Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Basic Layout of an HTML document

At the very least, a HTML document or webpage will contain the following tags.


The very opening tag of html tells a browser this is an html document to interpret. Remember HTML just tells the browser how to display the document. Other important tags that might be present include for bold, for italics, for the background color of the document, etc. You can find all the tags by doing a search on Google for "HTML tags".

Next, we have the head tags which indicate the header section of the document. If you were to use some javascript, some code would probably be placed in between the head tags.

Then we have the title tags. Whatever is put between these will be the title of the document and be shown at the top of your browser.

In your body tags is the actual meat and potatoes of the page or document. Here is where you will be putting text, images, table, etc. that will represent what is displayed on the actual page.

Finally, we having the closing html tag that says this is the end of this page or document. HTML is alot of fun.

You can easily make a page using Notepad, Word, or any text editor. My favorite text editor is Editplus. Very easy to use and yet very powerful for HTML editing.

Have fun discovering HTML and all the tags you can use to make great looking web pages.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

How to create a website

Creating a website can be easy or complex depending on what you want to do. Sites can be made that are typically static or interactive.

A static site is usually a site that just provides information to the user. Static sites may include an organization,charity,or personal site that just provides information and may include a form or email to such as "Contact us" where you can reach the owners by email.

An interactive site is more complex and allows the user to create an account, use tools on the site, or perform actions that will direct the user based on their actions. These websites will usually use a database to store user information such as account information or user preferences.

Creating a website can be tailored to the webmaster's skills. The old fashioned way is to use HTML code or tags to display the site. Another poplular way is to use a WYSISYG editor. This stands for What You See Is What You Get editor where elements are put on the page by using menus,copy and paste options,or labels. These are great for those new to creating web sites.

More complex programs are Microsoft Frontpage or Macromedia's Dreamweaver software. Dreamweaver is the more complex and powerful of the two, which allows the user of such things as Flash and very powerful editing tools.

Monday, April 23, 2007

What is a website?

A website is really a collection of files that reside on a server and can be accessed through a browser (Internet Explorer,Mozilla Firefox,Opera,etc).

A person will normally type in an address such as http://www.example.com or www.example.com

Depending on the type of operating system of the server and the language used for the pages, the default page will be index.htm, index.html, index.php, default.asp, etc. This is normally the home page of the starting point of the website.

Navigation of the website should be user friendly and a user should know where they are easily. A common method to help the user navigate is the use of breadcrumbs, which give the user to see where they are related to the home page or "top" of the site.

Navigation of the site will usually be in the form of navigatin menus located at the top, left side, or both.

Each link to other pages of the website such be descriptive and give the user an idea of what the page is about.