Here's my ever-growing glossary of web terminology. This list is designed for relatively new web page designers and users. It's alphabetical, so use the letter links immediately below to jump to the section where you want to look. Or just randomly pick one; maybe you'll find something new!

You can send me more terms by email, with or without definitions. I just started this list on 4/6/99, so please be patient while it develops!

Last updated: 4/6/99

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z   0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

B

• browser -- a program that fetches and interprets web pages. Probably you're using Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, but you might have Mosaic, Lynx, etc.
• button -- a box on the screen, usually with a 3-D appearance, that instigates an action (such as submitting a form, starting a search) when clicked. An example button might have the text "Submit" or "Clear form" on it

C

• cgi (Common Gateway Interface) -- this term loosely refers to computer programs that run invisibly on some unknown machine that process some input data and come up with a result. A common example would be a search engine that takes the details you type into a form, and comes back with a web page listing some results. There's alot more to it than that, and other terminology such as cgi-bin, servers, script, etc., but that's good for starters
• click -- the action of pressing the leftmost button (on a right-handed mouse) in order to ... wait a minute, you've gotta know this one already; how else did you get here?

F

• form -- a set of boxes that you fill out. Usually there is a form-clearing button (perhaps called "Clear" or "Reset") and one or more form-submission buttons which will send the form contents to a program somewhere, that tells your browser to display a new web page
• frame -- a browser window can be divided up into multiple frames, horizontally, vertically, or both, as defined by an overall frameset web page. Scrollbars may appear to let you navigate within each frame without disturbing the positions of the other frames

G

• graphic -- picture, animation, even a picture of words (vs. text)

H

• HTML (hyper-text markup language) -- the language in which webpages are written
• http (hyper-text transfer protocol) -- a language for computer communications programs (such as web browsers) that is used to transfer web pages between computers

L

• link -- a reference to another web page, or to another area on the present web page. When it is selected, a web browser will go to the referenced location

S

• scrollbar -- the sliding bar on the right side or bottom of a frame or window. It allows you to scroll up/down or left/right when you click-and-hold on the control and then move your mouse, or you can click on an arrow at one end of the scrollbar to page up/down/left/right.
• search engine -- for the internet, a computer program that looks for web pages which contain data that matches some criteria that you specified on an input form. The specifics of how one works and how you specify your input are described in more detail on my Search Engine page

T

• text -- words (vs. graphics)

U

• URL (Uniform Resource Locator) -- the address or location of a webpage

W

• window -- the area on your screen that the browser controls (or Microsoft Word, or PaintShop, or any application when your computer runs Windows, Macintosh OS, etc. If you are running under DOS or some other text-based operating system ... join the 90's or go away!)

3

• 3-D -- appearing to be three-dimensional, usually by means of what look like highlights and shadows on the top and bottom sides of a box

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