Html
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is not a computer programming language, but a system for marking up plain-text documents so that they can be used as World Wide Web pages on the Internet. HTML codes are placed in a document to define its layout, structural organization, and formatting as a Web document.
The Internet has been evolving since the 1960s. Early usage was limited to text only (no graphics) and required knowledge of computer languages. In 1991 a young man named Tim Berners-Lee introduced a new way of presenting, finding, and retrieving information over the Internet. The World Wide Web system is based on special text coding to prepare documents and special viewing software called Web browsers that are programmed to recognize the codes and present the documents in a rich, colorful, and interactive format.
Berners-Lee used elements of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) to format Web documents and include hypertext links in them. Hypertext links are a navigational tool that allow immediate jumping from one Web resource to another by clicking on specially coded text or images within a document. A communications protocol called HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) was developed to allow hypertext linking.
In 1994 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was formed to ensure that compatible specifications are used by the various parties involved in web technology. Developers, vendors, and other parties from around the world obtain a consensus on which specifications, protocols, and data formats should be used for the common good. The W3C issues official standards for HTML and encourages their use by browser developers. HTML 2.0 was issued in June 1994 and is considered the baseline standard. The vast majority of browsers on the market should recognize HTML 2.0 codes. Versions 3.2, 4.0, and 4.01 appeared in 1996, 1997, and 1999, respectively. Major web browser developers, such as Netscape and Microsoft, have also developed nonstandard or proprietary tags that only their browsers can recognize. Therefore, not all HTML documents are interpreted the same way by all browsers.
HTML codes consists of tags, tag attributes, and entities. Tags are short commands placed inside angle brackets that specify document features (such as headers or body text) or define specific formatting (such as bolding or underlining). An initiate tag is placed immediately before the text to be coded and an end tag including a slash mark is placed immediately after it. For example, the tag <B>dog</B> would cause the word dog to be presented in bold print. Some common tags are shown here:
- <B></B>--Bolds text between the tags
- <U></U>--Underlines text
- <I></I>--Italicizes text
- <HTML></HTML>--Indicates that document is HTML coded
- <P></P>--Indicates beginning and end of paragraph
- <HEAD></HEAD>--Indicates that text is main heading of document
- <H1> to <H6> / </H1> to </H6>--Specifies one of six different heading styles
- <BODY></BODY>--Indicates that text is body text of document
- <OL></OL>--Indicates that text is an ordered (numbered) list
- <L1>--Indicates that text is a specific item in a numbered list (no close tag needed)
- <IMG>--Embeds an image into the text (no close tag needed)
- <A></A>--Anchor tag used with other coding to indicate a hypertext link
Attributes are code words placed inside initiate tags to provide additional information. For example, the tag <P ALIGN="CENTER"> means to center align the paragraph following it. The word ALIGN is the attribute, and the word CENTER is the attribute value. This coding would still be ended with the </P> end tag. Tags can have dozens of attribute choices. In addition, there are specific values that go with most attributes. One of the most popular attributes is color. Many browsers support color selection for the background, text, and links on a web page. A specific color is identified by name (if it is a common color like red or blue) or by a hexadecimal triplet code, such as #4169E1 for royal blue and #FFA500 for orange. For example, a background color of orange for body text could be specified using <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFA500">.
Hyperlinks are coded in a variety of ways depending on the location of the linked resource and the choice for the destination window where it will appear. A simple HTML code that allows a user to "click" on text (e.g., The Gale Group) and jump to the company's web page includes an anchor tag, the destination URL address, and the "clickable" text as follows: <A HREF="http://www.galegroup.com">The Gale Group</A>.
An entity is a short sequence of letters and/or numbers that represents a specific character or symbol. Entities always begin with & and end with ;. There are hundreds of entities that can be used in HTML code to represent punctuation marks, foreign letters, mathematical operators and other symbols.
Although the W3C works to recommend HTML versions that are as universal as possible, the coding is constantly evolving and is driven by marketplace practices. Web developers and users always want more interactive features and formatting choices. In January 2000 the W3C recommended a new standard XHTML 1.0 that recasts HTML 4 in a richer markup language called Extensible Markup Language (XML).
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