Not HTML, you. It stands for
HyperText Markup Language. Its purpose is to control how things
look on other people's computers without having to know anything
about their computers. You need to learn it yesterday because
- Your boss needs someone to create his home page and he heard
you have a computer
- You overheard the woman you want to impress say, real men
have websites
- You can't afford the cost of the course from Famous HTML
Writer's School
- You are in need of a life and think this is as good as any
The sites I have found relating to
learning the language don't really cover how to use it. Rather
they tell you what you can do with it after you have gotten the
hang of it. The purpose of this is only to get you started so if
you need to learn how to create a table there are many other fine
sites.
Another way of looking at this
is that it is immersion rather than textbook. You can learn a
langauge by taking a formal course in school or you can go to the
country and try to survive. I know the word for beer in a dozen
languages so I can survive in most any country. (Only the modern
generation of computer nerd drinks Jolt.) Those other places try
to give you a classroom and textbook kind of knowledge of HTML.
I try to immerse you in it.
But in trying to learn it this
way I assume you have the motivation to learn it quickly. I
assume you will try everything I talk about here on your own on
something you want to do. I also assume you will be following my
advice one "stealing" pages and
collecting specifications and using search engines to find what I
don't talk about. Think of yourself in darkest Mexico and
desperately trying to learn the word for beer; the harder you try
the quicker you will get un cherveza.
There is no question learning
HTML this way is a sure and certain way to start off with every
bad habit in the book. Also after looking at several editors I
found them as frustrating as starting out with the language
itself. The reason being that unless I knew what HTML could do
in the first place I had no idea what those pull down menu
options would do.
As this is not a discussion of
quality presentation (I will include my view
elsewhere) there are two things you must have to at least make
people consider your website a "real" website. Those two things
are text and graphics. And the way some people look at sites
maybe the text isn't that important.
This is how to get something
online regardless of content. You want content? Contact me.
Advice is free. Work has a price schedule.
First some general rules.
- The name of the text file MUST have either .HTM or .HTML as
the extender. (You will find later this is not really true but
that is best left for later.) Graphics files will have either
.GIF or .JPG as the extender. Fractal compression is coming soon
and the extension will be .FIF.
- Although you can use any filename you want as the first page
on your site you have to give that name as part of your web
address so the boss, your future girlfriend, even you can find
it. If you give no name, the server will try to send a file
named INDEX.HTM or INDEX.HTML. Therefore it is a good idea to
name your first page INDEX.HTM. Any place I use the extention
.HTM that means either .HTM or .HTML.
- DOS does not care whether a name is upper or lower case in
file names. You will most likely be putting this on a UNIX
server. UNIX cares about case in file names. Having the wrong
case has the same result as misspelling it or entering the wrong
name. If you don't use INDEX (upper or lower case) as the name
of your first file you will be frustrating users who type in the
name by mixing case as in Myfile.htm.
- HTML does not care about case. The examples here are upper
case solely for clarity.
- No matter how many spaces you insert into the text, you will
only see one on the screen. (Use the hard space trick below if
you need them.) This applies to some tags also.
TEXT
Considering that you are
learning then this is your first web page. You need to know the
<H>, the <CENTER>, and the <P> tags. That will
get you off the ground.
The <H> tag controls the
size of the text and comes in six sizes <H1>, the largest,
through <H6>, the smallest. The <Hsize> tag is put
before the text you want that size. To change the size of the
text you simply put a new <Hsize> at the start of that
text.
Note, there is an entirely
different way to do this which you can see if you "steal" this
page (see THEFT below). These are Netscape style H tags which
most browsers are copying as it answers a common problem with
page layout.
To start a new paragraph you
use the <P> tag. This creates a blank line and is the most
common manner of separating paragraphs.
The <P> tag will separate your paragraphs like this
paragraph and the previous paragraph with a blank line rather
than no spacing but with an indentation as I prefer but there is
no tag to give an indented paragraph start.
<CENTER> is what is used
to do exactly what it says. It centers the text on the page. It
is different from the other two in that it MUST
come in pairs. The pair is <CENTER> and </CENTER>.
The first turns on centering and the second turns off centering.
When you get into other pairs
the leading / is always the turn off version. In fact the
specification technically calls for </P> also. It is not
good to ignore things in a specification but on the other hand
there are some things everyone ignores.
Do you need centering? No!
Do people expect it? Yes! Why? Everyone does it. To give it
its due it does make a good visual break in the content.
The one thing to remember is
if you want two lines to be centered independently put a
<P> or <BR> tag between them.
One more tag that is not
necessary but very, very useful for controlling the appearance.
That is the break <BR> tag. This forces a new start on the
next line without adding a blank line.
If you "stole" this page you
saw a very strange string
     . This is a
string of six hard spaces that do the work of a horizontal tab.
I do it this way as the horizontal tab is not commonly
implemented.
GRAPHICS
There are a lot of control
variables and structures for controlling how a picture will look
on your page; more than I have any intention of addressing. The
good news is that just getting a picture on the page does not
take much. In fact, here it is.
<img src="filename.typ">
The equal sign and the quotation
marks are essential. Do not forget them.
There are two types supported.
They are the .GIF and the .JPG. You
have to be careful of the size as it has to be downloaded. A
starting rule of thumb is no more than 50k of graphics on a page.
When putting it on a page you
simply insert this line right where you want it in the text.
However, put a <P> or <BR> before and after it until
you learn some of the other ways to control the relation of
pictures to the text. Also the <center> pair works here.
Unless you just happen to have
a graphics collection tailored to the needs of a web page you are
not going to be have much in the way of graphics. If you can use
something like Photoshop already you are in fat city. Just
remember 72 pixels per inch and no more than 470 pixels wide for
your final product. However, Photoshop is expensive and takes
longer to master than HTML.
For the majority out there the
first level of shareware that will get you started and do what
you need is Graphics Workshop which comes in windows and
non-windows versions. This will allow you to change image types
such as from .TIF to one of the two you can use and to change the
size to something reasonable. It has many other functions that
you may find useful but those are the only two you will have to
learn.
THEFT
Now I am certain you are still
scratching your head. The next step is to steal. Find pages
that are doing these things and click on "File|Save as" and study
it later. If you want to look at it immediately do
"View|Source." If your browser does not have these features, get
Netscape. You do not have to like Netscape but it does have
these features.
Next you use one of the search
pages and find the HTML specifications.
If you don't know how to read a specification don't try to learn
here. Use the specification to understand those things on the
stolen pages so you can do them yourself.
PRACTICE
You have a browser and you have a
text editor. (No, not WordPerfect or MicroSoft Word, a plain
vanilla text editor. That means if you enter from the DOS prompt
TYPE filename.HTM you will see only plain english letters, no
symbols, nothing else. NOTEPAD will do this in Windows but not
Write.) Create a file using any of these techniques and look at
them with your browser by File|Open File. Again, if your browser
does not permit this without going online, get Netscape. (This
also presumes you are being charged for going on line. If you
are, find a provider that does not count hours or time of day.)
And then change things and see
what happens. Or change some of those stolen pages and see what
happens. See what these tags do by changing them or removing
them. And always remember, if you find an effect you like and
can't understand it, try simply putting your text or picture in
place of what is on those pages and see if it works for you --
then use it.
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