webcrab

I was going over the API portion of the HTML tutorial series and it got me thinking. I'm just beginning to wrap my brain around programming, and API has been one super ambiguous term I haven't been able to figure out yet. So the way I've come to see it, there are always two parties involved when it comes to API: Platform A (Provider) that delivers some valuable functionality and Platform B (Client) that wants to integrate part of that functionality into their own software. Platform A's developers describe code to be used by outsiders to "program" Platform A's application basically (it's what it says in the abbreviation API, right?). So I do understand what, say, Twitter API or Twilio API looks like. You set up an account with those platforms, they give you credentials to access their services along with the code that can be woven into some external app and so you can enjoy some extra functionality provided by those respective platforms. When I hear the term "HTML APIs", I get stuck. What are the interacting parties involved here? The tutorials actually describe how to use JavaScript in conjunction with HTML to build some cool features into your web pages. So, as I see it, aforementioned Provider would be JavaScript while Client would be whatever it is that's using HTML. So, by analogy, why isn't it rather JavaScript API as in Twitter API, since the platform delivering those extra perks is actually JavaScript? I'd appreciate any help I can get figuring out this concept. Thank you!

Thank you so much for your reply dsonesuk! Even though it's weird how I've never come across (or failed to notice) this important aspect of the overflow property -- that it restores a floated element's height. Is that what I should understand by what you refer to as substance? Again, I appreciate your help! Edit: Also, somewhat unrelated question, but I don't feel like it deserves a dedicated thread. Suppose I have a div container and some text in it that doesn't have any tags surrounding it like so: <div> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Dolor sed viverra ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum enim. </div> Does the text get wrapped in any tags by default when rendered by the browser proper?

Hello everybody! I'm having a hard time figuring out how floats work in conjunction with overflow. Say I have an unstyled <div> container that holds a 200 by 100 image. If I add a background color to the container it becomes clear that said container's height is exactly 100px. Then I float the picture and div's height shrinks to 0. Why? And what happens here exactly? Does the image get positioned, like, outside the container? It's as if the container doesn't hold the image anymore, and at the same time I suppose it's still in there. Yet it doesn't take up any space inside the container as it's height is now clearly 0 (no background color). And then why does applying an overflow property fix this, so the div wraps around the picture again (background color is back on)? This navigation menu example made me post my conundrum on here. When I remove the overflow property, the navigation portion gets stripped of its background color. The dedicated chapter is absolutely clear to me, but I still can't get why this property has the effects it has in my case. Thank you for taking the time to read :)