Understanding DHTML Applications
topic What is DHTML?
issue I've been hearing about DHTML. What is it?

DHTML stands for dynamic hypertext markup language. The standard hypertext markup language, HTML, is basically a tag-based formatting language used frequently on Web pages. It allows you to specify the style and content of a Web page using simple tags. For example:

<p><font size="3">We have also found some DHTML features that don't seem to work correctly: </font></p>

The <p> at the beginning defines the start of a paragraph. The</p> defines the end of the paragraph.

Dynamic HTML allows for changing of the Web page style and/or content on the client side without going to the Web server. This is possible because of the DHTML object model, which exposes the different styles and page contents.

topic What is a DHTML Application?
issue Is DHTML and a DHTML application the same thing?

This one depends on your point of view. From the Visual Basic point of view, a DHTML application is a specific type of application you can build with Visual Basic. It combines the dynamic content of a Web page with Visual Basic style coding. So you can build HTML pages with a HTML page tool (such as FrontPage or the VB DHTML designer) and then write Visual Basic code to respond to browser events, such as a mouse move over a text string or the user selecting a button.

Topic Common HTML Tags and Their Meanings
issue The VB documentation implies that I can use the DHTML application feature to build Web pages by using my VB knowledge? Does that mean I don't need to learn HTML?

In order to do anything really dynamic with DHTML applications you need to be able to add, modify, and delete HTML tags from the HTML pages. Some of the more common HTML tags that you will need to know are defined below.

<font size="1"></font> Font attributes
<p></p> Paragraph
topic Funky things with DHTML Applications
issue Some of these DHTML Application features don't seem to work quite right. Am I doing something wrong?

We have also found some DHTML features that don't seem to work correctly:

If you know of a workaround to these things, please let us know.

All contents © 2004 InStep Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.