THE ABSOLUTE BASICS OF HTML
HTML is the abbreviation for Hypertext Markup Language. It is a derivation of Standard Generalized Markup Language and defines various components of a World Wide Web document. It allows for inclusion of graphics, sound, manipulation of type, and provides for hotlinks which allow a client to browse data without having to worry about the technical details of how the data was retrieved from the server. HTML documents are written in plain (ASCII) text and can be created using text editors such as vi or pico, or with any of the many HTML editors now available. Documents can also be written in word processors, such as WordPerfect, and then transferred to UNIX files. At the University of Arkansas our HTML classes teach our users to create and manipulate text files in a UNIX environment, create documents on line and make them available to WWW browsers, and to make existing documentation available through the Web. Any computer that is networked and has a domain name, and sufficient memory, could actually be used as a server. Documents are distributed on the Web according to a Client/Server model of delivery. The client is the tool the user sees, such as Netscape, or Lynx. The server is the site where the files are stored and subsequently transmitted from. It honors any client with a valid request. Requests come in the form of URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) which consist of a protocol://hostname/pathname. The URL for the University of Arkansas homepage is: http://www.uark.edu/
A Little UNIX
HTML needs a place to live. At the U of A students, staff and faculty may create documents in the UNIX file space available on their comp accounts. comp is the name of the host computer that provides them Internet access, and features such as e-mail, NetNews and Gopher. A directory is created and named public_html, and the main page of the homepage is a file in that directory named index.html . This allows for a URL that looks like this: http://comp.uark.edu/~userid/ The ~ (tilde) makes it unnecessary to write out the entire pathname to the file called index.html . To create that directory, the UNIX command: mkdir public_html is used. Appropriate permissions must be set for the directories and files that are created, allowing for clients to access them. The chmod command is used where appropriate. Some other UNIX commands that will be used often are: cp to copy files, mv to move or rename files, rm to remove files, pwd to show the working directory, and cd to change directories.
The Actual HTML
HTML uses tags as the directives which govern the characteristics and display of the document. They are contained within left and right brackets ( < and > ) which indicate their special function. The tags are not visible in the final display of the document when viewed by a client. Some of these tags are paired and require an end tag to correspond with the opening tag. For instance, the tag that indicates bold text, , requires a companion tag, , to indicate where the bold text should end. Not all tags require closing marks. Certain tags are absolutely required in an HTML document. These tags are:<html>
It's a good idea to create a file called template.html that can be copied every time a new document is generated, to avoid having to do redundant work. That way, the new information can just be added to the existing structure. Other tags modify text in some way. Examples might be: <b>text</b>> - Bold text <i>text</i> - Italicized text <tt>text</tt> - Typewriter text (provides a Courier font) <pre>text</pre> - Preformatted text (to get HTML to honor spacing)
<head>
<title>Document Title</title>
</head>
<body> Document Text
</body>
</html>
<h1>text</h1>
thru - Manipulates type size - h1 being the largest.
<h6>text</h6>
Some other tags that manipulate text stand alone. <br> - forces a line break <p> - provides a double line break between paragraphs <hr> - draws a horizontal rule across the page
To create links an anchor tag is required. It looks like this: <a href="URL or filename"> visible text in document To include images the following tag would be used: <img src="file.gif"> You can also create lists with indented contents like this: <ol> or <ul> - Ordered list or unordered list <li> <li> <li> - Items featured in the list </ol> or </ul> Unordered lists appear with bullets alongside the indented item, and ordered lists have corresponding numbers beside the list item, like in an outline. There are a lot more subtle manipulations such as changing background colors, and adding background tiled images, that can be performed with the appropriate tags, but these should be enough to get you started. Style Some important things to keep in mind when creating Web pages: 1) Know your audience and consider what their client browsers are capable of. Plan ahead. 2) Organize your page in a logical manner. 3) Keep things simple. 4) Use the visual and audio capabilities available to you. 5) Update your material. 6) Advertise your site.