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HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) was developed in the year 1991. This language is used to write scripts to construct the Web pages. Though, today we have a lot of tools that are used for scripting to help in web designing the history of HTML goes back to 1991 when this was the only language for scripting to develop a Web page. The language could also be used to share documents online. This idea of sharing documents and pages was proposed by Tim Berners Lee. He is still eulogized for introducing HTML tags, which were responsible for initiating the Internet ride, ultimately helping in better communication. Initially, 22 elements were introduced in HTML, out of which 9 elements have been frozen due to upgradation. Now, we have the fourth version of HTML, which is referred to as HTML Four. The initial version of HTML Four consists of 13 elements.

HTML has its origin from SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). SGML is a little heavy on the technical side, but it’s good to know it because it initiated the whole project of W3-World Wide Web. An SGML is usually described as a Meta language, which gives you the liberty to make use of a range of markup languages. Initially, when HTML originated, SGML tagging was used in the basic HTML, however, in the advanced stages, SGML tagging was not given any preference, as HTML could never be an appropriate SGML document.

If you wish to learn the HTML scripting, it can be learned easily and is very interesting. Continuing with the history, Lee HTML was withdrawn and a new HTML was created by the IETF. This was described as the HTML working group, which brought about a formation of HTML 2.0 version. For a difference 2.0 is the version number, which is given to this. But this 2.0 is not up to the mark for the development of a web environment, which is suitable to everyone and gives a better result. This addition requires some changes. Earlier in this 2.0 version changes were done under the guidance of IETF. In 2000 a version was released by W3C that is well known, as it possess those international standards the same as version 4.0. Presently HTML 5.0 is in demand in the market. HTML has come a long way since 1991 and it has launched many versions in the past years and from every version users have received something new to exhibit. When HTML came up with its final version, users found this version more easily applicable as compared to any other programming language, which is used for web designing.

Yesterday while surfing the net, an unusual observation made me wonder a few things. I marveled at how easily communication can be established now and our data transferred. What used to take something like ages in the past is now done in minutes. With technology growing rapidly, people seem to have been able to make things simpler for everyone to grasp. Definitely getting information, being able to communicate with a pal somewhere and also applying for a job has become easier thanks to the net. But have you ever wondered what/who masterminded this? Well programming and the answer is as simple as that. It’s the human mind which is the center for such easy communication and no miracle thankfully.

When Tim-Berners Lee wished to share documents between two computers, he did a small programming and created a language which enabled him to share the documents. This language, he called HTML tags which were but simple designs then. With time, the HTML drafts by Lee and his team faded away. IETF a new team on the block, worked on these dead drafts and got a whole new HTML developed which became the version 2.0. This version was made in the year 1995. Over the years from 1991 to 1995 a whole team worked day and night to come up with something good for technology. But version 2.0 was not the end of HTML.

During the period between the version 2.0 and the building of the other versions a request was sent by IETF for comments on various factors like form based file upload, client side image maps, tables and internationalization. All this was given to the IETF in the year 2000. A certain Dave Raggett of the IETF, came up with the version 3.0 which contained all the elements mentioned in his proposal like tables, text flow around figures, and the display of complex mathematical elements. At the time it came into existence, it was too complicated from implementation point of view and so nobody took the project ahead. But the interesting fact is that instead of proposing a 3.1 version, a 3.2 version was proposed and many of the features of version 3.0 were removed due to the complexity.

Now at the time when 3.2 came into existence, IETF had closed down and it became officially declared by the W3C. After this straight away HTML 4.0 came into existence in the year 1997. This version contained certain flavors which were strict, transitional and frameset. It adopted browser specific attributes and removed some that were of no use. In 1998 the version 4.0 was re-released with some minor additions. This version too contained the same flavors but had some more additions. Version 4.01 came into existence in the year 1999. The latest version released in 2008 is the version 5.0. This shows that HTML has particularly undergone a lot many changes in the period of 17 years. It has survived in spite of its initial dismissal.

With HTML things have changed drastically and definitely for the good. Just imagine when at one point people just could not afford the communication cost, HTML has changed the communication technology. It did not do the whole changing but it definitely played a major part in the revolution. Without the development of HTML, things would not have been what they are at present.

So far we have seen how HTML was initiated and what all happened in its development stage. How many versions have been there and what were the changes made in each version. The basic HTML structure, the meaning of tags, what role they play in HTML designing. We have gone through the basic reason for developing HTML. Now sharing and linking being done, we still have to scroll through the topics. Many web pages have something like hundred topics on one page and scrolling to each topic can be laborious and useless. You feel times have changed but still there are many dreading jobs which can be avoided but how you don’t know. Well for those who put up a hundred topics on one page and cant afford another page for the topics should make way for navigating from one topic to another. This makes life easier and saves a lot of time used up by unnecessary scrolling. But before we proceed with the linking in the same document we need to know something about linking. A link, hyperlink or web link, forms the basis of the HTML language. There are two ends to a link- called anchors and a direction. A Link starts at the source anchor and destination anchor. Let us see how this scripting is done in HTML.

<H1>Table of Contents</H1>
<P><A href=”#section1″>Introduction</A><BR>
<A href=”#section2″>Some background</A><BR>
<A href=”#section2.1″>On a more personal note</A><BR>
…the rest of the table of contents…
…the document body…
<H2><A name=”section1″>Introduction</A></H2>
…section 1…
<H2><A name=”section2″>Some background</A></H2>
…section 2…
<H3><A name=”section2.1″>On a more personal note</A></H3>
…section 2.1…

Without going into the technical details, here we have seen how the source and destination anchors are used and what exactly their purpose is. Now similarly we can also navigate from one part of the document to the other part. There are some steps involved in doing so. We have described the method in the next few lines. You can use the normal anchor tag here to navigate from one part of the document to another. Here instead of using name of another page, you can use the same portion of the document. You can name the area of the document you are interested in navigating in the bracket named area. This code looks something like shown below.

name=”name_of_area”>text</a>

you can call a link to the place you are right now to go to the area you want to you can use a statement given below.

href=”#name_of_area”>text</a>

HTML has definitely improved the way a web page works. It has given various features over its development stages. We always find some new addition or unwanted deletion in the new versions.

A not very technical yet fun loving tutorial for HTML!

We know how and why HTML originated in the first place. But we still have no idea what is HTML, what functions it includes and how it works. HTML, as all of you know is a Hypertext Markup Language which has been inspired from another markup language known as the SGML. We normally use this language to create a link between the various documents online and also to design the layout and attributes of a web document. Before going further in this tutorial, we start with the URL which is the uniform resource locator which helps you find the exact document or page. For each document or page there is a unique URL. Now this is not uncommon for the people who are net savvy. You must have definitely used the URL a hundred times. But that is not the point, the main thing you should know is how to navigate from your home page to the other web pages i.e. how it is linked.

<beginning tag> statement< /end tag>

As you can see in the statement above, there is a / before the end tag and you should consider this important. The tags are differentiated as the head tag and the body tag. You also have the HTML tag and the title tag other then the head and body tag. Let us see each tag in some detail and observe how it looks like in a script. HTML tag is to make the program realize where the beginning for the HTML code is. It looks like this. It is not being used by many recently. The Head tag contains special tags like the header of a document. Basically, the body tag gives information about the linking, the documents, the layouts and other such things for your web page.

HTML better known as Hyper Text Markup Language is a tool for writing scripts to develop web pages. It has come a long way since it came into existence for the first time in 1991.

Web designing does still use HTML but it is not the only language used for scripting. A quick glance at the history of HTML will tell you that HTML was the first language used for scripting to build a web page. It was the start language for sharing documents online. The brain behind the idea for developing a system to share documents and pages was Tim-Berners Lee. This name is still famous for the HTML tags which started the internet tour and helped make communication easier. The HTML tags consisted of a simple design for HTML. The 22 elements that were introduced in the HTML then have lost some 9 elements on its way to upgradation. The fourth version of the HTML named HTML four consists of 13 elements of the first version.

HTML is inspired from the SGML language which is Standard Generalized Markup Language. Though a little technical it is definitely good to understand SGML because it started up the whole project of W3-World Wide Web. A SGML is normally termed as a metalanguage where you are free to use various markup languages. In the basic HTML too SGML tagging was used in the initially stages but later HTML never came up to be a proper SGML document and it was preferred not to use SGML tagging any further. Upgradation did not support the SGML. Right now if you go in for programming HTML scripting is considered a baby and anyone is able to learn it. But the Lee HTML disappeared in the wind and a new HTML was created by the IETF. This HTML was the HTML working group which concluded to be the HTML 2.0 version. Now here is where we get the standard HTML on which further upgradation to make it better were made. Not many of us are aware of this history, but it is certainly interesting. Well as a matter of fact you should also know that there was no HTML 1.0 as such. There were some previous HTML and its drafts which were different from the HTML 2.0. To create the difference a version number was given and what is better then 2.0. For better results and develop a web environment suitable to all, the version 2.0 was not sufficient. Some additions were needed in this version. So additions, changes and more such work was done on the version 2.0 under the guidance of IETF for this. The version released in 2000 by the W3C is known to have an international standard which was the version 4.0. The current version running in the markets is HTML 5.0. HTML has come a long way since its inception in 1991. A lot many versions have been developed since its initial dismissal and each version found something new to exhibit to the users. The final version has made things user friendly and people definitely find HTML easier to use then any other programming language for the web designing.

HTML has successfully initiated the web language era. It all began with Lee’s attempts i.e., the new era of web based services. Lee tried to share documents between two computers and for that purpose he developed the HTML language. A language developed solely for sharing purposes has come a long way and is the most widely used to link documents on your web browser and determine the documents’ attributes and layouts.

HTML is not the only language used for this purpose, but is the main tool for web page designing and linking. Its competitive features and user friendly approach have made it a hit with all programmers involved in designing. Once you get the feel of this language, you too will find it easy to use. We already know a many things about the HTML language. Here we will solely discuss the fonts and colours used in the HTML language. You can add some fonts to the web browsers other than the ones normally used. Many web pages do not support the use of extended fonts or colours i.e. there is no option for font or colours in the web page. You can even add a font or colour tool to the web page. In this way you can change the font type or the colour of the font. Now this can be done using a simple code.

FACE=&quotfont_name”
Let us check out a few examples of how you can have your own extended font on the web page.

Verdana font. For this simply use this code: <font size=+2 face=”Verdana”>Verdana</font>
Arial font. For this simply use this code: <font size=+2 face=”Arial”>Arial</font>
Helvetica font. For this simply use this code: <font size=+2 face=”Helvetica”>Helvetica</font>
Comic Sans font. For this simply use this code: <font size=+2 face=”Comic Sans MS”>Comic Sans MS</font>
Font impact. For this simply use this code: <font size=+2 face=”Impact”>Impact</font>

You can clearly understand the structure from one code itself. The necessity for so many examples is that you need to understand that there is a basic similarity and what it is. You just need to change the name of the font for the type of font you want in the tool bar. Otherwise the code remains the same whatever the font you are interested in.

Now that is simple isn’t it? No wonder most people prefer using the HTML codes for scripting for web pages instead of any other language. You should also remember that for you to see the above fonts or the fonts you want, the web browser you use should support the fonts. Now that we have seen the fonts, why don’t we move on to the colours? You can change the text colour too if you so desire. All you need to do for that is use COLOR=”font color” in the tag. With this code you can change the colour according to your choice. E.g. If you want your font colour to be yellow all you need to do is write Hey I’m Yellow! and font colour is yellow.
Simple , isn’t it?

HTML is a short form of Hypertext Markup Language. A markup language provides a means to describe the structure of both text-based information and extra information on the web page.

Basic Requirements:

To start with your HTML programming, you should have a web browser and a text editor. Since HTML is a text-only document, a program such as Notepad is perfect.

Tags:

In the case of HTML, the markup information is contained in “tags,” which are easily recognizable by the < > symbols. To format a web page, “tags” are used at the beginning of a section, called opening tags, and end of a section, called closing tags. An opening tag always has “<” and “>” and a closing tag always has “</” and “>”, which occur in begin-end pairs. The first and last tags in a document should always be the HTML tags. These pairs are in the form

<tag> … </tag>.

Document Tags

• HTML
• HEAD
• TITLE
• BODY
• Comment Tags

Creating and Viewing HTML Documents

Every file with the .html is usually opened by default with a web browser. If you are placing the file on a server that is visible from the WWW, type the name of the file after the address of the server.

Structure of an HTML Document

Every HTML document consists of two basic parts: the “head” and the “body.” The head starts with the <head> tag and ends with the </head>, for the body the <body> tag is used in a similar manner. Both the head and the body must be enclosed in <html>….</html>.

Structure of the HTML Docs
<html>
<head>
<title>Title bar text<title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Look, I’m not an Alien!</p>
</body>
</html>

Formatting Text

Valid specifications of the language allow for formatting of text and design using HTML tags, without any CSS. Headlines need to be inside dedicated H tags, while regular text goes in paragraphs and with the appropriate line breaking applied. The three most common text decorations are bold text, italic text, and underlined text. There are six types of headline tags, or headings, defined with the <h1> to <h6> tags.

HTML Lists:

• Unordered Lists
• Ordered Lists
• Definition Lists

There are three types of lists: unordered lists, ordered lists, and definition lists. In case of ordered list, any number of items is listed by using numbers. Whereas in unordered list, bullets are used to list any number of items. Definition lists are based on term-definition pairs, not on list items.

Metatags:

While offering no visual advantage on your pages, META tags work behind the scenes for search engine optimization. These tags are placed after the tags at the beginning of your HTML document. Keywords, which can identify your website, are placed after meta tags section. Search engines use these words to compare to what users enter in for search results. The “description” section is what will appear on the search engine when someone searches for your site. By coming up with a description, you can immediately let the user know what kind of site you are offering.

Growth of HTML over the years:

Developed by Tim Berners-Lee, HTML has now become an internationally accepted standard, now maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium. Starting with loose syntactic rules, HTML was effectively improved, overtime, by creating increasingly strict language syntax. The original HTML specification described 22 elements, and 13 of those are valid even today.

Yesterday while surfing the net, an unusual observation made me wonder about a few things. Namely, how easy it was to establish communication to transfer our data. What used to take something like ages in the past is now done in minutes. With technology growing rapidly, people seem to have been able to make things simpler for everyone to grasp. Definitely getting information, being able to communicate with a pal somewhere and also applying for a job has become easier thanks to the net. But have you ever wondered who/what is the mastermind behind all this. Well it is ‘programming’ and it is as simple as that. It’s the human mind which is the centre for such easy communication and no miracle thankfully.

When Tim-Berners Lee wished to share documents between two computers, he did some programming and created a language which enabled him to share the documents. This language, he called HTML tags which were but simple a design then. With time, the HTML drafts by Lee and his team faded away. IETF, a new team on the block, worked on these dead drafts and got a whole new HTML developed which became the version 2.0. This version was made in the year 1995. Over the years from 1991 to 1995 a whole team worked day and night to come up with something good for technology. But version 2.0 was not the end of HTML. During the period between the version 2.0 and the building of the other versions a request was sent by IETF for comments on various factors like form based file upload, client side image maps, tables and internationalization. All this was given to the IETF in the year 2000. A certain Dave Raggett of the IETF, came up with the version 3.0 which contained all the elements mentioned in his proposal like tables, text flow around figures, and the display of complex mathematical elements. At the time it came into existence, it was too complicated from an implementation point of view and so nobody took the project ahead. But the interesting fact is that instead of proposing a 3.1 version, a 3.2 version was proposed and many of the features of version 3.0 were removed due to the complexity. Now at the time when 3.2 came into existence, IETF had closed down and it became officially declared the W3C. After this, HTML 4.0 came into existence straight away in the year 1997. This version contained certain flavours which were strict, transitional and frameset. It adopted browser specific attributes and removed some that were of no use. In 1998 the version 4.0 was re-released with some minor additions. This version too contained the same flavors but had some more additions. Version 4.01 came into existence in the year 1999. The latest version released in 2008 is the version 5.0. This shows that HTML particularly has undergone a lot many changes in the period of 17 years. Yet, it has survived in spite of its initial dismissal.