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Getting Started In your text editor, write the following text to create a very basic web page. Type the tags such as <title> exactly (they are not case sensitive) and change the text between the tags if you wish.
Understanding The Tags The <HTML> tag is, lets say, is a must. It tells the browser to expect a HTML document, a web page. And the </HTML> tag shows the end of the HTML document - so these tags should go at the very start and end of your page. The <HEAD> and </HEAD>tags are about the page's "header" information (such as the title to display at the top of the screen), and the <BODY> and </BODY> tags mark out where the "body proper" or the "main text" of the page starts and finishes. The <TITLE> tag specifies the document's title. The corresponding </TITLE> tag tells the browser that the title has ended. The <H1> tag was used in the example. There are many ways to make a "headline" for your page, and you can decide to make your headline (if you want to use a headline that is) big, medium or small. The <H1> tells the browser "use a size one headline". the </H1> tag switches off the <H1> headline. To get a size 2 headline use <h2>. You can go all the way down to a </H6> headline, which is the smallest. The <B> tag makes text after it go bold. And the </B> tag turns off the bold effect.
Save your file as mypage.html or something ending with .html or .htm. The .html and .htm file extensions tell the browser that this document is an HTML file.
Note: A web site's address is known as a URL. URL means Uniform Resource Locator. What is a URL? It is a way of pointing to a file in a directory, but that file and that directory can exist on any machine on a specified network and can be served via any of several different methods or protocols. URLs do not only point to something as simple as a file: URLs can also point to queries, documents stored deep within databases, the results of a finger or archie command, etc.
Open this file in your browser and it will look like this:
You can add attributes to the <body> tag, (be careful about where the spaces occur:
This makes the page background color black, and all the text white. Or you could have tried something a bit more radical such as
Colors can be specified using color names ("red", "white", "black") or color numbers based on the hexidecimal system.
In the hexidecimal system colors are specified by a six digit number ranging from "#000000" which is the hex number for black to "#FFFFFF" which is the hex number for white.
Carriage returns in raw text do no show up in a web browser. We have to indicate a carriage returns with another tag. We have to insert a <p> tag. Unlike all the tags mentioned so far, it doesn't always need a closing tag </p> - this can often be omitted. So HTML only recognises a new line when you make it explicit - by using the <p> tag for a new paragraph (two lines down), or its close cousin the <br> tag (which gives one line break). It doesn't need a closing tag either - nor does <hr> (which creates a horizontal rule - a nice line across your page). These are among the few exceptions though. Most tags have to have closing tags. Links The idea of HTML is to to use hypertext to travel from one document to another. It was originally developed for bibliographies in on-line scientific papers. Instead of going looking for the paper's references, one could just click on the reference and immediately go to the full text of the reference. This link to another page is called a hyperlink. To create a hyperlink type the following in the body of your saved file:
When you look at this code in your browser, you will see:
Whatever text you put between the tags (e.g. home page) is highlighted by the browser as a hyperlink. The first tag contains the actual web address (or URL) - another site perhaps, or another one of your own pages - that the user will be transported to once they click on it.
The pair of tags used for hyperlinks is known as an anchor.
Then you specify the address of the document you want to link to by typing HREF= (which stands for "hypertext reference") and the address in quotes
This is followed by a closing right angle bracket - the
> Try altering the link - it can be to any other address or page on the web, but obviously any external link won't work until you go online.
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