Friday 4 October 2013

What is HTML?

HTML is the "mother tongue" of your browser.

To make a long story short, HTML was invented in 1990 by a scientist called Tim Berners-Lee. The purpose was to make it easier for scientists at different universities to gain access to each other's research documents. The project became a bigger success than Tim Berners-Lee had ever imagined. By inventing HTML he laid the foundation for the web as we know it today.

HTML is a language, which makes it possible to present information (e.g. scientific research) on the Internet. What you see when you view a page on the Internet is your browser's interpretation of HTML. To see the HTML code of a page on the Internet, simply click "View" in the top menu of your browser and choose "Source".

For the untrained eye, HTML code looks complicated but this tutorial will help you make sense of it all.

What can I use HTML for?

If you want to make websites, there is no way around HTML. Even if you're using a program to create websites, such as Dreamweaver, a basic knowledge of HTML can make life a lot simpler and your website a lot better. The good news is that HTML is easy to learn and use. In just two lessons from now you will have learned how to make your first website.

HTML is used to make websites. It is as simple as that!

Okay, but what does H-T-M-L stand for?

HTML is an abbreviation of "HyperText Mark-up Language" - which is already more than you need to know at this stage. However, for the sake of good order, let us explain in greater detail.

Hyper is the opposite of linear. In the good old days - when a mouse was something the cat chased - computer programs ran linearly: when the program had executed one action it went to the next line and after that, the next line and so on. But HTML is different - you can go wherever you want and whenever you want. For example, it is not necessary to visit MSN.com before you visit HTML.net.
Text is self-explanatory.
Mark-up is what you do with the text. You are marking up the text the same way you do in a text editing program with headings, bullets and bold text and so on.
Language is what HTML is. It uses many English words.

In this tutorial you will learn so-called XHTML (Extensible HyperText Mark-up Language) which, in short, is a new and more well-structured way of writing HTML.

Now you know what HTML (and XHTML) stands for let's get started with what it is all about: making websites.

Thursday 19 September 2013

Elements and tags

You are now ready to learn the essence of HTML: elements.

Elements give structure to a HTML document and tells the browser how you want your website to be presented. Generally elements consists of a start tag, some content, and an end tag.

"Tags"?

Tags are labels you use to mark up the begining and end of an element.

All tags have the same format: they begin with a less-than sign "<" and end with a greater-than sign ">".

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of tags - opening tags: <html> and closing tags: </html>. The only difference between an opening tag and a closing tag is the forward slash "/". You label content by putting it between an opening tag and a closing tag.

HTML is all about elements. To learn HTML is to learn and use different tags.

Can you show me some examples?

Okay, the element em emphasis text. All text between the opening tag <em> and the closing tag </em> is emphasised in the browser. ("em" is short for "emphasis".)

Example 1:

 
 <em>Emphasised text.</em>

Will look like this in the browser:

Emphasised text.

The elements h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 and h6 is used to make headings (h stands for "heading"), where h1 is the first level and normally the largest text, h2 is the second level and normally slightly smaller text, and h6 is the sixth and last in the hierarchy of headings and normally the smallest text.

Example 2:

 
 <h1>This is a heading</h1>
 <h2>This is a subheading</h2>

Will look like this in the browser:

This is a heading

This is a subheading

So, I always need an opening tag and a closing tag?

As they say, there's an exception to every rule and in HTML the exception is that there are a few elements which both open and close in the same tag. These so-called empty elements are not connected to a specific passage in the text but rather are isolated labels, for example, a line break which looks like this: <br />.

Should tags be typed in uppercase or lowercase?

Most browsers might not care if you type your tags in upper, lower or mixed cases. <HTML>, <html> or <HtMl> will normally give the same result. However, the correct way is to type tags in lowercase. So get into the habit of writing your tags in lowercase.

Where do I put all these tags?

You type your tags in an HTML document. A website contains one or more HTML documents. When you surf the Web, you merely open different HTML documents.

If you continue to the next lesson in 10 minutes you will have made your first website.