Overview: Using HTML

Overview:

Using HTML: an Introduction
by Agatha Taormina

	A web page is a file that is displayed on the computer monitor by software called a browser. The browser is the software that interprets the web page coding and displays it on your screen. Commonly used browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox Safari All of these browsers are available for free download. Currently approximately 66% of web surfers use Microsoft Internet Explorer and about 23% use Mozilla Firefox.
	Web page files are written in HTML. HTML stands for HyperText Mark-up Language. HTML is written in ASCII plain text; thus it is platform-independent, i.e., it can be displayed by any browser using any operating system (e.g., Windows or Mac) HTML is basically a series of directions that tell the browser how to display the contents of a web page.
	HTML uses a system of tags that work like on/off switches. All material between a set of tags follows the directions given in the opening tag. Because tags are not displayed on the screen, they are enclosed in angle brackets, e.g., <TAG> Usually (but not always) these tags are paired. The closing tag also includes a forward slash. Thus a tag telling the browser to center a word on a page would be typed as: <center>Hello!</center>	Hint: If you are familiar with the ability of some word processing software to display command codes, you are familiar with the concept of HTML tags.
	HTML is not case-sensitive; nor does it read paragraph spacing or line tabs. However, newer web standards suggest that site developers use XHTML, or Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, a more flexible version of HTML written in XML (Extensible Markup Language). XHTML is case-sensitive; it uses lower case tags. Therefore, even if you are writing HTML code, you should use lower case to write your tags. Many developers currently use transitional XHTML which uses the syntax of HTML, but continues to use some deprecated (or outdated) tags that are still pretty universally supported by browsers. New sections of code are placed on separate lines and often indented to enable a web page designer to more easily edit code. Following the example of Elizabeth Castro, author of *HTML, XHTML & CSS*, 6th ed. (Peachpit Press, 2006), I use the term (X)HTML to refer to code that essentially is the same in both markup languages.	Note: To facilitate revising, most web page editing sofware assigns different colors to different types of tags, attributes, and values.
	Many (X)HTML tags can also have attributes. An attribute is an additional instruction that is written within the opening tag of a pair of tags. Each attribute has a value, i.e., a specification such as a particular alignment or font size or a particular color.
	Thus, if I want to change the color of my text by writing Hello! I would write the following code:
<font color ="blue"> Hello!</font>
	In the example above: font is the tag; note it is paired with a closing tag. color is the attribute. blue is the value assigned to the attribute.
	Web page developers should at least be conversant with the basic concepts of (X)HTML. As you will soon see, even the most sophisticated (X)HTML web page design software will sometimes refuse to cooperate with your wishes. In such cases you will want to look at the (X)HTML code to find the problem.
	To use (X)HTML: Use a simple text editor (e.g., Windows Notepad). Save your document as a text file. However, when you name the file, be sure to type in the .htm extension (e.g., filename.htm).