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HTML Basics - Part 1 of 12
by Matthew Bacon

Introduction
Welcome to the MyAtari magazine HTML tutorial series. This tutorial series is designed to introduce you to the rudiments of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), the language of the World Wide Web.

What you'll need to get started...
Before you can begin to create web pages, you need to get the following...

  • A text editor, such as Everest, Edith etc.
  • A browser, such as CAB (so you can see what your HTML looks like!)
  • A strong cup of coffee :-) Optional

If you do not own a text editor or browser, I recommended that you quickly search the internet or contact your friendly Atari PD library before continuing.

Glossary of Terms

  • HTML
    HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is a set of instructions that describe how a web page is displayed.
  • WWW
    World Wide Web
  • The Web
     World Wide Web
  • The Internet
    World Wide Web
  • Web page
    Also known as HTML documents, are ASCII files. A web page is made up of HTML instructions, known as tags, plain-text and images.
  • Web site
     A collection of web pages that are linked to each other.

What is a HTML document?
A HTML document, also known as a web page, are ASCII files (i.e. just plain text) that can be created using a text editor or HTML generators such as Web.Wizard or HomePage Penguin. A web page is made up of HTML instructions, known as tags, plain-text and images (provided by the author).

A HTML document is essentially made up of two sections. The first is the head, which contains the title and meta tags (all will be explained in due course) and the second is the body, which contains the actual contents of the web page.

What is a tag?
HTML is a set of instructions that describe how a web page should be displayed. These instructions, known as tags consist of a left angle bracket (<), a tag name, and a right angle bracket (>). Tags are invariably grouped in pairs of two. The first of the pair switches the tag on and the second off (this looks the same, except a slash (/) is placed before the tag name).

For example, 

<HTML>

        <HEAD> ... </HEAD>

        <BODY> ... </BODY>

</HTML>

Some tags also make use of attributes. These provide additional information that is included inside the on tag. For example, you can specify the alignment of a paragraph of text (left, center, right) or the vertical alignment of an image (top, middle, bottom).

For example, 

<P ALIGN="CENTER">

        Please center this text

</P>

Not all World Wide Web browsers support every HTML tag. However, if a browser comes across a tag it does not support, it will simply be ignored.

 

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MyAtari magazine - Tutorial #1, April 2001

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