Components and HTML

This page assumes that you are already familiar with HTML.

RADpage components have a lot to do with XML tags. In fact the tag syntax itself is what we use to place components on a page! To illustrate this concept, take a look at the following counter component:

This is a counter 28790

And now look at the source code we used to generate it:

This is a counter <counter name="comphtml"/>

As you can see, the counter component is written as a counter tag. The properties of the component (in this case "name") are written as attributes of the tag.

Obviously an HTML browser does not understand the Counter tag. This where heitml (pronounced Hi T M L) comes into play. heitml (extended interactive HTML) is an extension of the HTML language. The heitml middleware processes heitml on the Web server and translates it into HTML. In our example the Counter tag is replaced by the current value of the Web counter.

This means you can work on heitml pages on a purely textual basis. You can use your favorite HTML editor to edit heitml pages or you can use any other text-based tools. Most probably, you will also be able to use upcoming XML-tools on heitml pages. Even more important, however, is that heitml is a full featured programming language: You can write programs using heitml components and you can even create components of your own. This means that heitml is extensible, just like you would expect with any other programming language.

If you like, you can view the complete source code of this page by switching the page mode selector in the RADpage menu from "Edit" to "Source". You can then edit the source code by clicking one of the line numbers displayed.

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