Website Design and Development Glossary

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G

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

A standard for digitized images compressed with the LZW algorithm, defined in 1987 by CompuServe (CIS).

Graphics Interchange Format and GIF are service marks of CompuServe Incorporated. This only affects use of GIF within Compuserve, and pass-through licensing for software to access them, it doesn't affect anyone else's use of GIF. It followed from a 1994 legal action by Unisys against CIS for violating Unisys's LZW software patent. The CompuServe Vice President has stated that "CompuServe is committed to keeping the GIF 89A specification as an open, fully-supported, non-proprietary specification for the entire on-line community including the World-Wide Web".

Filename extension: .gif.

Source: Dictionary.com

Gopher

A type of Internet service first floated around 1991 and obsolesced around 1995 by the World Wide Web. Gopher presents a menuing interface to a tree or graph of links; the links can be to documents, runnable programs, or other gopher menus arbitrarily far across the net.

Source: Dictionary.com

Graphical User Interface (GUI)

A user interface based on graphics (icons and pictures and menus) instead of text; uses a mouse as well as a keyboard as an input device.

Source: Dictionary.com

Groupware

Software that integrates work on a single project by several concurrent users at separated workstations.

Typically, groupware enables scheduling meetings and allocating resources; e-mail; password protection for documents; telephone utilities; electronic newsletters; and file distribution. Also called workgroup productivity software.

Source: Dictionary.com

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