Developers Line Up to Use Microsoft Dynamic HTML Behaviors For Easier-to-Build, More Powerful Web Pages

Hundreds of Companies Already Using New Technology in Internet Explorer 5 Beta; Microsoft Announces Winners in Dynamic HTML Behaviors Contest

REDMOND, Wash. - March 3, 1999 - Microsoft Corp. today announced the top 15 winners in its Dynamic HTML Behaviors contest. The long list of contest entries demonstrates the growing momentum for this standards-based technology, which makes it faster and easier to build more powerful and functional Web pages.

The Dynamic HTML Behaviors contest, judged by Project Cool Inc.'s Glenn Davis, invited Web site developers to submit sites created using Dynamic HTML behaviors that demonstrate the technology's uniqueness, maximum usability, robustness and documentation capabilities. The contest was open to all developers participating in the Microsoft Site Builder Web site program between November 1998 and January 1999. For more information on the contest and its winners, please see http://www.microsoft.com/sitebuilder/ie/dhtmlbehave.asp.

More Accessible and Easier-to-Use Dynamic HTML

Dynamic HTML behaviors are lightweight components in Internet Explorer 5 that make Dynamic HTML more accessible and easier to use by separating the script or code from the content and style of a Web document. Dynamic HTML behaviors attach HTML components (HTCs), for which the specification was submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in November, into Web pages. The resulting componentization not only allows for reuse of Dynamic HTML scripts, but also provides Web builders with a single way to create and debug their pages, making site development faster and easier.

Behaviors are also the ultimate extensibility mechanism, allowing developers to create and expose their own methods, properties and events to the Web page, making the pages easier to build and much more powerful. In addition, behaviors are standards-based and compatible with popular Web tools that developers already use.

"Our primary design goal with behaviors was to make Dynamic HTML Web pages and applications easier to build," said Chris Jones, product unit manager for Internet Explorer at Microsoft. "To see this type of adoption, with hundreds of Web sites now using the technology even before the final release of the product, is very exciting. It demonstrates that customers believe we hit our mark."

Faster, More Interactive Web Pages

With scripted behaviors readily available, Web page creators do not need to focus as much on the technical aspects of their pages. Writers can focus on content, and graphic designers can focus on format, resulting in more interesting, attractive and functional Web pages. In addition, because behaviors are downloaded and cached once on a user's hard drive, users avoid the time-consuming task of downloading the components repeatedly, regardless of how often they're used in multiple Web pages across a site. Thus, Web page creators can visit and use multiple Web pages more quickly.

"Behaviors are a great way to enhance the user's experience while maintaining backward compatibility with older browsers," said Glenn Davis, chief technology officer of the popular Web developer site Project Cool and judge of the Dynamic HTML Behaviors contest. "Once created, behaviors make it easy for any Web designer to implement and build applications that would have required much more effort with HTML alone. And besides that, they are a heck of a lot of fun to play with!"

Contest Winners

A Micron laptop personal computer was awarded to the developers of the three winning sites named in the Microsoft Dynamic HTML Behaviors contest:

• http://www.i2k.com/~abbott/webspeak.htm("Web Speak"). By adding a single attribute to any tag on the page, the behavior will invoke the Microsoft agent and use the text-to-speech engine to read the text between the tags to the user.
• http://www.grem.com/behaviors/stackedmenu/menu.htm("Stacked Menus"). This site uses behaviors to create an easy-to-use, professional-looking interactive menu system.
• http://www.iisweb.com/ie5 ("Tabbed Folder System"). This site uses behaviors for a great tab dialogue interface for use on Web pages.

To find out about other Dynamic HTML Behaviors contest winners, see http://www.microsoft.com/sitebuilder/ie/dhtmlbehave.asp.

Availability

Dynamic HTML behaviors are supported in the beta version of Internet Explorer 5. In addition, the following Web sites already offer extensive, royalty-free Dynamic HTML behavior libraries, so developers can easily download and instantly add the functionality they want to their Web pages without having to know how to develop the behaviors:

• http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/resources/standards/behaviors/
• http://www.projectcool.com/developer/behaviors/
• http://www.developer.com/downloads/behaviors/
• http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/cframe.htm?919797269013#/gallery/samples/default.asp

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