HTML: The Language of Web Design
The standard language used to write Web pages is called HTML. This stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. I know that this sounds complicated, but trust me, by the end of this semester, you will be an expert in using HTML. Want to see what HTML looks like? Right now, take your mouse and place the cursor anywhere on the page (preferably on some blank white space). Now, right-click your mouse and select “View Source” or “View Page Source”. What you will see is a new page that contains the HTML code for this page. This is what I used to write this page. What do you think? Some of it you may be able to figure out, while other parts may look a little complicated. Again, don’t worry. We’ll learn this new language one step at a time. This is one neat thing about HTML. You can view code from anyone’s Web page by right-clicking and viewing the source code. So if you look at a Web page one day and say, “Wow, that’s neat! How did they do that?” you can view the source code and find out.
Where does HTML come from? Good question. Believe it or not, there is a world organization known as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that oversees the development of HTML and other Internet languages. The W3C is a global organization with offices all over the world. If you’re interested in checking out W3C, their Web site is located at www.w3c.org. Once every few years, W3C comes out with a new standard for HTML. The standard currently being used is standard 4.0, which is the standard that we will use for this course.
You may have heard about other Web programming languages, such as XML, PHP, JavaScript and PERL. These are all neat languages, but HTML continues to be a primary language used on Web pages. In this course, we will focus entirely on HTML, which is really all you currently need to design a great Web site. If you decide to get into Web design as more than just a hobby, you may want to explore some of these other languages.
Sounds great. Now how do I write a page in HTML?
You are full of great questions! You may have heard of some fancy programs that you can buy to design Web pages for you…names like FrontPage, Dreamweaver and SiteSpinner. Well, guess what?... we’re not going to use any of these cool programs! Actually, for beginners, learning to use one of these fancy programs is the worst way to learn how to design Web sites…trust me on this one. Here are some reasons that we aren’t going to use any of these Web editing programs:
Don’t get the wrong idea here. After you learn the basics, these programs can help you do some wonderful things. But learning Web design through one of these fancy programs is definitely not the best option.
So what program will you use to design Web sites?....Notepad or Wordpad. These are very simple text editing programs that you already have on your computer if you use any version of Windows. To get to Notepad, click the “Start” button on the lower left hand corner of your screen. Then click “Programs”, then click “Accessories”, and then click “Notepad”. (go ahead, do it right now). If you use computers much, this will look like an extremely simple program…it is. It is a simple text editing program with no strings attached. It’s like Microsoft Word without 99% of the features. Believe it or not, this simple little program will help you design beautiful Web pages. And, as amazing as it may seem, the most advanced Web designers around use Notepad to do their work.
If you don’t like Notepad, another option is Wordpad. To get to Wordpad, click the “Start” button on the lower left hand corner of your screen. Then click “Programs”, then click “Accessories”, and then click “Wordpad” (please check this one out now, too). This looks a lot like Notepad, but it has a slightly different appearance, and there are helpful features that you may sometimes use. Right now, if you haven’t done it yet, I’d like you to spend a few minutes checking out Notepad and Wordpad. Choose one that you’d like to use throughout the semester. Remember, Notepad is the industry standard, but Wordpad is a nice alternative.
