What is HTML
HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools, from simple plain text editors - you type it in from scratch- to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools. HTML uses tags such as <h1> and </h1> to structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links etc
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Source site: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/
Last edited by EhKho; 11-29-2006 at 08:23 AM. Reason: Included source site
Re: What is HTML
HTML is a language used to make formatable websites, as you say, with headers, lists bold writing etc.
Re: What is HTML
HTML are initials that stand for Hyper Text Markup Language
Hyper is the opposite of linear. It used to be that computer programs had to move in a linear fashion. This before this, this before this, and so on. HTML does not hold to that pattern and allows the person viewing the World Wide Web page to go anywhere, any time they want.
Text is what you will use. English letters, just like you use everyday..
Markup is what you will do. You will write in plain English and then mark up what you wrote.
Language. Some may argue that technically html is a code, but you write html in plain, everyday English language.
Re: What is HTML
Here we go...
HTML is the abbreviation of HyperText Markup Language, and as the name suggests, it's a markup or formatting language, meaning that it handles document structure.
HTML and it's newer brother XHTML are used to build the framework of what is displayed on a website.
Neither is capable of building applications, but this is where scripting languages such as PHP, Ruby, EMCA Script and Python come in.
HTML provides tags for creating forms, but these require some form of scripting in order for them to be of any actual use.
Prior to the creation of CSS, everything was done in the HTML document, which lead to the birth of tags such as <font> and attributes such as background, which are depreciated and should not be used.
XHTML is used in conjunction with CSS and server-side and \ or client-side scripting to create a complete site application, though if no dynamic content is being used and no styling is required, CSS and scripting can be left out.
XHTML handles the basic framework of a web page, CSS handles how the page is displayed and scripting provides the logic that makes the page react to it's use.
This separation is done so that the site you're building is more manageable.
If the scripting is kept out of the XHTML, the designer doesn't need to understand the logic, the developer doesn't have to be an artist and neither should break anything unless they change the HTML document.
HTML is a nested markup language where the document has start and end tags which encapsulate the rest of the content.
HTML tags are also known as elements, though the name "element" is usually used to refer to the rendered tag rather than to the tag as displayed in an editor.
Each tag can have a number of attributes such as classed, I.D.'s and embedded CSS blocks and some also have other attributes (such as links which need to be told where to link to or images, which need to know where the image is located).
Attributes are places within the start tag for any tag pair, between the angular braces after the tag name:
With some tags, such as the image tag shown above, there is no end tag as they don't wrap around any other content like, say a link, which would wrap around the text to be displayed for that link.HTML Code:<img src="http://link.to/image.png" alt="this text shows if I can't find the image" title="My wonderful undergarments" />
In the case of XHTML, all tags like this need to be self closing, which basically means you need to put a slash before the ending brace as shown above.
HTML tags \ elements come in the following types:
Non-visible document structuring: tags like <html>, <head> & <body> aren't shown on the rendered page, but are used to structure the document so that the browser can tell where the actual markup starts, what it should render and what it doesn't need to render to the screen.
Meta, styling and extras:
Meta tags are used to provide data on the page.
This can include keywords for search engines, a description of the site and other bits of information such as caching information.
HTML provides tags to allow for either external CSS files or for embedded CSS code in the <head> section of your document.
You can also link up things such as RSS feeds which show a feed icon in the address bar of your browser (unless you use Internet Explorer 6).
There's also tags such as <title>, which allow you to set what is shown in the title bar of the browser window and on tabs in browsers which support them.
Block elements, links, forms and others:
While HTML should be used in conjunction with CSS, it's still quite capable on it's own.
HTML and XHTML provide tags that allow you to build forms which can provide a basic interface to a web application.
Also, HTML has block and inline level elements such as <div> and <span>.
Block elements section off their contents from the rest of the content while inline elements display within the content surrounding them.
Examples of block elements are <p> for paragraphs (leaves an empty line above and below the content in the tag) and <div> which is a divided block (content in a div is not part of the flow of the rest of the content around it).
Inline elements include links, images and basic formatting tags.
Tags such as <strong> (bolds text) are inline elements which can be used to change how the content is rendered without using CSS, but using <span> with CSS is often useful for more complex formatting without breaking out of the current block of content.
Markup languages differ from programming languages in that they do not handle logic and only serve to provide instructions on how to render the page content (in the case of HTML, CSS is also used to modify how the page is rendered, but CSS is more of a reference for the browser to look at when parsing the HTML as it'll check for a matching class or I.D. in the CSS, and then it'll apply the style instructions to the HTML element).
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PHP, CSS, XHTML, Delphi, Ruby on Rails & more.
Current project: CMS Object.
Most recent change: Theme support is up and running... So long as I use my theme resource loaders instead of that in the Rails plug-in.
Release date: NEVER!!!
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