HTML

2009 Mar 03

What is HTML?

Html consists of tags (with optional attributes) plus information. A tag is an html keword surround by angle brackets, for example: . It is important to not put in extra spaces such as < tag > as this may make the tag unrecognizeable. HTML can have the content separted from the style (see CSS), and can include JavaScript or Java for dynamic effects.

Master Reference - HTML 4.0

Content and Purpose

An HTML document can be:

on the web (called a web page) - URL is of form: http://www...
or as a file (or files) available on a local computer - URL is of form: file:///C:/data/...

When used as a local file it can be just a help document or information published within an organization. When published on the web it is useful to know how to tell the existing search engines of the existence of your web page.

In either case the creator of the html document must reconcile that information which the creators which to make available vs. the information the users which to have. This is something which usually changes over time.

Organization

As the information to be presented grows and takes many screens or pages, it is important to allow people to get to what they need as fast as possible subject to any sequential ordering of steps that thay must go through. There are 3 fundamental ways to organize the information:

Linear structure
Hierarchical structure
Webbed structure

Combinations of these can be made where appropriate.

External Links

VisiBone

Bare Bones Guide To HTML

HTML Home Page

Find CD

Here is the source and MSWin exectuable for a C program to find the CD drive and invoke IE to open file "index.html" on that CD drive. See file autorun.inf which is placed on root of CD.

2005-2009