Web Design Basics

[Beni_143]

Hi, I am a beginner for web designing. I created a website and now i want to add a page for chat purposes in it. I am taking help from here:
http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-simple-web-based-chat-application--net-5931

my problem is that, even i know basics of html and javascript, but this website uses PHP and jQuery. I want to know how to join up everything that is mentioned in the site and make a page for chat.

Any help is appreciated. Even if you tell me about how we deal with PHP and jQuery in web design, that will help a lot.

 

[Ent]

Even if you tell me about how we deal with PHP and jQuery in web design, that will help a lot.

Very differently.
jQuery is javascript. I assume you already know how to use functions and things in javascript.
jQuery is just a big collection (called a library) of javascript functions that do commonly useful things (like sending data to a server or creating draggable elements on a page).
To use it, you load the jquery library using a regular <script> tag. You can then use jquery code in other script tags exactly as you would use regular javascript code.

PHP is a different language, and php runs on a server. Whereas a html document basically is what the server sends to the browser, a php script tells the server how to make what to send to the client. Often a php script looks a lot like a html file in its contents, and then it has a weird bit of code saying to put something at a certain point which is customized for the user.
If you have a server and it supports php, then if you call for the php file the server will run it and send the result to the browser. If you just double click a php file in windows, however, because there's no server to run it, you'll get weird code appearing.
If you don't have a server, you can run one on your computer for testing using WAMP.

 

[abisky]

Thanks for the great explanation Josiah! I want to learn a bit of web programming myself and already tried to learn it once in the past, but never really got beyond a bit of HTML and CSS. At the moment I'm building a very simple site using a website builder but I might still create some modifications at a later point. Your explanation on the difference between PHP and HTML was really concise and clear. Although I don't think I'll be learning PHP anytime soon, it's always nice to grasp the basic concept

 

[JiminSA]

Your explanation on the difference between PHP and HTML was really concise and clear.

Couldn't agree more