebHelp.
- interlacing
- Painting graphics on screen by skipping rows (normally every 4th: 1,5,9 then 2,6,10; 3,7,11; and finally 4,8,12). This allows the viewer to see the entire image in poor quality immediately, rather than waiting until the complete image has been downloaded in good quality.
- intranet
- A controlled network based on TCP/IP (i.e., uses Http, Ftp, etc.). The difference between it and the Internet is that of access control; the main difference between it and LANs/WANs is that the latter do not have to be TCP/IP-based. See also: networks.
- IP
- Internet Protocol, one of several protocols used on the 'Net. There are three designations that you might encounter, but only two versions:
IPv4. Approved and implemented in 1993. It contained only 32-bit addressing, and was not capable of handling the millions of requests for ".com" domains during the late '90s. (Note: scribble-count.com, number 28,000+ in early 1994, preceded the problem by several years.) Additionally, its addresses gave no indication of location (either geographical or in relation to network topology); so as the number of hosts proliferated, lookup time increased faster than Moore's Law could accommodate.
IPv6. (IPv5 met resistance and was never implemented.) The v6 standard became official in late 1998, but no one is predicting when it will be adopted. It contains 128-bit addressing; that will permit the entire surface of the planet to be covered with independently addressed palmtops, and still have plenty of slots for PCs in high-rise offices. (So, even though Carnegie-Mellon no longer has the only networked coffeepot, not to worry.) Addresses will also carry indication of approximately where the device is located, shortening lookup time for routers. There will be a long period of overlap when v4 and v6 co-exist -- ask someone more technically astute how that can be.
IPng. IP, next generation. While IPv5 (and later, IPv6) were being developed, the concept of revision was expressed as IPng. IPv6 solved the immediate address problem -- so the drumbeat for change slowed. However, it is too slow for today's transmission requirements -- so expect to hear more about "next generation" in the years to come.
A good overview of the v4-to-v6 transition was written in August 1998 by Brooks Talley (http//archive.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayArchive.pl?/98/34/ipv61.dat.htm); the best resource for v6 is the 6bone Website (http//www.6bone.net).
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- J / K / L - |
- JavaHelp
- Sun's help system that is compatible with any Java Virtual Machine.
- JavaScript
- A scripting language uniquely suited for demands of the Internet; its main relationship to Java programming language is that they are both produced (and marketed! by Sun. The W3C is trying to bring the various competing scripts under the ECMAScript standard.
- Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
- A hypothetical computer that contains all the essences of all computers -- so that if an operating system is compatible with it, the O/S will run anywhere. The JVM is at the core of the primary challenge to Microsoft's O/S hegemony.
- JPEG (or JPG)
- Joint Photographic Experts Group, a graphics file format compatible with the Internet. Because it is already well compressed, it doesn't accept further compression well. It is used for photographs; GIF is used for most other graphics. (PNG, which has been lurking for several years, but has never caught on, will eventually replace both GIF and JPEG.)
- La Querencia
- Scribble & Count's name for the 4-acre campus to which it will move in mid 2001 (see Mountain Relocation). The term is an historical Spanish regionalism from New Mexico; it means, roughly, "the desired place".
- legacy
- No longer the current (or often, even a supported) release. Example: IE5 is the current release of Internet Explorer; IE4 might be considered legacy, IE3 certainly is.)
- lossy / lossless
- The terms refer to the amount of definition loss (which cannot be recovered without going back to the saved original) during graphics compression. In general, the greater the compression, the greater the lost definition; so the tradeoff consists of (1) determining acceptable detail; (2) determining quality of display mechanism; and (3) considering the bandwidth of the download facility.
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- M / N / O - |
- map / mapping
- Basically, a "map" is a lookup table, and "mapping" is adding an entry to that table; but the term is variously used. A color map is a list of colors used (also called a "palette"); mapping in software help is the linking of a help topic to the corresponding portion of the program.
- markup language
- Code that is added to text to describe how that text should be treated (normally displayed). First generation markups included RUNOFF, TROFF, and Bookmaster; SGML (1985) is the predecessor of most current versions. All WYSIWYG word processing and desktop publishing programs use markup, but with the exception of WordPerfect you're rarely allowed to see it.
- Mountain Technology Alliance (MTA)
- Tentative name for the alliance that S&C hopes to establish of small technology firms sprinkled along the I-70 and US 285 corridors west of Denver. We know of several writers, graphics artists, network technicians, online researchers, etc., and we hope to make them known to each other -- and to potential clients.
- Mule Deer Towers
- The name for Scribble & Count's new mountain office. There will be more room for S&C's current equipment, as well as for planned expansion.
- Netscape
- The following releases are important:
Ver 4.x: Vers. 4.05, 4.5, and 4.7 all have two things in common: minimal support for CSS1 and mid-topic jumps; and proprietary features that they have since abandoned. S&C has avoided the proprietary features and has warned about the support issues on its Site Info page. We will discontinue all support for Netscape 4.x as soon as users have had sufficient opportunity to download ver. 6.0.
Ver. 6: Reviews are positive, but S&C has not yet tested it.
S&C also supports Opera 3.5 and IE 4/5. Download instructions for all supported browsers are on the Site Info page.
- networks
- Networks are generally defined in terms of protocol, access, and distance. The following descriptions of major network types should illustrate this:
Internet: TCP/IP protocol, unlimited access (although specified computers, drives, or files may be blocked), unlimited distance.
intranet: Similar to Internet, except limited access.
WAN: Similar to intranet except it is not restricted to TCP/IP protocol.
LAN: Similar to WAN except distance is limited (normally not more than 1-2 miles) and protocol is different.
- Nielsen, Jakob
- The most widely known usability expert (see also: Spool, Jared, another nationally known usability guru). Previously a senior engineer at Sun, now a principal in Useit.com. Publisher of Alertbox newsletter (www.useit.com/alertbox/) and of two recent books (see Bibliography).
- object-oriented
- The direction of modern programming and the essence of the EVENT, CLASS, and ID attributes in HTML.
- Opera
- A European browser more in unfettered compliance with W3C standards than either IE or Netscape; its CSS support, in particular, was early and complete. S&C supports Opera 3.5 and above; download instructions for the latest release are on the Site Info page.
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- P / Q - |
- PDA
- Personal digital assistant. Formatting of the tiny display will make including it in single sourcing process unadvisable for the foreseeable future; however, since individual pieces of content (headings, graphics, etc.) should be reusable, S&C's color chart includes only the 140 colors of the Browser-Safe Palette that are widely supported by PDAs.
- Perl
- One of several scripts widely used on the Web. It is a requirement for effective DHTML.
- pixel
- A term coined from the phrase "picture element". It is the smallest unit of screen display, and it has three significant drawbacks: it is much larger than a printed dot; it is square (rather than round); and it is variable in size. Most screens have between 70 and 100 pixels/inch; printing varies from 150 to 1200+ dots in the same area. Screens will soon have hundreds of pixels per inch; however (1) adoption by users will be slow, (2) pixels will still trail dots, and (3) other usability factors will keep screens behind print in readability.
- Portable Data Format (PDF)
- Adobe's proprietary file format that is produced by the Acrobat suite. If reproduces, nearly exactly and on all platforms, the appearance of the original document. S&C has used PDF for materials in the Archive that wouldn't reproduce in HTML.
- "Power of Click"™
- Scribble & Count's trademarked term for the primary reason behind user's assertiveness when online: the smallest effort on their part can dismiss the most elaborate Website. See our article on "Assertive Users" in the Archive.
- protocol
- A set of telecommunications rules that permit two computers to exchange data. Without protocols, there is no standardization and very little communication. There are many protocols, some of which are compatible with others; Http, for example, is a protocol that permits transfer of hypertext, but because it is also compatible with TCP/IP, it can be used on the Internet. Some of the most important hypertext protocols:
Ftp: File transfer protocol. Before Http it was the primary protocol used on the Internet, and it is still heavily used for large data transfers. Anonymous FTP does not require user identification.
Http: Hypertext transfer protocol, the TCP/IP-compatible protocol used to send hypertext files on the Internet. A requirement for the graphical interface (GUI) of the World Wide Web.
TCP/IP: A combination of two protocols (Telecommunications Protocol, and Internet Protocol), which form the basis of the Internet. All more specialized protocols (such as Ftp and Http, above) must be compatible with it.
Protocols form the basic distinction between most networks; most differences between a WAN and a LAN boil down to the differences in protocol necessitated by the increased distance that WANs must support.
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- R / S - |
- RFC
- Request for Comments, the proposal status of an emerging standard, such as HTML or XML. The letters are often included in the URL of the document while it is still in proposal status.
- RGB
- Red-green-blue, the three colors in most additive schemes and the three colors designated in HTML color definition. They are specified from 0-255 (0-FF in hexadecimal), as in the following example for black: 255,255,255 (FFFFFF). The latter format is also called a hexadecimal triple. The Reference section contains an RGB chart of common colors.
- RoboHELP
- The largest selling WinHelp help authoring tool. S&C can work in RoboHELP, but both owners prefer ForeHelp and Doc-To-Help. Our article on HAT selection in the Archive is now dated, but the description of the differences between the tools is still accurate.
- Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group (RMIUG)
- Diverse Boulder-based group. Excellent speakers, wide variety of members, including Web professionals. www.rmiug.org
- Rocky Mountain Webmasters Guild (RMWG)
- One of two metro-Denver Website professional organizations (see also Web Designers & Developers.) RMWG meets in Denver and is a diverse group, with both senior Web management and student/beginner subsets. RMWG is described on the Colleagues page. www.rmwmg.org
- RTF
- Rich Text Format, the basis for WinHelp. Because RTF is confined to a single platform (Windows), Microsoft was able to develop a more sophisticated help system than was possible using TCP/IP on the Internet.
- scripts
- (Usually) short pieces of code that perform a function: provide an interactive form, for example. Scripts are useful on nearly all Websites, and are absolutely vital to DHTML's dynamic updating features. There are several script types important to HTML/XML or to WinHelp:
Active-X. Actually, this is more (and less) than a script; it is also a replacement for Windows' legacy DLLs.
CGI. Common Gateway Interface, the granddaddy of the scripts, is slowly being replaced by Perl.
ECMA Script. The W3C's attempt at brokering a compromise between Sun's JavaScript and Microsoft's Active-X. (Peacemakers are not always blessed, at least in this lifetime.)
JavaScript. A bit slow, but otherwise the pre-eminent scripting language on the Web. Bears little relationship to the Java Programming language other than it was whelped by the same Sun Marketing midwives. JavaScript is not a language; it must reside inside some container (such as HTML). And it uses very few conventions Java programmers would recognize.
Perl. An all-purpose scripting language slowly replacing legacy CGIs.
- search engines
- Any of a variety of searching mechanisms. The term is so loosely applied that a indexed hierarchy such as Yahoo! is called a search engine, although the only searching that is accomplished is in their own registration database. The important things for decision makers to understand are that (1) there are both general and specific search engines (including OTS software for specific sites),; (2) there are less than a dozen major search engines; (3) none of them indexes more than a fraction of public sites; and (4) they use different techniques and come up with very different results. It is necessary, therefore, to design a Website for several different search criteria, and to monitor the success in finding a specific site in a variety of searches.
- SGML
- The basis for most of the markup languages in use today (HTML, XML, etc.). Made an ISO standard in 1986, but its complexity limits use.
- single sourcing
- Producing versions of a document in more than one medium from a single source, a particularly efficient method but one that is more difficult than it seems. S&C offers a document conversion / single sourcing service.
- Society for Technical Communication (STC)
- The pre-eminent professional society for Tech Writers (like S&C's owners). Description of the Denver metro chapter is in the Colleagues page; materials presented by Bowman and Sanders to various STC conferences are in the Archive.
- splash screen
- A brief, often graphics-rich, screen that precedes the main home page. Slow download times, abuse of a good idea, and increasing impatience by assertive users are combining to reduce the effectiveness of the technique, and S&C rarely uses it.
- styles
- There are four methods of designating styles in HTML. The one normally encountered first in a document is the most general and has the least precedence; the last one is the most specific and over-rides all conflicting styles. In order of normal appearance (and increasing precedence), they are:
- linked style sheets
- imported style sheets
- declarations in the document <head>
- inline styles (both separate tags, and the STYLE attribute).
The latter two are supported but deprecated in HTML 4.0. In the rare event that a conflict in precedence still exists, HTML has a tie-breaker the NFL would envy. This Website uses a minimal style sheet conforming to CSS1; as browser support becomes more widespread, we will expand the style sheet (and reduce inline styles accordingly.)
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- T / U / V - |
- tag
- The basic markup element in HTML. [Issue 2:4/3:1 (1999) of the Scribble & Count newsletter contains an evaluation of the HTML 4.0 Specification.]
- TCP/IP
- A combination of two protocols (Telecommunications Protocol, and Internet Protocol), and the basis of communications on the Internet. They have been overtaken by events; and although no replacements are widely discussed, when broadband becomes a reality, the issue will suddenly become extremely urgent. See also: IP.
- thread
- A browse sequence. Emails or list postings in response to an earlier email or posting are in a thread. Online materials are normally supposed to be short; so if you have broken a long explanation in print into smaller chunks, the chunks that should be read in sequence also make up a thread.
- tidy
- Clean, XHTML-compliant, code without the clutter produced by sloppy coders and authoring tools, encouraged by lax browsers, and tolerated by lenient HTML. The W3C offered the original "Tidy" program on its Website; but most authoring tools now include a tidy utility; Dreamweaver's is explicitly anti-Microsoft.
- topic
- The basic unit of hypertext presentation. It was defined in Apple's HyperCard (1986), and developed in WinHelp. The term has not taken hold in HTML, but the concept has. See also: chunk.
- Unicode
- The cross-cultural schema for representing characters. It recognizes the first 128 ASCII characters and most of its extended set (128-255); then, because Unicode uses two bytes instead of one, has room for 64,000+ more characters (only 21,000 of which are taken by Chinese ideographs, so there is still room for expansion).
For more information, see the Website: www.unicode.org.
- URL / URI
- Uniform resource locator (or identifier). A URL is the Internet address of a "page" of information; the term "URI" has recently been promoted by the W3C because in some case, XML is only identifying, not locating the item. Whether that distinction will have enough force to change a decade-old habit is questionable.
- usability
- The combination of design, content, navigation, and technical issues which determine how useful a Website is for a given purpose (information retrieval, sales, recreation, etc.). The concept arose because of unusable indulgence -- so most adherents are advocates of restraint, some almost to the point of minimalism. Two usability experts frequently cited by Scribble & Count are Jakob Nielsen and Jared Spool; two periodicals advocating usability issues are Alertbox, and Contentious; all are cited in the Bibliography. (See also, the S&C essay on "Assertive Users" in the Archive.)
- valid
- XML code that conforms to its DTD; therefore logically consistent. Compare: well formed.
- value
- The contents of a variable. In HTML, the variable is called an attribute (WIDTH=10); in CSS and XML, it is called a property (color:blue). [Issue 2:4/3:1 (1999) of the Scribble & Count newsletter contains an evaluation of the HTML 4.0 Specification.]
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- W / X / Y / Z - |
- Web Designers & Developers
- One of two metro-Denver Website professional groups (see also Rocky Mountain Webmasters Guild). WebD2 meets in Boulder and emphasizes technical graphics and programming. Description is on the Colleagues page.
- WebHelp
- RoboHelp's HTML-based help format, promoted because of the slow release of features in HTML Help that WinHelp users had come to expect. See also: ForeHelp's InterHelp.
- well formed
- XML code that conforms to XML's grammatical rules. Compare: valid.
- WinHelp
- Windows Help, the help programs originally created by Microsoft for internal documentation of its Windows development process. The idea worked, and WinHelp 3 was released with Windows 3.x. WinHelp 4 (released with Windows NT 4 and 95) still is the most robust hypertext system widely available. It was replaced in Windows 98 by HTML Help.
- World Wide Web Consortium
- The governing body for standards on the Internet. URL: www.w3.org [Both the official "w3" and the intuitive "w3c" are recognized by most browsers.]
- WYSIWYG
- "What-you-see-is-what-you-get", the result you see on a GUI. The middleware in all this is a markup language -- and cross-platform WYSIWYG authoring tools invariably leave clutter. Some (such as Dreamweaver) are very tidy; others (such as FrontPage) are sloppy.
- XHTML
- The W3C has two purposes for XHTML: transition to XML and successor in its own right to HTML (which will not be developed past its current ver. 4.0.) Any document fully compatible with the strict version of 4.0 will be fully (or very close to fully) compatible with XHTML 1.0.
XHTML 1.0 might be considered HTML ver. 4.1 (if such a thing existed); continuing the analogy, XHTML would be equivalent to hypothetical HTML 5.0.
- XML
- Extensible Markup Language, the official successor to HTML. [In fact, one of the major category of changes in HTML 4 consisted of those to make it more closely compatible with XML so that it could be subsumed into XHTML in the mid-range future, and into XML in the long-term future; see S&C newsletter, combined issue 2:4/3:1 (4Q98/1Q99(PDF, 679K).] Like HTML, XML is a subset of SGML.
- XSL
- Extensible Style Language, a requirement for XML because it is only descriptive. As CSS and XSL develop, the migration from the former to the latter will be made easy, if styles are explicitly defined and consistently implemented.
- York Gulch
- The 50-sq. mile area into which S&C will relocate in mid-2001. Details are on the Mountain Relocation pages.
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