Behind the Website
As a web developer, my duty is to convert the design into a real website. Sometimes I consider myself as a magician, but most of the time, I consider myself as a construction worker. I believe that most people are using websites every day during their daily life. Some use the website for jobs, some use it for studying, some use it for fun, and so on. Websites are now the main source where people can earn their knowledge from, but what is behind a website? Is it just some pictures and text combining together into a webpage? The answer is no.
The Construction Part.
There are three essential elements to build a website which are: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. HTML is the structure of a webpage, for example, to build a building, we need to build the foundation first, and then all of the other rooms like the kitchen, bedrooms, and living room. So HTML is how the content’s going to display on a webpage. CSS (Cascade Style Sheets) is the decoration of the HTML to make the webpage look pretty. Finally, the JavaScript is to make the webpage functional - much like pipes and electrical work. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are connected to each other, using them together we can construct a functional and beautiful webpage.
The Magical Part.
We now know the fundamental elements of building a website, but we can also use them to make some magical animation to impress the user. In the image below, the header in the middle of the screen fades up as the user first comes to the website. This is called fade up animation since it slows rise and becomes visible from bottom to top. The way to build it is first we need to use HTML to set up the structure of the text, then we need to style it like what is shown on the image, and finally, we will use JavaScript to set animation transition time to make the animation happen for a certain time instead of infinity. Animation on the web page is a big eye-catching element to help the website stand out to the user, and make the webpage more attractive, interesting and active than a static site.
In conclusion, now you know what is behind the website. Whenever you visit a webpage, it is not only a page with text and images, it also has tons of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to make everything look the way you see it. However, those are just basic elements to build a website, there is more programming language to bring the website up to next level like PHP, Python, and so on.
What questions do you have in building out a website? Contact us today to find out how we can help you.