HTML ... The basic structure of a document
Every web page requires the use of "tags" or "delimiters" to instruct the
browser how to handle the content within. For the purposes of simplicity
in this course, we will refer to "tags" only. All tags start with an open
bracket or "<" and end with a closing bracket or ">". (These
brackets are also known as "single chevrons" or "less than" and "greater
than" symbols.) We will simply refer to our "tags" as either "start tags"
or "end tags" for sake of simplicity.
Start tags take the following format: <html>
End tags take the following format: </html>
These start and end tags are the main components of any web page. They
instruct the browser how to handle certain display characteristics and
operands.
HTML documents have three main tags that make them work. These are IN
ORDER"
<html>
= start an html document
<head>
= start interpretation of the "header" info for this
document
</head>
= end interpretation of the "header" info for this
document
<body>
= start displaying "content" of this html
document
</body>
= end displaying "content" of this html
document
</html>
= end an html document
(not required but useful to include in ALL html files)
There is another tag that is used in virtually ALL html documents called
the "title" tag. It should appear after the start html tag and before the
start head tag in most cases.
<title>
= Whatever you enter after this tag and before the
end title tag will appear in the top bar of the browser.
Example:
<title>
My first webpage
</title>
would display as:
My first webpage - Netscape
in the Netscape browser. This is also the name that will be associated
with any "bookmarked" pages in the users bookmarks files.
Hint: Use text that relates to your web site in the title bar as
this is the very first place that the Internet Search Engines look for
referring data to rank pages!
It is important, when possible, to code information when writing HTML
documents on separate, individual lines. This will help you to maintain
consistency and to "debug" incorrect data entry at a later stage.
Well, now it is time to actually create your first web page
and start on the wonderous journey that is Internet Web Page Design. Good
luck!
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