Traditional web pages coded, or more accurately marked up, entirely with HTML are static in nature. Navigation is through hyper-text linking to other static pages. By introducing an active interface that allows page content (text, images, form fields, sound files, etc.) to change in response to user input, selection, or other conditional options, we produce a dynamic process with varying results.
We can create this type of web page interactivity in two specific ways:
- With a client-side scripting language like JavaScipt, or ActionScript, to change the way the page behaves within a range of possible outcomes. These varying outcomes are in response to pre-defined mouse or keyboard actions or at specified timed intervals. In this case the dynamic response takes place within the web browser page presentation itself.
- Using server-side scripting like ASP, or PHP, the actual documemt source code supplied to the browser changes in response to mouse or keyboard input or to timed events. Additionally, such conditions as data in a posted HTML form, parameters supplied with the URL, the passage of time, a database or server state, or even detecting the type of browser being used, can be included in the dynamic processing mechanism.
The result of either of these instances is a dynamic web page. One, or the other, or even both, of these techniques may be used simultaneously in a single page.