> DHTML (dynamic HTML, basically what any web app is today)
No, DHTML meant little snippets that you could add to your page to add effects and widgets, whether arguably useful things like button rollover (many of you will remember the incantation I think it was Adobe Fireworks produced, something along the lines of <img src="button1.jpg" onmouseover="MM_something('button1_rollover.jpg')" onmouseout="MM_something('button1.jpg')">) or widgets like a “scroll to top” link in the bottom right corner that only appeared when you had scrolled down some way, or ridiculous things like drawing an analogue clock around the mouse cursor that followed your movement but as though the digits were connected by pieces of elastic each to the next, or snowflakes falling down the screen. Browse http://www.dynamicdrive.com/, that was DHTML. DHTML mostly meant fripperies, but did definitely include useful functionality like calendar widgets. But that was the scope of it: isolated things here and there that you could add to an existing page.
Web apps today are a whole-page affair, where the scripting is woven through the entire thing; they’re essentially unrecognisably different from DHTML.
No, DHTML is exactly what is now called a "web app" or HTML/CSS + Javascript
It was just called DHTML instead of javascript because:
1. Javascript was not nearly as popular as it is today.
2. DHTML actually supported multiple languages, it was a catch all term for any scripting that interfaced with HTML so it included VBScript, JScript/ECMAScript, ActiveX controls, etc.
It very much evolved into web apps as they are today.
Sure, loosely speaking it evolved into web apps as they are today, but that doesn’t mean they’re the same things. Cars are different from horse-and-carts, electric cars are different from ICE cars. I maintain what I said: web apps today are unrecognisably different from DHTML. The term “DHTML” froze in meaning and scope quite early on, and faded from use over the course of several years; and lingering uses of the term over subsequent years were very dominantly of that early scope and meaning—hence I say it froze.
(I don’t feel ActiveX, applets or Flash were ever part of the meaning of DHTML. JavaScript/JScript/VBScript, absolutely. But these others had their own drawing areas and typically didn’t interact with the HTML DOM. They were just embedded alternate worlds, not DHTML.)
I think it's just semantics, but what I found incorrect was saying that DHTML was just little snippets – that entirely depends on the use, I remember entire websites written with DHTML that were cutting edge at the time.
For me the reason to include ActiveX is because it came bundled with the web browser (IE) while for Flash you had to install the Macromedia plugin. Also, while Flash probably could interact with the DOM I personally almost never saw it done; I definitely remember ActiveX controls that would interface with the DOM, used almost in the way React and co are these days (!)
Off-topic for this thread but if you can get the ball to ping-pong horizontally while both players are at the top edge then you can stay alive indefinitely - the opponent doesn't seem to move downwards out of this position.
No, DHTML meant little snippets that you could add to your page to add effects and widgets, whether arguably useful things like button rollover (many of you will remember the incantation I think it was Adobe Fireworks produced, something along the lines of <img src="button1.jpg" onmouseover="MM_something('button1_rollover.jpg')" onmouseout="MM_something('button1.jpg')">) or widgets like a “scroll to top” link in the bottom right corner that only appeared when you had scrolled down some way, or ridiculous things like drawing an analogue clock around the mouse cursor that followed your movement but as though the digits were connected by pieces of elastic each to the next, or snowflakes falling down the screen. Browse http://www.dynamicdrive.com/, that was DHTML. DHTML mostly meant fripperies, but did definitely include useful functionality like calendar widgets. But that was the scope of it: isolated things here and there that you could add to an existing page.
Web apps today are a whole-page affair, where the scripting is woven through the entire thing; they’re essentially unrecognisably different from DHTML.