Web Design Common Terminology

Common Terminology

·       Anti-aliasing: In digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution. Anti-aliasing is used in digital photography, computer graphics, digital audio, and many other applications

·       ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange: (computer science) a code for information exchange between computers made by different companies; a string of 7 binary digits represents each character; used in most microcomputers

·       Authoring Software: Refers to software that enables the creation of multimedia or hypertext documents and presentations.

·       AVI: Audio Video Interleave, known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback. An AVI is a sound and motion picture file that conforms to the Microsoft Windows Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) specification. AVI files (which end with an .avi extension) require a special player that may be included with your Web browser.

·       Bandwidth: a data transmission rate; the maximum amount of information (bits/second) that can be transmitted along a channel. In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, digital bandwidth, or network bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bit/s or multiples of it (kbit/s, Mbit/s etc).

·       Batch Processing: the serial execution of computer programs, The authorization of transactions offline when immediate approval is not required. Transactions are collected in a batch and sent as one transmission for authorization and/or settlement. Batch processing is generally used with mail/telephone order transactions.

• FTP: use the file transfer protocol to transfer data from one computer to another; "You can FTP these data"

file transfer protocol: protocol that allows users to copy files between their local system and any system they can reach on the network. The series of rules that govern "uploading" and "downloading" files from a server. These files can not usually be viewed by the browser software, but will be saved to your hard drive to open or translate later. Current browsers integrate FTP into their software, or you may use a stand alone program.

·       Gamut: In colour reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or color gamut , is a certain complete subset of colors. This means every colour combination that is possible to produce with a given set of colourants on a given device or system.

·       GIF: The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.

• Gradient: In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar field is a vector field which points in the direction of the greatest rate of increase of the scalar field, and whose magnitude is the greatest rate of change. a graded change in the magnitude of some physical quantity or dimension.

·       GUI: graphical user interface: a user interface based on graphics (icons and pictures and menus) instead of text; uses a mouse as well as a keyboard as an input device

·       HTML: HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items.

·       Bitmap: In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits.

·       BMP: The BMP file format, sometimes called bitmap or DIB file format (for device-independent bitmap), is an image file format used to store bitmap digital images, especially on Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems.

• Browser: A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content/a viewer who looks around casually without seeking anything in particular /a program used to view HTML documents.
• Cache: In computer science, a cache ( ) is a component that improves performance by transparently storing data such that future requests for that data can be served faster.
• Chroma: The aspect of a colour's hue that depends on the amount of white or black in it; saturation.
• CGI: The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard protocol that defines how webserver software can delegate the generation of webpages to a console application. Such applications are known as CGI scripts; they can be written in any programming language, although scripting languages are often used.
• CYMK: The CMYK color model (process color, four color) is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the four inks used in some color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key black.
• Hyperlink: a link from a hypertext file to another location or file; typically activated by clicking on a highlighted word or icon at a particular location on the screen. In computing, a hyperlink (or link) is a reference to a document that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. The reference points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks.
• Hypermedia: Hypermedia is used as a logical extension of the term hypertext in which graphics, audio, video, plain text and hyperlinks intertwine to create a generally non-linear medium of information. The use of text, data, graphics, audio and video as elements of an extended hypertext system in which all elements are linked so that the user can move between them at will.

• Interface: a program that controls a display for the user (usually on a computer monitor) and that allows the user to interact with the system.
• Java: Java refers to a number of proprietary computer software products and specifications from Sun Microsystems, a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation, that together provide a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform environment. a platform-independent object-oriented programming language.
• Javascript: JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language used to enable programmatic access to objects within both the client application and other applications. 
• JPEG: In computing, JPEG (, ) (named after the Joint Photographic Experts Group who created the standard) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for photographic images. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. 
• Jquery: Jquery is a lightweight cross-browser JavaScript library that emphasizes interaction between JavaScript and HTML. It was released in January 2006 at BarCamp NYC by John Resig. Used by over 27% of the 10,000 most visited websites, jQuery is the most popular JavaScript library in use today. JQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript library which simplifies the creation of animations, communications to server requests, document transversing and event handling .
• Codec: A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau (a blending of two or more words) of 'compressor-decompressor' or, more commonly, 'coder-decoder'.
• CSS: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (that is, the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language.
• Database: A database is a collection of data for one or more multiple uses. One way of classifying databases involves the type of content, for example: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, image. Other classification methods start from examining database models or database architectures.A collection of (usually) organized information in a regular structure, usually but not necessarily in a machine-readable format accessible by a computer; A software program for storing, retrieving and manipulating a database(1); A combination of (1) and (2) .
• Data Compression: In computer science and information theory, data compression or source coding is the process of encoding information using fewer bits (or other information-bearing units) than an unencoded representation would use, through use of specific encoding schemes.
• Dithering: the process of representing intermediate colors by patterns of tiny colored dots that simulate the desired color .Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as "banding" (stepwise rendering of smooth gradations in brightness or hue) in images, or noise at discrete frequencies in an audio recording, that are more objectionable.
• DPI: dots per inch . Resolution that varies across media. For print, image files are optimized at 300 DPI. For the Web (GIF and JPEG file formats), files are optimized at 72 DPI, the number of pixels across one inch of most monitors .
• Flatten (image): lower the pitch of (musical notes) .  
• LAN: A local area network (LAN) is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport. 
• Leading: In typography, leading (, rhymes with heading) refers to the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of type.
• Marquee: The marquee tag is a non-standard HTML element which causes text to scroll up, down, left or right automatically.
• Metadata: Metadata (meta data, meta-data, or sometimes metainformation) is “data about data.” The use of metadata is an emerging practice with close ties to information management, information science, information technology, librarianship and GIS.
• MPEG: A computer file (as of a movie) in an MPEG format; Moving Pictures Experts Group; Any of a group of computer file formats for the compression and storage of digital video and audio data .
• Multimedia: transmission that combine media of communication (text and graphics and sound etc.)
• MySQL: Pronounced “my ess cue el”, MySQL is an open source relational database management system. It is largely SQL-compliant and runs on a wide variety of operating systems. MySQL forms one of the bases for the popular LAMP server configuration, Linux Apache MySQL PHP/Perl/Python.
• Peripheral: A peripheral is a device attached to a host computer but not part of it whose primary functionality is dependent upon the host, and can therefore be considered as expanding the host's capabilities, while not forming part of the system's core architecture.
• PICT: PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics (both bitmapped and vector), and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.
• Pixel: In digital imaging, a pixel (or picture element) is a single point in a raster image. The pixel is the smallest addressable screen element, it is the smallest unit of picture which can be controlled. Each pixel has its own address. The address of a pixel corresponds to its coordinates.
• PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (the name is a recursive acronym) is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages.
• PNG: Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to improve upon and replace GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) as an image-file format not requiring a patent license. It is or spelled out as P-N-G.
• Opacity: Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, shielding material, glass, etc.
• PDF: Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system.Adobe Systems Incorporated.
• Resolution: the number of pixels per square inch on a computer-generated display; the greater the resolution, the better the picture.
• RGB: The RGB color model is an additive color model in which red, green, and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue.
• Saturation: In colorimetry and color theory, colorfulness, chroma, and saturation are related but distinct concepts referring to the perceived intensity of a specific color. Colorfulness is the difference between a color against gray.
• Thumbnail: Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words.
• Transparency: In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through a material; translucency (also called translucence or translucidity) only allows light to pass through diffusely. The opposite property is opacity.
• PPI: Pixels per inch is part of how you would define the resolution of an object that is screen-based. Some use DPI and PPI interchangeably, though this is technically incorrect.
• Primary Colours: In printing - yellow, magenta and cyan (subtractive primaries). In light - red, green and blue (additive primaries).
• PSD: Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation software, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems.
• Quality control: Quality control is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production.
• Raster Image: In computer graphics, a raster graphics image or bitmap is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium.
• XHTML:  (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely used Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the language in which web pages are written.
• UI: User Interface. It is the graphic design and appearance of a website, its function as seen and used by the person on the user end, at the website in a browser. The UI of a website is ultimately how it lets users know what it has to offer them.
• URL: the address of a web page on the world wide web. n computing, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a subset of the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that specifies where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it.
• Value (colour): fix or determine the value of; assign a value to, RGB and Hexadecimal Color Codes

Colors are made up of 3 sets of RGB numbers representing the amount of Red, Green and Blue contained within a color. These colors are represented as hexadecimal values.

For example, the hexadecimal numbers for black is #000000. The first two numbers (00) represent the amount of red the color contains. The second two numbers (00) represent the amount of green and the last two numbers (00) represent the amount of blue the color contains. When a color, such as black, contains 00 amount of red, green or blue, this means it contains no amount of that color or 0%.

However, colors containing RGB values of FF contain the most amount of a color or 100%. For example, the hexadecimal value for white is #FFFFFF, which means it contains the most amount of red, green and blue.

The hexadecimal numbers for red are FF0000. To help you to understand this a little bit better, if we break down the hexadecimal numbers, we will find that the color red contains FF amount of red, which is the highest amount. It contains 00 amount of green and 00 amount of blue, both of which are the lowest. 

Vector: What is the difference between vector and bitmap images

A vector image uses geometrical formulas to represent images. The other way of representing graphical images is through bit-maps in which the image is made up of a pattern of dots (note that bit-maps are often referred to as raster graphics). Programs that allow you to create and manipulate vector graphics are called draw programs and programs that manipulate bit-map images are called paint programs.

Vector graphics are more flexible than bit-maps because they can be easily re-sized. In addition, images stored as vectors look better when displayed on high resolution printers and monitors. Bit-map images look the same, regardless of the resolution of the display. Another advantage of a vector graphic is that they often require less memory than bit-maps do.

Note that most output devices including dot matrix printers, laser printers and display monitors are raster devices (wide format printers being the exception). This means that all objects, even vector graphics, must be translated into bit-maps (or rasterised) before being output.

Vector graphics do not need to be translated in to bit-maps until the last possible minute, after all sizes and resolutions have been specified.

• A vector in computing, specifically when talking about malicious code such as viruses or worms, is the method that this code uses to propagate itself or infect the computer and this sense is similar to, and derived from, its meaning in biology.
• WYSIWYG: is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed during editing appears very similar to the final output, which might be a printed document, web page, slide presentation or even the lighting for a theatrical. 
• XML: Extensible Markup Language; a flexible text format for creating structured computer documents.