HyperText Markup Language HTML is a simple language that was created to describe the structure of a document. It was not intended to specify page layout. That was to be left to individual Web browsers. However, page layout specification features have now been added by companies such as Microsoft and Netscape. In addition, fierce competition has resulted in a lot of additions to HTML and rivalry over what features ought to be included in the next HTML standard. I'll mostly show you HTML 2.0, even though the current version is well beyond that. We want to concentrate on the basics, before lots of specialized stuff was added. When you design a Web page you want to include new features that grab the interest of people, but at the same time you don't want to use features that a lot of people won't be able to see because their Web browsers don't support them, or they are a nuisance to work with (frames), or they are slow to load (e.g. too much sound, photos, or other large files). You should also think of whether you should be providing access for the handicapped, such as the blind. Sticking to fairly basic HTML is the safest approach, but not always the most attention-grabbing. Here is a very basic HTML file: This is the title. Note how it appears. This is the body of the document. You can write pretty much whatever you want here. Note that your browser will word wrap these lines for you. That is one of the nice operations carried out by your browser as it tries to display your file according to its defined structure. Of course a different browser might choose to display the structure in a somewhat different manner. Copy the above example to a file, perhaps simple.html, in your www directory. From within Linux, the directory is: /www/YourID (with your ID substituted for YourID, of course) In Linux change the file's permissions so that you can view it: chmod 644 simple.html If you use SecureFX or similar to transfer the file from a PC to Linux, the permissions may be OK from the start. In Linux you can use ls -l to check file permissions in the current directory. Note the letter l; it is not a number 1. If the permissions are rw-r--r--, that means read and write permission for you the owner, read permission for your group, and read permission for everyone else. If you interpret this as a binary number you get 110 100 100, which is 644. Look at the file with a browser to see how it is displayed. The URL would be: http://cis.stvincent.edu/YourID/simple.html Of course, use your ID, not the literal string YourID. Most tags, including those used above, come in pairs. There is a <> tag to indicate the start of something and then a tag to indicate the end of that section. Everything is usually contained within a pair of HTML tags, though sometimes the tag is optional. Note that nearly all HTML documents would contain a HEAD section and a BODY section. Notice that the following would produce the same effect on the screen, since the exact layout within the HTML file does not matter. The final effect depends on the HTML tags and on the particular browser. This is the title. Note how it appears. This is the body of the document. You can write pretty much whatever you want here. Note that your browser will word wrap these lines for you. That is one of the nice operations carried out by your browser as it tries to display your file according to its defined structure. Of course a different browser might choose to display the structure in a somewhat different manner. As you can see from the above example, an HTML file is broken into a header section and a body. One of the main items that you would place in the header section is a title. The title typically appears at the top of the browser window. Next, look at the following file. It illustrates several new features. Br. David's Home Page

Br. David Carlson, O.S.B.

Office location: Physics 201
Phone extension: 2416
Email address: carlsond@stvincent.edu

Br. David is a Benedictine monk of St. Vincent Archabbey who works in the Computing & Information Science Department at St. Vincent College. His main jobs are as follows:

The stuff between is a comment. A comment should not span multiple lines. Put comment symbols around each line if you want a long comment of sorts. The

section marks a heading of level 1, that is, a major heading. The end of the heading is indicated by the

tag. You can also have a heading of level 2 by using

and

, a heading of level 3, and so forth through level 6. Most browsers display a heading of level 1 in larger and/or bold text for emphasis. A heading of level 2 is probably displayed in somewhat smaller text than a heading of level 1. Usually, a heading of level 1 is used as the first thing in the body to repeat (or give some variation on) the title of the document. The tag

is used to indicate the start of a paragraph and

to indicate the end of one. (In HTML 1.0 the

tag indicated the end of a paragraph instead.) The closing

is optional, but recommended. Many people omit it, however.