Body tags

<BODY [...]>
The following properties can be used:

BACKGROUND="url"
Sets the background of the page to a specified picture. Not all browsers allow backgrounds. HTML 3.2 tag.

BGCOLOR="color"
Sets the background to an RGB color, usually gray.

TEXT="color"
Sets the standard color of the text, usually black.

LINK="color"
Sets the color of the unvisited links, usually blue.

VLINK="color"
Sets the color of the visited links. In Netscape, if not set usually defaults to magneta, Exolorer if not set usually defaults to red.

ALINK="color"
Sets the color of the links at the moment the user clicks on them, usually red.

BGPROPERTIES=fixed
Creates a watermark instead of a usual BACKGROUND picture. The watermark won't scroll. This is a Internet Explorer tag.

LEFTMARGIN=n
Defines the left margin of the page. Internet Explorer tag.

TOPMARGIN=n
Defines the left margin of the page. Internet Explorer tag.

<BODY> must end with </BODY>, usually in the end of the file.

Head tags

<HEAD>
Starts the page. Must end with </HEAD>. You can put a lot of tags inside the HEAD tag which will set some preferences for the page, but only the TITLE tag is used frequently. Put it inside the <HTML>-tag.

<TITLE>text</TITLE>
Use it inside the <HEAD> tag. (Can be outside, but it's not recomended.) Stes the title of the page (usually the window name) to "text". In Netscape 1.1N (no other browsers, no other versions of Netscape) can you 'animate' the title by inserting more than one TITLE tag.

<BASE [HREF="url"] [TARGET="text"]>
Sets the standard URL for files used in the page. Make it possible to set a pictures path to just the name, if it is in the BASE HREF folder. Using TARGET open all links in a (new) window or frame named "text". If text is "_blank", the window will be unamed. TARGET is a Netscape extension.

<BASEFONT SIZE=n>
Sets the standard size of the text. Netscape tag.

<BGSOUND SRC="url" [LOOP=n|INFINITE]>
Plays a background sound while the page is viewed. The sound must be in the .au, .wav or .mid formats. LOOP sets the number of times to play the sound, or INFINITE to play it over and over until the page is closed. Internet Explorer tag. Note! Netscape 2.x does only display the background and nothing more (text,pictures, etc) if BGSOUND is used!

<ISINDEX HREF="url" [PROMPT="text"]>
Tells the browser that the page is a searchable index. When the page is opened, a dialogbox will ask the user to enter a keyword. HREF is the url to which it will be sent. PROMPT is the text to be displayed in the dialog. If PROMPT isn't defined, this text will be used: "You can search this index. Type the keyword(s) to search for:". Some resources says that you should use ACTION instead of HREF.

<LINK REL="rel" HREF="url" [NAME="text"]>
Used as a toolbar or banner for the page, but it is not supported in all browsers. NAME is the name of the object, HREF is the url to a page and REL one of the following attrbutes. Using REL=Home, the link will point to a homepage. ToC goes to a table of contents, Index to an index page, Glossary to a page used as a glossary, Copyright to a page with © information, Up to a page used as a parent for the current page, Next and Previous to the next or previous page, Help to a help page and finally Bookmark to a bookmark (link) page. You can also use Banner. which will use the HREF page as a banner that won't be scrolled with the rest of the page (like a frame).

<STYLE>
Reserved for future use with style sheets. Must end with </STYLE>.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=language [SRC="url"]>
A script language can be, for example, JavaScript, ActiveX or VisualBasic. SRC is the source HTML file. Must end with </SCRIPT>.

<NOSCRIPT>
Text within this tag will show up in browsers that do not support the script. Must end with </NOSCRIPT>

Meta tags

<META [...]>
The META tag is used to give information to the browser or search engines. It should be placed inside the HEAD tag. The following parameters can be used:

HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="n ; URL=url"
This will reload the page every n:th second. If URL is specified the page will reload to that page instead of the current. Not all browsers support this feature.

NAME="keywords" CONTENT="word1, word2..."
This will tell a search engine the search keywords for the page.

NAME="copyright" CONTENT="text"
A copyright description of the text, for example "© Me 1997".

NAME="distribution" CONTENT=global|local
Defines if the page is an index page (global) or not (local).

NAME="robots" CONTENT="none|nofollow|all|noindex"
A more frequently used way to tell search engines which pages should be indexed. NOFOLLOW will index the present page only, NOINDEX will linked pages only, ALL will index both the presnt and the linked pages and NONE won't index anything at all.

Frames

See also "Picture and Objects" for floating frames.

<FRAMESET COLS=def|ROWS=def [FRAMEBORDER=yes|no] [BORDER=n] [BORDERCOLOR=color]>
Defines the frames. COLS and ROWS defines if the page should be split into columns or rows. Since many FRAMESET parameters can be used within each other, columns and rows can be mixed. DEF is a comma-delimited list of heights or widths of the frames. It can be in dots (n), percent of the page (n%) or in auto (*) format. AUTO will format the rest of the page, for example COLS="100,*". FRAMEBORDER shows or hides the frame dividors. BORDERCOLOR is a colorname or an RGB value that sets the color of the border. Must end with </FRAMESET>.

<NOFRAMES>text</NOFRAMES>
Text and pictures within this tag won't show up in browsers that support frames. Must end with </NOFRAMES>. Put the mainframe's content into this tag.

<FRAME [...]>
Defines a frame within the FRAMESET tag. The following parameters can be used:

NAME="text"
NAME is the name of the frame, for example used in the TARGET parameteres to refer to the specified frame.

SRC=url
The url to the page which should be placed within the tag.

[SCROLLING=yes|no|auto]
Defines if the frame should have scrollbars. If auto is used, scrollbars will be used if they are needed.

[MARGINHEIGHT=n] [MARGINWIDTH=n]
Sets the margins to the frameborder in pixels.

[NORESIZE]
Prevents the user from resizing the frames by draging the border.

[FRAMEBORDER=yes|no] [BORDER=n] [BORDERCOLOR=color]
The same properties as in the FRAMESET tag.

Other tags

<HTML>
Starts and ends the HTML document. A page should start with the <HTML> tag followed by the HEAD section and it's content inside the <BODY> tag. Finally it should end with </HTML>.