TAPESTRY: The Art of Representation and Abstraction
The Web: HTML
Formatting vs. Content
Hyper Text Markup Language is an example of what is called a "markup" language. Web pages are simply text documents containing both formatting information and the content to be formatted. Graphics are included by reference, not explicitly. The browser ultimately assembles the finished page.Tags
The formatting information in an HTML document is contained within "tags". Each tag consists of opening and closing angle brackets (the < and > characters). In many cases the tags come in pairs, as in <b> bold </b> , which are sometimes referred to as containers.Modifiers
Many tags can include a number of modifiers. For example <img src=a.gif> will cause a file named a.gif to be downloaded and displayed at the corresponding location in the document. However, <img src=a.gif align=right> will download and display the image against the right-hand window edge, and will flow text around the image.Much of the process of learning about web page authoring is learning about ways to "embroider" the basic HTML document to achieve richer results.
Standard vs. Non-standard HTML
There is an organization which is attempting to maintain an HTML standard which states what the tags and modifiers are and what they mean. Unfortunately (perhaps) the different bowser manufacturers (Microsoft and Netscape) are fighting for market share, in part, by bringing out "cool" features which exist in only their browsers and which require the use of non-standard tags or modifiers. Since the "standard" behavior for a browser to use when it encounters a tag is doesn't understand is to ignore it, no overt errors result. Still, your page may change appearance dramatically on the other browser.Do I Have to Learn All These Tags?
No, not really. There are several "WYSIWYG" (What You See Is What You Get) editors available for creating web pages. Several are available as shareware or demo-ware from sties around the web. However, to achieve full and complete control of your web documents, many people find that they end up working directly with the HTML tags.Where Can I Learn About It
One of the best ways to learn about HTML is to use the browser's "View Source" feature. The exact command is different in different browsers and even in different versions of the same browser, but the idea is to make the "raw" HTML of the current page available to you to see. You can learn a great deal in this way because you can compare the finished results with the input data.There are also many resources for learning about HTML on the web. The Links page includes a number of these. It isn't hard to learn the basics.
Finally, there are quite a few books out these days about HTML and web design. A couple are listed in the Bibliography page.
Last updated: April, 2014
