Learn Webdesigning

LESSON 1: BASICS

Tags

The Page you are viewing right now is an HTML document made up of different types of tags. Tags are like the pieces of a web page. Without tags there can practically be no web page. HTML documents look a lot like word-processing documents but does not understand the normal conventional keyboard commands.

You can have bold and italicized, Larger and Smaller, or it could look <tt>type-written</tt> which when viewed on a web browser will look like this.

Of course, the HTML code for this can look confusing...

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 tag is saying to start bold text, and the tag is saying to stop bold text. The tag with the slash (/) is known as the closing tag while the one without (/) is known as opening tag. Many opening tags require a following closing tag, but not all do. Tags make up the entire structure of an HTML document.

<b>This Text is Bold</b>
      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.

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 line breaks (blank lines) will be ignored when the HTML is interpreted... so add them if you wish to do so.

Whatever falls between the TITLE tags will be the title of the
document, when the page is viewed it is usually found in the
title bar at the top of the screen. [Note: You may NOT use
other tags within the TITLE tags (Example: You cannot have
the code read: <title><b>title goes here</b></title>.]

Example of how titles are displayed by browsers...

In Microsoft Firefox, YOU WOULD HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THIS

Whatever you place between the BODY tags will fall into the major area of the document window, and therefore it is the largest part of your HTML document.

YOUR FIRST HTML PAGE !!!

To begin writing your own HTML page. Open any text editor and type the following in it:
<html>
<head><title>My Home Page</title></head>
<body>

-->
 My First Webpage 
</body>
</html>

Save the text file as "index.htm". or "index.html"

Saving your first HTML page

Press Control + S YOU WOULD HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THIS

Choose where you want to save it in, give it a name NOTE: the name must have a .html or .htm extension for example, index.html, home.htm and so on... and press SAVE. it will appear in the format of your default browser.

THIS IS YOUR FIRST WEB PAGE !!!

LEARN BASIC WEB DESIGNING

Tuesday, 27 November 2012