What
is HTML?

HTML is a computer language devised
to allow website creation. These websites can then be viewed by anyone else
connected to the Internet. It is relatively
easy to learn, with the basics being accessible to most people
in one sitting; and quite powerful in
what it allows you to create. It is
constantly undergoing revision and evolution to
meet the demands and requirements of the growing Internet audience under the
direction of the

» W3C, the organisation charged with
designing and maintaining the language.

The definition of HTML is HyperText
Markup Language.

• HyperText is the method by which
  you move around on the web — by clicking on special text called
  hyperlinks which bring you to the next page. The fact that it
  is hyper just means it
  is not linear — i.e. you can go to any place
  on the Internet whenever you want by clicking on links — there
  is no set order to do things in.


• Markup is
  what HTML tags do to the text
  inside them. They mark it as a certain type of text (italicised
  text, for example).


• HTML is a Language, as it has
  code-words and syntax like any other language.

How does it work?

HTML consists of a series of short
codes typed into a text-file by the site author — these are the tags.
The text is then saved as a html file,
and viewed through a

browser, like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.
This browser reads the file and translates the
text into a visible form, hopefully rendering
the page as the author had intended. Writing your own HTML entails using tags
correctly to create your vision. You can use
anything from a rudimentary text-editor to a powerful graphical editor to create
HTML pages.

What are the tags up to?

The tags are what separate normal text from
HTML code. You might know them as the words between the
<triangle-brackets>. They allow all the cool stuff like images and tables
and stuff, just by telling your browser what to
render on the page. Different tags will perform different functions. The tags
themselves don’t appear when you view your page through a browser, but their
effects do. The simplest tags do nothing more than apply formatting to some
text, like this:

<b>These words will be bold</b>,
and these will not.

In the example above, the <b> tags were wrapped around some
text, and their effect will be that the contained text will be bolded when
viewed through an ordinary web browser.

If you want to see a list of a load of tags
to see what’s ahead of you, look at

this tag reference. Learning the tags
themselves is dealt with in the next section of
this website,
My First Site.

Is this
going to take long?

Well, it depends on what you want from it.
Knowing HTML will take only a few days of reading and learning the
codes for what you want. You can have

the basics down in an hour. Once you know the tags you can create HTML
pages.

However, using HTML and designing good websites
is a different story, which
is why I try to do more than just teach you code
here at HTMLSource — I like to add in as much
advice as possible too. Good website design is
half skill and half talent, I reckon. Learning techniques and
correct use of your tag knowledge will improve your work immensely, and a good
understanding of general design and the audience you’re trying to reach will
improve your website’s chances of success. Luckily, these things can be
researched and understood, as long as you’re willing to work at it so you can
output better websites.

The range of skills you will learn as a result of running your own website
is impressive. You’ll learn about aspects of
graphic design, typography and computer programming. Your efficiency with
computers in general increases.You’ll also learn about promotion and your
writing will probably improve too, as you adapt to write for certain audiences.

Do I have to be online all the time?

Not at all. You can code your entire website offline,
storing it all on your own computer, and then just transfer all the files onto
the web. Then whenever you have new content, you just add that to the existing
online version of your site. It’s really quite simple.

Is there anything HTML can’t
do?

Of course, but since making websites became more popular and needs increased
many other supporting languages have been created to allow new stuff to happen,
plus HTML is

modified every few years to make way for improvements.

Cascading Stylesheets are used to control how your pages are presented, and
make pages more accessible. Basic special effects and interaction
is provided by

JavaScript, which adds a lot of power to basic HTML. Most of this
advanced stuff is for later down the road, but
when using all of these technologies together, you have a lot of power at your disposal.

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Why not get a quick view of times gone by with
The History
of HTML? If you think you’re ready to start coding, head over to the
My First Site section
and begin creating!

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