First HTML Page

Now that you have a basic understanding of HTML and have sen the "tags", it is time to create your first HTML document in the text editor and view it in the web browser.

Your HTML document should contain two parts, the head and the body. The head contains information about the name of the document. The body then contains everything else that is displayed as part of the web page.

The basic structure of an HTML page is:


  <html>
  <head><title>
    <title of the document>
    </title></head>

  <body>
  
  <-- Comments: this is a horrible, antequated and  tedious language!!!-->
  
  your work will be displayed here
          :      :
          :      :
          :      :
  </body>
  </html>

Enclose all HTML work within <html>...</html> tags. Inside is first your <head>...</head> and then the <body>...</body>. Your web pages may look fine on most computers without these tags. However by using them, your web pages will be fully compliant with HTML standards and be compatibile with future web browsers.

Also note the comment tags enclosed by . The text between the tags are NOT displayed in the web page but are there to put information that might be of use to yourself or anyone else that might look at the HTML behind the web page. When your web pages get complicated, the comments will be very helpful when you need to remember what you did four months ago when you attempt to update your page.

Here are the steps for creating your first HTML file:

1. Launch or switch to Simple Text.
2. Go to the text editor window.
3. Enter the following text (you do not have to press RETURN at the end of each line; the web browser will word wrap all text):


     <html>
     <head>
     <title>Learning HTML</title>
     </head>
     <!-- written at the Syllabus Conference in Sonoma by... -->
     <body>
     This is my HTML page.  There are many like it, but this one is mine...
     </body>
     </html>

Notice that the <title>...</title> tag is located in the <head>...</head> portion and thus will not be visible on the screen. This is because the <title> tag will be used by the browser to name your document and to display this name in the title bar of the browser.

4. Save the text as a file called first.html in the folder you created on the desktop/workspace. You must use the suffix "html" to identify the file as containing html code. For those of you using Windows 3.1, you will need to use the siffix ".htm" (.html is fine for Windows95 or Windows NT).
5. Switch back to the web browser window which you are using for workspace (not the one displaying the "lesson".
6. Select Open File... from the File Menu
7. Select "Desktop" and choose the folder containing your work.
8. Select the file called first.html and click on Open
9. You should see "Learning HTML" in the Title Bar and the sentence "This is my web page... below.

Index of topics

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