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HTML Code MiniChapter 1: The Basics
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HTML Tags...
This page discusses Presentational HTML. Why this matters.
The page you are viewing right now is an HTML document. HTML documents look a lot like a
Word, WordPerfect, or OpenOffice document...
You can have bold and italicized, Larger and
Smaller, or it could look type-written.
Of course, the HTML code for this looks like a bunch of gibberish...
You can have
<b>bold</b> and
<i>italicized</i>,
<font size="+2">Larger</font> and <font size="-2">Smaller</font>, or
it could look <tt>type-written</tt>.
So what are all these "<" and ">" things doing here? When you place a certain thing within these you are making something known as a tag. For example the <b> tag is saying to start bold text, and the </b> tag is saying to stop bold text. The tag with the slash (/) is known as the closing tag. Many opening tags require a following closing tag, but not all do. Tags make up the entire structure of an HTML document.
This Text is Bold has the code:
<b>This Text is Bold</b>
^^^--Opening Tag ^^^^--Closing Tag
Here are two pieces of HTML code, the second of the two
has an error in it, what is it?
#1 - Bob jumped OVER the fence.
#1 - Bob jumped <b>OVER</b> the fence.
#2 - Bob
jumped UNDER the fence.
#2 - Bob jumped <b>UNDER<b> the fence.
You should have noticed that the second code is missing
a slash (/) in the tag after the word UNDER, which causes the web browser to interpret the code as leaving the bold face on! This is a common error, so be
careful of it!
Note: Tags in HTML are NOT case sensitive. For example... <title> and <TitLE> both mean the
same thing and are interpreted as being the same. That said, it aids in the speed of page loads to use lowercase tags, so it is -highly suggested- that you
keep all tags lowercase, that is, it is better to use <title> than <tItLe> even though both work.
(A variation of HTML called XHTML requires that the coder use lowercase tags. This course with teach you HTML not XHTML.)
HTML Document Structure...
HTML files are just normal text files... they usually have the extension of .htm, .html, or .shtml. HTML documents have two (2) parts, the head and the body. The body is the
larger part of the document, as the body of a letter you would write to a friend would be. The head of the document contains the document's title and similar information, and the body contains
most everything else.
Example of basic HTML document Structure...
<html>
<head><title>Title goes
here</title></head>
<body>Body
goes here</body>
</html>
You may find it easier to read if you add extra blank lines such as
follows...
<html>
<head>
<title>Title goes here</title>
</head>
<body>
Body goes
here
</body>
</html>
Note: Extra spaces and blank lines (line breaks) will be ignored when the HTML is loaded by the web browser... so add them if you wish to do
so.
Example of how titles are viewed...
Whatever falls between the <title> tags will be the title of the web page. In the web browser, the title
usually shows at the top left
of the web browser window, as pictured below.
The title code reading:
Shows as:
The title of this web page, in four web browsers: (1) Mozilla Firefox, (2) Microsoft Internet Explorer, (3) Google Chrome, and (4) Apple Safari.
You didn't have to program any special code to get the browser to put the title on the right place...
you just used standard HTML and the
web browser figures out the rest. Welcome to web design!
[ Note: You cannot use other tags between the <title> tags.
Example: You cannot have the
code read: <title><b>title goes here</b></title>. ]
Whatever you place between the <body> tags will fall into the main area of the web page window (the huge part of the window you're scrolling through right now) and therefore it is the largest part of your HTML document.
The next few chapters will go into detail into ways you can add to the body of the web page.
HTML Code - Try it Yourself!
In the Box below, type the following HTML code, then click "Check it Out!" The HTML document you made will be displayed in your browser. You may wish to change the words within the tags just to try it out.
Try typing this:
<html>
<head><title>Title goes here</title></head>
<body>Body goes
here</body>
</html>
Note: Feel free to use COPY and PASTE if you feel comfortable with the code
and don't want to type it all yourself in any chapter.
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