Web Development Tools, Planning, and Legal Considerations

Posted on Dec 16, 2024 in Computers

Web Development Tools

For basic web pages, a lot of resources are not required. A text editor and a browser to check the result are enough. Moreover, these two tools are included in most operating systems by default.

Types of Text Editors

Text editors allow developers to write and edit digital files consisting of plain text.

  • Simple: Notepad
  • Dedicated to the creation of websites: These incorporate some useful features for developers, such as highlighting keywords, a list of labels, and automatic insertion of instructions.
  • WYSIWYG Applications: What You See Is What You Get. These are specialized programs that work in graphic form. The developer works directly with the web page elements, such as menus, pictures, and controls. The program is responsible for translating our actions into code. Examples include Dreamweaver and FrontPage.

The choice between a simple text editor or a WYSIWYG application depends on the developer. Ideally, one should know the code being inserted and take advantage of the development environment.

Advantages and Disadvantages

  • Ease of learning: Development environments are easier to learn.
  • Code construction: Text editors offer advantages in terms of code efficiency and cleanliness.
  • Convenience: Development environments save time by automatically generating code.
  • Mastery of the art: Text editors are better for learning and mastering the programming language.

Work Planning

It is important to decide on the site’s topic, the types of content it will have, and how the elements will be distributed. Once the content is decided, a sketch should be made indicating the elements to be included. This could be a design or an inspired design.

Advantages of Creating Sketches

  • Enumeration of elements: Text, images, logos, etc.
  • Enumeration of tools: Animation, images.
  • Roadmap: A guide to the steps in the development of the website.

Organizing Work

Once the material is collected, it is necessary to organize it adequately:

  • Images in their own folder
  • Animations in their own folder

Naming Files

Care should be taken in naming files to prevent disruption. Follow these guidelines:

  • Avoid the use of special characters: accents, cedillas, ñ, periods, spaces, etc.
  • Use lowercase letters, as there is often a distinction between uppercase and lowercase.
  • Name the default homepage “index”.

Organize the files to avoid issues with elements not loading. Verify that all references are correct. Create a root folder where you place an index file and several folders organized by type. Pay attention to how you indicate the path or route, as it can be absolute (full address) or relative (address from a base).

Laws and Regulations

It is not possible to include any element on a web page from a legal point of view. There is sensitive data that makes particular reference to the intellectual property of the elements. The creation draws an author who owns the intellectual work. This implies that any element on the internet, from web design to a picture or text, is copyrighted. To use an object, you need permission, to give a reference, or to ensure that it has been granted in advance by a GNU GPL license. Not only what can be considered as a creation is protected by law. Information regarded as sensitive, such as ideologies, sexuality, and political affiliation, is also protected.

Data Protection Laws

Introduction

Each country has a different culture and government. What is normal in some countries may be a crime in others. The basic ideas developed in this chapter are in accordance with the rules applicable to Spain and the EU.

Intellectual Property Concepts

This is a special property under the law. The right to your work is known as copyright.

Legal Regulations on Disclosure

There is a huge amount of information and material available on other websites that can be easily included in our portal. Anyone can create a portal that has the same features or functions as other portals. However, what cannot be done is to create a portal with features similar to Google and call it Google. The law allows free use of information content that is in the public domain, and permission is not needed.

  • Documents and reviews issued by public authorities
  • Permanent state parks, streets, squares, etc.

Inclusion of Work Fragments

Is it possible to include fragments of works (text, audio, visual) on our website?

  • It must be done by way of quotation or for analysis for research and educational purposes.
  • Its use must be justified.
  • The source and author’s name must be indicated.

Public Documents Issued by State Powers

Due to the nature of the body that issues these documents, they are considered not subject to intellectual property. A law or a sentence may be used freely by anyone.

Advertising

All advertising included in an information portal may have a contractual nature, so it should be clear whether it is an advertisement or self-promotion.

Responsibilities – Treatment of Personal Data

Personal data is that which can identify a person directly or indirectly. Legislation protects honor and privacy. Data may not be given to third parties without the consent of the data owners.

Hyperlinks

In general, normal links that simply jump to another site are considered lawful if they do not claim ownership of the linked page.

Web Page Performance

Web browsers: Depending on the version, they may have different functions.

Screen resolution: This is the number of pixels (the unit in which a digital image is decomposed). The norm is…

Web servers and personal computers: Performance is especially noticeable in the execution of server-side code, such as JavaScript and applets.

Page weight: The speed at which data is transmitted affects the time it takes to receive the information. The more data, the longer the receipt time.

Tips

  • Do not embed objects in the website, but do so via a link.
  • Add photos at low resolution.

Implementation

Appearance is increasingly valued, partly due to the increased power of today’s computers.

Graphics and Multimedia Elements

There are many image formats, but not all are suitable for use on the web.

  • JPEG: Able to represent more than 16 million colors, it is actually a compressed format (not visible).
  • GIF: Used for the representation of line art (logos, pictures). It is a lossless compression format that supports up to 256 colors. It is often used on the web to include dynamic content.
  • TIFF: Adopts characteristics of JPG and GIF. It does not lose information when saved and is usually the format used in printing.
  • PNG: Improves the performance of the GIF format (except it does not support animation).

The weight of an image plays an important factor in the performance of a web page (dpi: dots per inch).

Techniques Used

  • Use miniature images.
  • Limit the ability to maximize images to a maximum size of 600×800.

Sounds and videos tend to be more problematic than images due to their weight and extensions.

  • Heavy file sizes
  • Video: Many images
  • Audio: MP3
  • Data compression: It is necessary to use codecs (a supplement that allows the compression and decompression of audio and video files).
  • File format: Some formats have streaming functionality, which allows real-time transmission of moving images and sound. The user does not need to download the file completely. This is ideal for the web.

Tips

On websites, it is common to indicate the reference to heavy objects (images, sound, and video) at the end of the code.