HTML Primer Part One

What Every Web Site Owner Should Know OK, SO WHAT THE HECK IS HTML ANYWAY? The basic language of the web is something known as HTML. It is the format in which instructions are sent over the Internet. HTML provides us with a light, flexible language that allows us to transmit large amounts of information effectively and efficiently. It is due to HTML that different types of computers and operating systems can all read the same Web pages and communicate with each other effectively well actually, there is a lot more to it all then just plain HTML, but for the average Web site owner, you will not be expected to know about the nuts and bolts of Web development. For your purposes suffice to say; HTML allows any computer with an appropriate browser to surf the net. It is not imperative that you know HTML, but it can help you communicate with your Webmaster. For this purpose, you should probably read this chapter. However, if techno speak makes your hands sweat, or you already know HTML, then it is safe to skip this chapter... HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Although similar, HTML is not actually a programming language. It is much, much simpler. Comparing HTML to a programming language is like comparing a soap box racer to a Porsche... A fully fledged programming language is capable of doing much, much more than basic HTML. HTML is a set of tags that modifies text. In simpler terms, HTML is basically a set of instructions that tells browsers how to assemble the Web page. An HTML file is simply a plain text file that is saved with an .htm or .html file extension. In addition to the plain text, the .htm file contains the HTML tags I mentioned earlier. When your browser receives the .htm page it interprets the tags and formats the text accordingly. This is accomplished by enclosing HTML tags in angle brackets. This way the browser “knows” that anything enclosed in angle brackets is an HTML tag. For example <b> is the HTML tag that instructs the browser to bold the text that follows it. An angle bracket followed by a slash would signify the end of a tag. Therefore the text that is in between becomes a modified by that particular tag. Clear as mud? OK here’s an example: You see this: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. If this text were displayed formatted as it is above in a browser, the source code would look like this: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. Easy right? There are tags that format text, others that allow you to add images, tables, lists and structural elements and still more that allow you to add more powerful scripting language and other elements to your website. Even so, it all boils down to using tags to markup text. So you see it’s really quite easy. Fortunately, you are a website owner and not a website developer. So you don’t have to know everything there is to know about the HTML, just the basics. In other words; you don’t have to know HTML, you just have to know about HTML. If you take the time to learn a little bitmore than you need to know, then you are really ahead of the game. This chapter will explore basic HTML and I will provide an appendix at the end of this book of basic HTML tags. Most of them are relatively self explanatory and you will know what they mean right when see them, but a good “Short List” of common HTML tags can really come in handy. Continued in Part Two...