Document Representation in Today's Internet Browsers
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Authors
Marcoux, Patricia
Issue Date
2000
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
In the past, the Internet has been used solely as a medium for the
presentation of material. More recently, the usage of the Internet has been expanding to
include many interactive processes such as e-commerce and on-line banking. This new
paradigm of interactive "web applications" has caused a demand for tools that support
interactive media on the Web. Developers cannot use HTML alone to create these
dynamic documents. There are numerous technologies available to produce dynamic
effects on the Internet. Many of these technologies rely on the methods of each browser
to allow access to and internally represent the document. For this reason, developers are
finding themselves bound to browser document models in order to create the dynamic
pages they desire. This produces a large problem for developers trying to create cross-browser
dynamic pages, because these models vary with each browser. For example, in
JavaScript, developers must either create many extra lines of complicated cross-browser
code or create two separate pages for the two major browsers: Internet Explorer and
Netscape Navigator. This problem can be solved with the standardization of object
models between browsers, which is desperately needed for the future of the Internet and
the sanity of developers.
I personally experienced this problem while interning with Neodesic Corporation
in Kalamazoo, Michigan, during the summer of 1999. A full explanation of the problem
of creating cross-browser pages within multiple object models, specific examples taken
from my own work experience, and the future outlook for cross-browser compatibility
follows.
Description
iv, 23 p.
Citation
Publisher
License
U.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written