218 Understanding Web Applications
Common uses for web applications
Web applications have many uses for both site visitors and developers,
including the following:
■
Let visitors find information quickly and easily on a content-rich
website.
This kind of web application gives visitors the ability to search,
organize, and navigate content as they see fit. Examples include
company intranets, Microsoft MSDN (
www.msdn.microsoft.com
),
and Amazon.com (
www.amazon.com
).
■
Collect, save, and analyze data provided by site visitors.
In the past, data entered in HTML forms was sent as e-mail messages
to employees or CGI applications for processing. A web application can
save form data directly into a database and also extract the data and
create web-based reports for analysis. Examples include online banking
pages, store check-out pages, surveys, and user-feedback forms.
■
Update websites that have constantly changing content.
A web application frees the web designer from continually updating the
site’s HTML. Content providers such as news editors provide the web
application with content, and the web application updates the site
automatically. Examples include the Economist (
www.economist.com
)
and CNN (
www.cnn.com
).
Web application example
Janet is a professional web designer and longtime Dreamweaver user
responsible for maintaining the intranet and Internet sites of a medium-
sized company of 1000 employees. One day, Chris from Human Resources
comes to her with a problem. HR administers an employee fitness program
that gives employees points for every mile walked, biked, or run. Each
employee must report his or her monthly mile totals in an e-mail to Chris.
At the end of the month, Chris gathers all the e-mail messages and awards
employees small cash prizes according to their point totals.
Chris’s problem is that the fitness program has grown too successful. So
many employees now participate that Chris is inundated with e-mails at
the end of each month. Chris asks Janet if a web-based solution exists.
Summary of Contents for DREAMWEAVER 8-GETTING STARTED WITH...
Page 1: ...Getting Started with Dreamweaver...
Page 8: ...8 Contents...
Page 10: ......
Page 46: ...46 Dreamweaver Basics...
Page 48: ......
Page 128: ...128 Tutorial Formatting Your Page with CSS...
Page 136: ...136 Tutorial Publishing Your Site...
Page 138: ......
Page 189: ...Add a Repeat Region XSLT object 189 3 Select Insert XSLT Objects Repeat Region...
Page 196: ...196 Tutorial Displaying XML Data...
Page 216: ......
Page 230: ...230 Understanding Web Applications...
Page 236: ...236 Installing a Web Server...
Page 254: ...254 Setup for Sample ColdFusion Site...
Page 268: ...268 Setup for Sample ASP NET Site...
Page 284: ...284 Setup for Sample ASP Site...
Page 300: ...300 Setup for Sample JSP Site...
Page 320: ...320 Setup for Sample PHP Site...