HTML consists of a series of short codes typed into a text-file by the
site author — these are the tags. The text is then saved as a html file, and
viewed through a browser, like Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator or Mozilla
Firefox. This browser reads the file and translates the text into a visible
form, hopefully rendering the page as the author had intended. Writing your own
HTML entails using tags correctly to create your vision. You can use anything
from a rudimentary text-editor to a powerful graphical editor to create HTML
pages.
1. First advantage it is widely
used.
2. Every browser supports HTML
language.
3. Easy to learn and use.
4. It is by default in every
windows so you don't need to purchase extra software.
5. Its plain text so is easy to
edit.
6. Its also fast to download (text is
highly compressible).
7. Its now a standard
8. Its supported by most browsers across
most if not all platforms.
9. Simple to edit only requires a text
editor.
10.Can be easily edited with WYSIWYG editors (no coding required)
11.Can be used to present just about any kind of data.
12.Tags can be used (or used to be able to be used) very loosely (i.e. used to
be able to omit end tags etc).
5. It is static needs to be
manually updated or needs some scripting support to change it in some way.
6. Isn't rendered correctly in all
browsers
7. Isn't really as flexible as other
standards or technologies
8. Its not centralized (all pages must
be edited individually).
9. Very limited styling capabilities
(we're not talking css here!)
10.Its essentially massively outdated (xhtml and xml suite of standards).
11.Different vendors added (mostly Microsoft early on) their own custom tags
that aren't widely supported if at all by most browsers (e.g. marquee tag).
12.Tags can be used (or used to be able to be used) very loosely (i.e. used to
be able to omit end tags etc.).
Basic HTML Tag System
<html> This tag signifies this is an html
document.
<head> This tag signifies the beginning of
the header information.
<title>
The Title
goes here - it shows at the top of the browser - but not on your Web
page.</title>
</head> This tag signifies the end of the
header information.
<body>
This tag
signifies the beginning of the html material.
<h1> Your first header or title should
go between these symbols. </h1>
<p> This tag designates a
paragraph.</p>
<p> And this is the second
paragraph...and so on.</p>
</body> This tag signifies the end of the
body of the document.
</html> This tag signifies the end of the
html document.
<br> [This tag at the end of a line
signifies a line break.]
<center>Text between these two symbols will be centered on the
page.</center> [For example, if you place these tags before and
after the <H2>,</H2> tags, your heading will be centered.]
<hr>_________________________________________________________________
[The hr symbol placed in between sections of text makes a horizontal divider
bar to separate material on your page. The line you see above emulates the line
that will appear in your home page if you use the <HR> option.]
<!-...-> - Author
comments not seen by the browser.
<b> Words between these tags will show as bold
text</b>
<i> Words between these tags will show as italicized text</i>
Link Tag: <a
href="http://www.abc.def/ghi.edu/">Name for the Web document
you want to appear on the Web page </a> [This is how you create a
tag that will allow someone using your Web page to click and be taken to
another Web page or Web site.
Link to a Particular Place in your Document:[This
linking operation requires you use both the link
tag and the target tag.]
Link tag to set up the link to another place:
<a href="#name" > put text here you want to
show on the browser </a>
|
Target tag to identify the place to which you want to
link:
<a name="put the same name here you put after the # symbol, but 'without' the # symbol "< /a>
Create
an email link: <address> e-mail me at: <a
href="mailto:Put your email address with extension here">Put
your email name with extension here also</a></address>
Set
Font Size and Color (other than the default settings):
<font size=5 color=red> text</font>
Open a new window to display a linked
site:
<a href="http://home.cox.rr.com/edtech/"
target="_blank">Education and Technology Resources</a>
Tables
<CENTER><table BORDER=1 CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=1
WIDTH="90%" >
<tr>
<td>cell contents</td>
<td>cell contents</td>
</tr>
</table></CENTER>
[NOTE: This table is centered on the screen. This table has two
columns. Each column begins with a <td> tag and ends with a
</td> tag.You can also choose "left" or "right"
aligned by changing the "CENTER" to "left" or
"right" in the <CENTER> beginning and ending tags. This
table has a 1 pixel border, a 1 pixel cell spacing, and a 1 pixel cell
padding. The width is 90% of the window. You can change the border
width to 0 on up. You can also change the cell spacing and cell
padding. A table can be as wide as 100% of the screen or designated in
pixels (for ex: 650). Just replace the "90%" with a number of
pixels. For ex:: "650".]
Insert Graphics Files:
<img src="picture.jpg" align=left> [Graphics usually
have a .
jpg or .gif file
extension. ]
Other Technologies Working with HTML
XHTML
XHML is HTML expressed using XML.
The old HTML standards will still work in Web browsers, but Web developers can
use the new XHTML standard to write Web pages that can integrate well with
other technologies defined by XML
XSL
First introduced name Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS). The "X" idea was added to HTML, so too can the
idea of extensibility be applied to style sheets. Then introduced Extensible
Stylesheet Language (XSL), it’s a developed version of CSS.
XFORMS
The standards for these forms are
being developed now. XForms will integrate with XHTML as well as XSL.
SVG
Scalable Vector Graphics
(SVG) is a language, currently in draft form, for expressing graphics in
two-dimensions
SMIL
The ideal behind
Synchronized Multimedia Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile") is to
allow developers to create multimedia presentations to be delivered over the
Web. SMIL gives authors a way to integrate streaming audio, video, text,
images, or other media types into a document. SMIL has been specified as a
working draft
DOM
The Document Object Model (DOM)
is a standard for representing the structure of a document. Programmers can use
the DOM to add, delete, and change parts of a document. This makes it possible
to write content to be delivered on the Web that can adapt itself to any
browser or platform.
MathML
While HTML in the latter part of
the 20th century was hailed widely as a wonderful way to share information,
mathematicians were shocked to discover that HTML gave no support for the
symbols and formulas that make up a mathematicians' work.
Java
Certainly, the Java programming
language introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1995 has developed into a standard
for interactive content on the Web. Although today's use of Java still seems to
lag behind its potential, Web developers should understand Java as a principal
language for use with Web content. Java is an object-oriented programming
language, not a markup language like XHTML. But java using with HTML &
XHTML.
VRML
The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)
gives Web developers a way to integrate three-dimensional representations of
worlds into Web pages. VRML was set as a standard in 1997 and today
is used for a wide variety of tasks including scientific visualization,
advertising, and entertainment
References
