About HTML

RULES, There's always rules to follow in everything. For HTML, there are very few rules to follow, but what the have to offer makes the difference between a good working page, and a page that doesn't render properly.

This is just a basic explanation to the concepts behind HTML. And after you finish the lessons you will be able to:

• Express the importance of HTML standards
• Describe some of the differences between HTML 4.0 And XHTML 1.0

ABOUT THOSE STANDARDS
HTML or Hyper Text Mark-up Language, is how a web browser displays its multimedia documents. The documents themselves are plain text files (ASCII) with special "tags" or codes that a browser knows how to interpret and display on your screen.

No kidding that the web is huge, Keep in mind that the thing that makes the Web (and the Internet in general) work are agreed-upon rules ("standards") that allow users of almost any kind of personal computer to be able to communicate and share information with each other.

SO WHERE DOES HTML FIT IN YOU ASK?
By using "standard" HTML, your work will be widely "shareable" in the changing future of the World Wide Web. The early sets of standards, known as HTML 2.0, are supported by nearly all web browsers available.

The current set of standards is HTML 4.0 / XHTML 1.0 which contain most features for HTML and some attempts to reduce the complexities of different web browsers. This version is starting to move towards a more "logical" method of formatting web pages, via "Cascading Style Sheets" which allows more precise formatting that web designers wish for, and separates it from the content, making it much easier to update the design of a web site. However, it will take quite some time before this functionality is common and there are still a lot differences between different web browser software (some "standards", yes?) These "standards" are recommendations as no one has the authority to enforce them!

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
For accessibility on the widest range of possible web browsers and versions out there, stick with the most basic set of HTML code. Of course, this will limit what you would like to put on a web page! If you include HTML that may look sharp only in Netscape but does not render and look sharp in Internet Explorer, people will not stay at your site and will go else where. Not only that, people viewing your web pages may not just be using different browsers, but their monitor size, graphic settings and fonts may not be the same as on the system you designed the pages.

I mean after all, you're not going to spend all your time designing web pages that are for your viewing only! The idea is to make something that the world can view. So the first section of lessons will guide you through the most widely accepted features of HTML. From there, you can then make the decision whether to use more of the "deluxe" features.