A brief history of Web Publishing

By Brian Duffy

wpapplied.com

A history of HTML

• In 1990 there was no easy way to find, download and view documents

• Tim Berners Lee invented a system that would: – store documents in one central place (i.e. a web

server)

– Make it possible to download and view a document with a single click (i.e. a web browser)

– Allow people to find new documents by clicking on “links” inside other documents

Tim Berners Lee

What Tim did

• Tim invented the World Wide Web

– A system for allowing people to browse through web-pages. This includes:

• HTML for creating and linking documents

• Web browsers for viewing documents

– Instead of licensing and selling his idea – Tim made it free for everyone

Problems with HTML

• Difficult to learn– There are a number of tags you have to learn off

• The process of updating content on a website was awkward. You had to:1. Learn HTML

2. connect to your server with FTP

3. download the page you wanted to update

4. edit the page

5. Upload the updated file again via FTP

What HTML looks like

HTML Editors

• HTML Editors provided a WYSIWG interface that generated HTML for you

– WYSIWG: What you see is what you get

– Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver

• HTML editors meant that you no longer had to learn HTML

– Although it still helped as the editors often made mistakes

A HTML Editor

How HTML editors helped

HTML Editors removed one step from the process of updating content on a website

1. Learn HTML

2. connect to your server with FTP

3. download the page you wanted to update

4. edit the HTML

5. Upload the updated file again via FTP

Content Management Systems

• A content management system (CMS) is software that runs on a web server that allows you to easily publish, editing and manage your sites content from a central interface

• Content includes text, graphics, photos, video, audio or anything else that appears on a web page.

How a CMS works

• A CMS integrates with your sites design and allows you to store your content in a database

• CMS removes all but one step from the process of updating content on your site1. Learn HTML

2. connect to your server with FTP

3. download the page you wanted to update

4. edit the page

5. Upload the updated file again via FTP

What a CMS looks like

WordPress

• WordPress is the leading CMS and powers 21% of all sites on the web

– including BBC, Ford, Sony, New York Times

• It’s open-source which means you have full control (unlike SquareSpace, Wix etc). In other words:

– It’s 100% free all the time, for everyone

– If it doesn’t work the exact way you want, then you can change it

– If it breaks then you have the power to fix it