Lorian Network | Building | HTML
|
|
||
|
What is HTML? |
HTML is an acronym for HyperText Markup Language. The HTML language was invented as part of the original process of creating the world wide web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. In one sense, the world wide web is HTML. Web pages are simply text documents composed of HTML What HTML does is describe what the page should look like. When your web browser receives a page over the internet, the browser itself then attempts to build the page according to the description received. |
|
|
|
||
| What does an HTML document look like? |
<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title>Simple Web Page</title> </head> <body> <p>This is a very, very simple web page of text only.</p> <p>Click on your browsers BACK button.</p> </body> </html> Click here to see this HTML as a web page |
|
|
|
||
| So is that all there is to building a web page? |
Well, yes and no. HTML alone is enough to create basic, static web pages. But over the years as the world wide web has developed, many additional features have been added to web browsers Plug-Ins are probably the most familiar addition to those that have used web browsers. Plug-Ins extend the ability of a web browser to do something beyond what the browser and HTML alone could do, such as playing an MP3 song, showing a movie, or displaying an animation. Less familiar is the inclusion of the Javascript language into browsers to allow the execution of scripts, small embedded programs that can be used to control a page, check inputs and provide some dynamic features. Support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in modern browsers promises better control of page layout, and combined with Javascript, the creation of dynamic web pages. Together these two are often called DHTML, for Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language. The Java language (not to be confused with Javascript) is a full featured programming language. Created by Sun MicroSystems, it allows complete computer programs written in Java to be executed as part of a web page. |
|
|
|
||
| How can I learn HTML? | We are not going to try and teach you HTML here, but there are many resources available to do that, in books and on the internet. One of the books we like is Elizabeth Castro's "HTML for the World Wide Web." The internet has many resources available for reference and learning HTML. See our Resources section for some links to those types of sites, or do a search from your favorite search engine. |
 |
|
|
||
| Isn't there any way to make web pages without learning all of this? |
Yes, there are many commercial, shareware and freeware programs available for creating web pages in a visual-layout format. These types of programs allow you to concentrate on the design of your page, while the program converts your design into HTML code. The top two commercial web-site design programs, Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Dreamweaver are shown to the right. See our Resources section for more information and links. However, even the best visual web page design programs can't do everything. Most web sites that contain anything beyond static pages will require some manual "tweaking" of the HTML. |
  |
|
|
||
YOUR DOMAIN |
 ADDING GRAPHICS |
|
|
|
||
| Main | Services | Rates | Equipment | Accounts | Contact | Building | Samples | Support | Resources | News |