"I miss some steps, maybe some fundamental elements that I do not understand..." Some visitors of this site may venture to say so... Then, this 1st page will be an attempt to connect them between what is incomprehensible when writing his/her first dynamic pages and what is so evident after developing for a while. That is something we quite often forget to talk about...
When the server forwards an html page to your browser, it processes right away... it provides you with the file as-is, sent by the Webmaster. That's it !
However, when you ask for an asp or php page, the server works a little bit more... :), it decrypts specific instructions that are tagged by <% and %> or <? and ?>. The server builds html code based on the instructions and then sends the information to your browser... As a Webmaster, you don't write web pages any longer but simply indicate to the server how to build them due to some parameters built-in your asp or php pages...
For example
In the Installation page, you should have noted that the generated source was different from the code of your page... When reading the following file:
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Trial 1</TITLE> </HEAD><BODY> We are on <%=Date%> </BODY><HTML>
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Trial 1</TITLE> </HEAD><BODY> We are on <? echo date("n/j/Y"); ?> </BODY></HTML>
the server executes part of the codes of interest and generates the following HTML source:
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Trial 1</TITLE> </HEAD><BODY> We are on 7/24/2008 </BODY></HTML>
which is sent after that to your browser ! Magic ! :)
Attention !!!
Many visitors have some difficulties to understand this job. So, I would like to emphasize on it and add this comment: Once the page appears in the browser, the task accomplished by the server is done !!! After that, only client scripts will be executable by the server (JavaScript or VBScript). And, you will have to reload the page to execute new server scripts (ASP or PHP) !!!
Finally, we cannot act on the server using a client script !!! For example, you have to edit a server script if you modify a file or database located on the server ! Meanwhile... you have to edit and run a client script if you try to act on the client computer !
