HTML tags

Skills: adding HTML tags, text editor

IT concepts: plain text, computer components – storage versus memory, separation of content and format

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

HTML tags

• What is HTML?

• The Notepad text editor

• Create an HTML document

• Tim Berners-Lee

What is HTML?

Hypertext Markup Language

HTML tags are added to Web documents to control their layout and appearance.

Hypertext is non-linear – the reader can follow links, jumping from page to page.

Linear text is read from start to finish.

Hypertext systems predate the Web, but the Web caught on.

Same content, different layout and appearance

There are tools for creating Web sites that generate HTML for you – why learn HTML?

• Every user– To be able to modify pages – for example adding a

feature to a blog– To understand how the technology works in order to

feel empowered and in control

• Developers– To be able to write programs that generate HTML

We will not use an HTML generating tool, we will compose HTML documents using a plain text editor.

HTML tags

• What is HTML?

• The Notepad text editor

• Create an HTML document

• Tim Berners-Lee

The Notepad text editor

• Notepad is included with Windows.• Notepad is in the Accessories program group.• Start > All programs > Accessories > Notepad

Notepad versus Word

Notepad – a plain text editor

Word – a full word processor

Notepad versus Word

An ASCII example

L 1001100

a 1100001

r 1110010

r 1110010

y 1111001

My first name, Larry, would be encoded as follows:

It requires only five bytes of memory or storage:

01001100 01100001 01110010 01110010 01111001

Only the character codes are recorded.

Extra information in a .doc file

This requires more memory or storage.

HTML tags

• What is HTML?

• The Notepad text editor

• Create an HTML document

• Tim Berners-Lee

Before starting, turn off extension hiding

start > computer > tools > folder options ... > view

Uncheck

You only have to do this one time.

Type in the text, then …

Add the basic HTML tags …

Save the file on your hard drive

Naming your HTML file

Use the extension htm or html.

Be careful to select All Files as the type.

Check to see the file was saved in the directory you selected

Be sure the file has the extension .htm, not .txt.

Display the page using a Web client

But, I do not like the formatting – I want to add a heading and a paragraph break, so I must add some more HTML tags.

View the page by double clicking on the file name or using the File > Open command in the Web client.

Add the <h2> … </h2> and <p> tags

Save it on the hard drive then refresh using the Web client

Note that it re-wraps the text if the window is re-sized

Notepad and a Web client side by side

Simple debugging -- change the HTML, save it, and refresh the client.

HTML tags

• What is HTML?

• The Notepad text editor

• Create an HTML document

• Tim Berners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML

Tim Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his invention of the World Wide Web. He is shown here, along with the first picture posted on the Web and a screen shot from an early version of his Web browser.

Reference links

• A dozen tags to get started

• HTML tutorials with executable examples

• The original ASCII code