HTML
Ron Graham
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the language of the World Wide Web. You may not actually NEED to learn it, as there are many programs available for creating Web pages, and others still (such as Microsoft Word) that will allow you to take documents you have created for other purposes and convert them to HTML. This means that it's quite possible to create interesting Web pages without knowing the first thing about how you did it. There are some good reasons to pick up HTML anyway:
  • The HTML editor or word processor you are using may not give you exactly what you ask for (Microsoft Word almost never does);
  • HTML is continually being updated with new capabilities, which may not be supported by your editor or word processor.
  • Since browsers support HTML differently, you might want more control over what you produce so that it looks more-or-less the same at least when viewed on the two principal browsers, Netscape Navigator (NN) and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). If this is the case, you should also take into consideration the browser versions most likely to be used by your visitors.
Here is an example of a simple HTML file: 

<html>
<head>
<title> Sample page </title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div align="center">
<h1> Welcome to my site! </h1>
<p>
I am so glad you came! 
Now bookmark this page right away!
Because it's cool!  It's fresh!  
And it's ALL MINE!  
<strong> BWAH-HAH-HA!!! </strong>
<p>
<img src="me.gif" alt="photo of me in 
  all my glory">
</div>
<p>
<ul>
<li><a href="view-guestbook.html"> View 
  my guestbook! </a>
<li><a href="sign-guestbook.html"> Sign 
  my guestbook! </a>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

You can see that this example includes some of the most basic tags included in most Web pages.

HTML files are saved in plain text format (ASCII, or for MS Word users, "MS-DOS text with line breaks" works best), with the file extensions ".htm" or ".html" and can be edited with a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad. Along with the text included in the file will be "tags," enclosed by greater-than/less-than signs. These tags are formatting commands interpreted by the Web browser.

There are numerous HTML editors on the market. Some are shareware or freeware (e.g. HTMLPad, CoffeeCup); others offer full development environments (e.g. FrontPage, DreamWeaver). The latter are sometimes referred to as "WYSIWYG editors." I recommend to students using the WYSIWYG editors that they understand some basic HTML first - it's not difficult to learn - because these packages will add a great deal of bloat to your pages. FrontPage, for instance, will format a page with numerous instances of blank lines: 

<p>&nbsp;</p>
It is also likely that a development environment will add proprietary tags (not universally recognized as HTML), which can make your pages non-portable.

HTML tags may come in pairs, when used to define fields such as boldface or italic text; or may be standalone tags when all their information is self-contained, such as to place images or sounds on the page.

Influences on presentation of your Web pages to visitors include

  1. Their browser. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer will sometimes render things differently. And there are various versions of these, and other browsers as well.
  2. Their screen size. Where elements are positioned on a page is strongly governed by the space available.
  3. User settings. Visitors may sometimes turn off graphics for faster loading, or may use a text-only browser; they may override font or color settings in favor of a combination they find easier to read.
  4. Incorrect or proprietary tags. Some browsers are more forgiving than others, depending on the nature of the error. An HTML validator can go a long way toward making your presentation more consistent.
You can't do much about user settings - indeed, most designers assume this can be ignored. You can, however, address the other effects.

Be sure to consider colors, both of background and text, in laying out the HTML for your page. Most browsers can render at least the 216 colors given by RGB (red, green, blue) hexidecimal representation in the following table:

Red 00
Green Blue
  00 33 66 99 cc ff 
00            
33            
66            
99            
cc            
ff            
Red 33
Green Blue
  00 33 66 99 cc ff 
00            
33            
66            
99            
cc            
ff            
Red 66
Green Blue
  00 33 66 99 cc ff 
00            
33            
66            
99            
cc            
ff            
Red 99
Green Blue
  00 33 66 99 cc ff 
00            
33            
66            
99            
cc            
ff            
Red cc
Green Blue
  00 33 66 99 cc ff 
00            
33            
66            
99            
cc            
ff            
Red ff
Green Blue
  00 33 66 99 cc ff 
00            
33            
66            
99            
cc            
ff            

HTML Validators

The following is a brief summary of a discussion from Usenet newsgroup comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, in which the usefulness of validators became clear at least to me.

  1. Validators can spot incorrect HTML that will be represented incorrectly by a browser. Not all incorrect HTML will show up to the user; some browsers are forgiving with some errors. But validators may pick up errors that wouldn't be forgiven.
  2. Validators can spot proprietary tags that can't be viewed by more than a few users.
  3. Valid HTML syntax (assuming no styles) avoids "best viewed by."
  4. Validators can be used as a tool to keep the designer up to date on HTML specs and browser support. Not the only such tool, or the best, but a tool.
  5. It's possible that fully valid HTML will assist the designer in debugging any attached stylesheets.
  6. Valid HTML lets you bring other tools from the SGML world to bear - such as normalizers.
  7. There is a nagging suspicion out there that flagrant HTML errors will prevent search engines from indexing your site. (One such suspected error, overlapping tags, is flagged.)

References

The Bare Bones Guide to HTML
CoffeeCup Software
Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
Surfing in the Dark
- a downloadable zipped tutorial
WebMonkey HTML tutorial
World Wide Web Consortium - develops standards for HTML and related technologies
A FREE reliable HTML validator
HTML FAQ

What You Can Do

  1. Test your Web pages on multiple browsers.
  2. Check your HTML with a validator. This will help you not only ensure a clearer presentation of information, but will make adding such extensions as stylesheets and dynamic HTML easier.
  3. Test your Web pages on multiple monitors. Screen size can drastically affect presentation.
  4. Consider separating presentation of information from content. Stylesheets make this possible.
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