Monday, 18 October 2010

Web Development Methodologies requires the construction of 2 documents prior to anything else been done. These 2 documents are the Requirements Document and the Design Document.

Requirements Document

The requirements document consists of:
  • Purpose - What you want the application to accomplish?
  • Content - What the content will include, what is and isn't needed, identify who are the content experts and produce a content model. Content may include aspects such as jewwellery items, materials, prices, biography on the designs, news and events (for a jewelery website). After this, items are grouped together, images, jewellery items and the prices are one group (jewellery prices), biography on the designer are another group (about us), news, events and trade shows make another group (news) and contact us and shop location make another group contact details).
  • Data and Processing - Identify the entities, identify each entity's attribute, list and sample data/forms and list any queries/processing required.
  • Security Processing - Define an access control policy.

Design Document

The design document consists of:

  • Purpose - Same as stated in the Requirements Document.
  • Site Structure - Develop a site architecture and include a map of the site here, looks a bit like a navigation chart.
  • Data Model - ER Diagrams and a data dictionary.
  • Data Processing - Queries for creating, editing, deleting and accessing data should be here.
  • Navigation - Determine the navigation method or mechanism.
  • User Interface - Wireframes and colour scheme with potential logos of the company.
  • Report Design - Template and design for the reports should be included here.

Client and Server

Server:

  • Web servers are programs.
  • Documents provided by web servers are often complete and static.
  • Some documents are dynamically constructed when requested by programs stored on the server.
  • Apache and IIS are the most commonly used web servers.

Client:

  • Internet Explorer and Mozilla are clients.
  • Client always lives on machine whereas the server doesn't.
  • Documents provided by servers are accessed through a web browser.
  • Very first browsers were text based only (GUI 1993 Mosaic).

Client Side:

  • A class of computer programs on the web that are executed by the browser.
  • Javascript, HTTP are examples.
  • The source code for the document is always visible.
  • Client side allows you to make trivial changes to the page such as roll over effects.
  • These are executed by the browser.

Server Side:

  • These are executed by the web server.
  • Produce HTML output to browser - HTML pages are an example.
  • Usually used to provide interactive websites.
  • The code is never visible to the browser.
  • ASP, ColdFusion, JVP, PHP and Server Side JavaScript are all examples.

Visual Studio

To get started with Visual Studio, I followed these steps:

  • File
  • New
  • Website
  • Select C Sharp
  • ASP.NET Dynamic Data Link to SQL
  • Right Click on the icon at the top of the right hand side of the screen.
  • Select Add New Item
  • Add a Web Form

This will then create the web form that is needed to start placing objects into the document.

  • Change to Design View
  • Load the Design Toolbar (to reset, go to Window then "Reset Window Layout").
  • Once the toolbox is open drag onto the page a Label.
  • Then drag on a button.
  • Double click on the button inserted and enter "Level1.Text = "Hello World";.
  • This will then create an event.
  • Go back to the "Default" tab along the top.
  • Right click anywhere in the document and select "View In Browser".
  • Click on the button and the text should change to "Hello World".