HTML
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the simplest part of what makes web pages on the World Wide Web. It is a markup language, which means it has a mix of normal language that people can read, and special language that tells computer programs what to do.
A web browser is the program that reads the special language in HTML. This language tells the web browser how the web page should look. The web page can include writing, links, pictures, and even sound and video. It can also have writing that is not shown in the web page, which tells people about the web page—for example, the name of the person who made it.
You are now reading a web page made with HTML.
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[edit] Writing HTML
You can make HTML with a computer program called an HTML editor. Because HTML is just writing, you can make it in a text editor. There are also computer programs that let you draw a web page the way you want it to look, and these programs make the HTML for you.
The full English Wikipedia has a list of HTML editors.
[edit] Example HTML
HTML tells the browser what to show by using tags. Tags start with < and end with >. An example is, <br>, the Line Break tag, which causes a new line.
Most tags have an opening tag to tell the browser where to start something, and an ending tag to tell the browser where to end. An example is <p> to start a new paragraph, and </p> to end a paragraph.
Here is an example page in HTML.
<html> (This tag tells the browser that this is the start of the HTML)
- <head> (This tag tells the browser that this is the start of the head of page, which readers cannot see)
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- <title> (This tag tells the browser that this is the start of the title)
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- HTML - Simple English Wikipedia (This is the text of the title. Readers can see this in the bar at the top of the screen)
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- </title> (This tag tells the browser that this is the end of the title)
- </head> (This tag tells the browser that this is the end of the head)
- <body> (This tag tells the browser that this is the top of the page)
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- <p> (This tag is the start of a paragraph)
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- Here is some text.
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- </p> (This tag is the end of a paragraph)
- </body> (This tag tells the browser that this is the end of the page and the last part to show the readers)
</html> (This tag tells the browser that this is the end of the HTML)
The result is:
Here is some text.
HTML is often used in partnership with Cascading Style Sheets to build a complete webpage.
[edit] Browsers
Some HTML effects put in to webpages can only be viewed in certain browsers, because other browsers do not support/recognize the specific HTML. For examaple < MARQUEE > text </marquee>, used to make text slide accross the page, can only be used in Internet Explorer browsers.
For another example, Netscape users are the only ones who can see blinking codes: <blink>text</blink> into effect.
Users with other browsers will see only plain text.
[edit] Other websites
- HTML Source: Beginner's HTML Tutorial - a site of tutorials aimed at web design beginners.
- HTML Dog is a site that helps new writers write good, simple HTML and make it look good with CSS.
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