History of the Internet and WWW

What is HTML?

Exercise: Hand-code your own page

Simple freeware WYSIWYG editors

Exercise: Make a page with AOLPress

Exercise: Make an intermediate page with FrontPage

Code references

File management

Browser versions

FTP

Link syntax and file naming

HTML Basics

Jeff Williamson
Northern Virginia Community College
www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-basics/
nvwillj@nvcc.edu

Troubleshooting

Some problems observed over the years

Link problems

Files and/or graphics in slightly different places than coded (e.g. link to my_pic.jpg when it is actually ../my_pic.jpg)

Links made to filenames that are slightly different from the actual filename (e.g. link to index.htm when the real file name is index.html)

The above two problems I think are by far the most common of all web site problems.

Solutions unfortunately just involve looking at your disks carefully and double-checking your links

Table problems

Too-large graphics push tables out of the browser window

Solution: reduce the graphics in a paint program or, for small discrepancies, change the IMG tag attributes 

Non-breaking text strings will also push tables out of the browser windows.  URLs are the main culprit here.

Solution: shorten the URL, add a space in the display text of the URL

Adjustments made to tables with advanced editors often fix table size at an absolute width.

Solution: Check your code to see if this has happened

Table won't center-align

Solution: Wrap the <CENTER> tag around the table - it works reliably in all browser versions.

Table cells don't match coded size

Solution: If they're too small, put some stuff in them - browsers often won't display cells fully until they are filled to one column's width. Use a spacer gif or text colored the same as the table cell.

If they're too large, something inside the cells is pushing them out - usually either a too-large graphic or a too-long string of letters, such as a URL. Either resize the graphic or add a space in the displayed string of letters.

Text problems

Text often accumulates a lot of schmutz like this:

<BIG><BIG><SMALL></SMALL></BIG></BIG> <BIG><BIG>Design Treatment- EDIT 772</BIG></BIG>

Spaces are just as problemmatic in HTML as in word processing. There should never be a long string of them like this:

&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Solution (both problems): Go into your code and delete stuff.