Last week, we learned that a webpage is composed of files, and that you have to put those files someplace on the web. Now, let's talk about the content of those files.
Webpages use a programming language called HTML - for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is fairly easy to learn, and you don't need any special tools to write or test it. HTML generally consists of the text of your webpage (the words) and something called "tags" which describe how the words are to look or how they are arranged on the presented page. For example, when you start a new paragraph, you first put in the "new paragraph" tag, which is
. Most tags begin with the '<' symbol and end with the '>' symbol. Some tags come in pairs - a beginning tag and an end tag. The end tag of the pair has a slash '/' in it.
You can learn a minimum set of tags and still create a working webpage. For example, here is a very simple webpage:
<html>
<title>Test Webpage
<p>Hi. This is Bob's test webpage. If you want to send some email to me, click
<a href="mailto:bsc@bobseidel.com">here.
</html>
HTML dates back to the very origins of the World Wide Web (WWW). But the one thing that HTML doesn't do well is anything having fancy graphics or interaction. For that, there are now three newer languages - ActiveX controls, Java, and Javascript. Note that Java and Javascript are not the same thing, although they do have some similarities. Javascript can be created in the same way tags are written, but is a bit more complicated to learn. Java and ActiveX require learning a true programming language and are probably beyond the scope or available tools for the average person.
Now, you have a decision to make. There are two ways to create the HTML tags or Javascript - you can write them yourself (which does require some learning on your part), or use a program to write them for you. The benefits of the former are that you learn what is actually going on in a webpage and that you have the maximum flexibility to customize your webpage. Using a program is certainly easier, but you don't learn as much and you will probably give up a lot of flexibility and have to choose from pre-developed formats. In either case, giving you detailed instructions is beyond the scope of this column. Fortunately, however, there are many websites that specialize in helping you write good HTML or Javascript. Some of these are:
- www.htmlgoodies.com
- www.December.com/html
I am quite sure that if you use the search engines, you can find many, many more instructional websites.
If you choose to use a program to create your website, there are also many of these. These programs generally give you a list of pre-defined web page formats and let you choose and customize the one you want.
Next time - more detail on HTML editors, and transferring your files to your server.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).