Janet proposes an intranet based web application that performs the 

following tasks:

I

Lets employees enter their mileage on a web page using a simple 

HTML form

I

Stores the employees' mileage in a database

I

Calculates fitness points based on the mileage data

I

Lets employees track their monthly progress

I

Gives Chris one click access to point totals at the end of each month

Janet gets the application up and running before lunchtime using 

Dreamweaver, which has the tools she needs to build this kind of 

application quickly and easily.

How a web application works

A web application is a collection of static and dynamic web pages. A static 

web page is one that does not change when a site visitor requests it: The 

web server sends the page to the requesting web browser without 

modifying it. In contrast, a dynamic web page is modified by the server 

before it is sent to the requesting browser. The changing nature of the page 

is why it's called dynamic. 

For example, you could design a page to display fitness results, while 

leaving certain information (such as employee name and results) to be 

determined when the page is requested by a particular employee.

Processing static web pages

A static website comprises a set of related HTML pages and files hosted on 

a computer running a web server.

A web server is software that serves web pages in response to requests from 

web browsers. A page request is generated when a visitor clicks a link on a 

web page, selects a bookmark in a browser, or enters a URL in a browser's 

address text box. 

How a web application works 219