Basic HTML

For those that want to really get to the bare bones of how things get on the net!

(This helps even if you use a WebPage Editor.
You will still have to know some basic codes to use them as well)

What editor should I use?
There are a couple of them that you can use, like Notepad and Wordpad (I prefer using Notepad). You do all your coding inside them. This does not mean that you can not use others, this tutorial is for some basics that you will need either way! If you are going to use an editor other than Notepad and Wordpad... you should be able to tweak the HTML in any editor by going to View and then HTML Code.. or Edit and HTML code... or something like that.

BEST Darn Notepad in Cyberspace!
This is the opinion of this webmaster! hehehe
Get this Notepad!! It allows you to have more than one file open at a time and has several features that once you have played with the buttons on it a few times you will learn that it has all sorts of fun things that make life easier! This notepad is well named "EditPad" And better yet! It is FREE!!!
My buddy at DaveCentral has all the toys! hehehe I highly recommend this proggy! (Proggy = Program)

How do I save my work?
While in your editor (Editpad is what I am using.. but it should be the same for any editor) go to, File--Save as-- in the file name box put in whatever name you like (The first page of your site has to be called index.html think of it as the table of contents to your page. If you do not have an index.html as your first page, then others will just see all the files that are in your directory when they come upon your page. So make sure that the first page is called index.html you can name the rest of the pages whatever you want.) then put ".html" as the suffix. Then hit the save button. Make sure you put ".html" as the suffix or your pages will show up as the coding!

Where do I save my work?
You should save all your work into one folder.The best thing to do is make a new folder to save and place all of your work and graphics,and so on.I like to keep it in a folder on my Desktop for easy accessibility.

The Fun Begins!
Alright, here we go. It would be a good idea to now open up the editor you are going to use.Again, use Notepad for this. It is compatable with the codes and easier to use in my opinion than other word programs for this type of thing. All the coding you are about to see and write, will go into it.

Tags
Most all the tags that begin and end the hmtl coding are inside the less than " < " and the greater than " > " tags.(i.e. <HTML>) Another thing is, most all tags close with a backslash " / " put inside them (i.e. </HTML>). I'll give you an example of some HTML.""This is a bold tag"" the text inside the tags would show up as this "This is a bold tag". You'll understand this better as we go on. Here are some tag that you'll use to create any new page.

<HTML> This is an HTML tag. It shows the browser that all info inside these tags are in HTML.
<HEAD> This is a head tag.You put info in here that is used for search engines and other info that I will get into later.
<TITLE> This is a title tag.What goes in between here is the title of your page.
<BODY> This is a body tag. All of you pictures and text and alot of other goodies go in between this tag.

Alright, let me now show you how you would put a simple page together. Write this in your editor (notepad or whatever you have chosen as your favorite text editor).

Untitled - Notepad

File Edit Search Help

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> My first web page</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
This is my first web page.

This stuff isn't that hard after all! I'll be putting up good web sites in no time.
All I have to do is learn acouple more tags.

</BODY>
</HTML>

Save it as index.html or whatever name you like, (this is only a practice html so you can call it test if you want) then open the html file in your browser. The results would look like this.

My first web page

This is my first web page.

This stuff isn't that hard after all! I'll be putting up good web sites in no time.
All I have to do is learn acouple more tags.

It's not very pretty, but atleast it is the foundation to an HTML document. You used a tag , it is a paragraph break tag. It is used for spacing, it skips a line then starts on the next. The reason why you have to use break tags, is because web browsers try to fill everything on one line. So if you didn't put a it would look like one big paragraph. Try leaving the tag out and save it, then see what the results are. Not too cool is it.. scrolling to the right is not considered net wise... and most viewers will leave.. so that is another reason for the tag. Notice how at the end of the code you placed and </BODY> and </HTML>.... Those are "Closed tags" you have to close certain tags.