What is RDF? - Web Design Article

By:Jim Pretin

Remember when the internet consisted of nothing more than a few simple web sites formatted in basic HTML? Web design was so easy. You could just slap some text into a file, insert some HTML tags into the document to tell the web browser how the text should appear and what the structure of the page should be, and presto, the job was finished.

As time went on, web design got harder. Businesses that depended upon their internet storefronts to make a living began to present web designers with impossible projects that were too difficult to complete with HTML. The data being used and the designs that were being implemented for websites required more versatile programming specifications.

Another factor that turned site design into a quandary was the advent of the wireless revolution. Wireless devices often have web browsers that work very differently from the ones installed on an ordinary desktop PC. Many of these browsers are not fully compatible with many elements of the HTML programming language. As a result, people surfing the net on their wireless gadgets can not view many websites that are created using only HTML.

To solve the dilemma, languages and specifications that could be adapted across any platform were created. The most important new language introduced was XML. XML was a language that defined data without telling the web browser how to display it, as opposed to HTML, which forced data to be displayed a certain way. This enabled data to be viewed on virtually any system because an XML file was a simple text file that could be understood and displayed on any browser.

Now that you understand how and why web design has changed, you are now ready for a brief introduction to the main topic of this article, RDF (Resource Description Framework). RDF was created to provide a way for information to be read and interpreted across all computers. It is written in XML, which, as previously stated, has cross-platform compatibility.

The Resource Definition Framework is a lot like the meta tags that are used to describe an HTML page. RDF uses tags such as description, author, and homepage to define the web page. It starts with an XML namespace to define the page as belonging to the Resource Definition Framework, and then defines a number of different elements to describe the page.

In an RDF document, the description is the main tag and is referred to as a resource; a resource is the term used to describe any element in the document that can have a URL. At the next level are properties, which are any resource that has a name, such as author or homepage. Each property has a value; the name of the author would be the property value of the author resource, and the web address would be the property value of the homepage resource.

So, RDF is basically the equivalent of HTML metadata. It enables the web designer to set forth the description, keywords, and URL of a certain webpage using the XML language, which can be understood by any web browser because. But, unlike HTML metadata, the Resource Definition Framework encompasses much more; it can used to define lists, sequences, groups of data, and more.

It is absolutely necessary for all web designers to learn to make use of RDF, as it has already been officially adopted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as a programming standard. Now that XML has been accepted as the standard for describing and defining data, not being able to use all facets of XML programming, such as RDF, means that the web sites you create will be considered substandard. If you have never used it before, I recommend you enroll in some courses at a local college or computer programming institute to bring you up to date. If you are already experienced in web design, learning these new languages and specifications is not too hard because the syntax is fairly simple to master if you have a good teacher.

Digg del.icio.us Blink Stumble Spurl Reddit Netscape Furl

Article keywords: RDF, Resource Definition Framework

Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.

Top Web Design Articles
1). Advanced Joomla Templating (pt1) Using Module Class Suffix By : Robert Palmer an article from User Written Resources 1. duplicate the styles already used for the particular module, adding a suffix to each style name. this will definitely include some of the following; 1. .module {} 2. div.moduletable {} 3. div.moduletable h3 {} 4. table.moduletable {}/li> 5. table.moduletable th 6. table.moduletable td and can include other styles used on the content in that section, such as; 1.
2). Irish Graphic Design Industry By : dave4 Graphic design is the use of color, light, balance, contrast, emphasis, proportion, proximity, repetition, texture and a plethora of other elements to create a work of digital art that is pleasing to the eye. Graphic design is about seamlessly molding image and text to convey a theme, message, or often advertise a product or service. Graphic design dates back to prehistoric times.
3). Adsense: The Smart Investment By : Pat Lovell & Jon Atwood Over the last 2 years, We have been building a Virtual Adsense Empire of over 500 websites and making some good money. We've also been building content sites for clients using the same system. The system we use is not something that produces 1000's of sites with a click of a button, our system does not build spam websites, nor does it produce the same sites you see over and over and over again.
4). Some guidelines for Website Design By : Angela Oliver You have a great product. You also have a great company image and marketing model. Now it is time to implement all your plans and bring together a website. You know very little about websites. Finding websites that have failed is easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Many people come into the internet business with the notion that if they are on the web, they are guaranteed to make money.
5). Does Your Web Design Include Background Music? By : Mark Nenadic When you design your website, you may wonder whether or not you should include background music in your web design. The answer to this requires you to ask two additional questions:
6). Develop Your Business Web Site for Profits By : Jay Peterson Looking into developing your business web site? Whether creating a business web site to sell your business products online or just to give the public valuable information, creating a business web site can be an important first step to creating an important presence on the web. Here are some tips on creating a business web site as well as what is involved in getting your business web site off the ground.
7). Is your printing costs sky rocketing? By : Florie Lyn Masarate Here are some things you can do to be able to lower your printing costs. 1. Cheap but good quality printer. There was a time when only a handful of people can afford having one of those colored and digital printers. Now that these things are more rampant, they have become more affordable. Color printers of good quality are even inexpensive already.
8). Creating A Quality Web Site Design! By : Martin Lemieux In this article, I will attempt to cover the basics of creating a great quality web design template for your site. Now it's a known fact that the layout or "eye candy" as I put it will determine whether your visitors will stay more than 15 seconds or they will just become another statistic. In this article, I will attempt to cover the basics of creating a great quality web design template for your site.
9). How Does Your Website Make Me Feel? By : Philippa Gamse When people think about the Internet, they think about technology. When people hear that I am a Website strategy expert, they see me as a "techy type". But for me, the most intriguing aspect of your online business isn't about the technology. It's about human connections, and how you can create these in a virtual environment. It's commonly understood that "people buy emotionally, not intellectually.
10). For Automated Sites - PHP and MySQL Are A Perfect Match By : Halstatt Pires You’ve decided to automate your web site. Now what? Here are some ideas to help you choose how to automate your site. A bit of programming is going to be necessary if you want to automate a site. There are many types of programs that can be used to automate a web site including JavaScript, PHP, Perl, ASP, Java and more. So, which do you use? For many, it is a personal choice.

New Web Design Articles
1). Professional Web Design for Home Based Business Owners By : Anthony Samuel Realize the importance of having a website for your home based business.
2). Web Design ,Will Visual Effects Catch a Viewers Eye By : Gordon Petten Web Design does not necessarily have to be as complicated as it may seem. With a little ingenuity and some creative work a website with a clever web design can take form.
3). Spring Cleaning and Website Maintenance for Your Website By : Cliff Posey This article shows how to do professional website maintenance when budget web design is important
4). Color Plays An Important Role In Design And Graphics By : Ken Snow Color schemes are fun no matter what they are being used for. Color schemes come into play when decorating a room or painting a house.
5). Will Baby Boomers Impact Your Website Design? By : Illa maden Article stresses the point of making website design that accomodates specific visitor needs.
6). A Brief Introduction to E4X By : Jim Pretin Find out what E4X is and why it might be important for web designers to learn to use it
7). Graphic Artists - Who Needs One When You Can Do It Yourself Online? By : Pearl Deloria Image is everything! Think about it. How many times have you made a judgment about a company based on the quality of the junk mail that you have been sent? Other people make similar judgements, too. Businesses cannot afford to be thought of as cheapskate in their marketing. You know that most of your mail goes straight in the trash, and it may grieve you to spend four times the amount, just for it to be thrown away.
8). How To Style Your Text With CSS By : Hilco van der Meer Styling text with CSS is really simple. We can define colors, underline it, make it bold, define the font etc etc. We will start with some basics. First we define the html where we will be working with. This is the text 1. Colorize your text We can select the P tag and add some styles to it. p { color:red; } Now our text will turn red. You can define any color code your want or choose one of the 16 standard color names.
9). What is a web designer anyway? By : Alicia Harper As a web designer, I get all kinds of requests , for information other than web design, and as a web designer I'm not suppose to really to be able to do things outside of the web design area. I believe there are a few misconceptions about what exactly a web designer does. In this article I am going to nail down exactly what a web designer is and what they should be able to do.
10). Advanced Joomla Templating (pt1) Using Module Class Suffix By : Robert Palmer an article from User Written Resources 1. duplicate the styles already used for the particular module, adding a suffix to each style name. this will definitely include some of the following; 1. .module {} 2. div.moduletable {} 3. div.moduletable h3 {} 4. table.moduletable {}/li> 5. table.moduletable th 6. table.moduletable td and can include other styles used on the content in that section, such as; 1.