INTRODUCTION
This is a page just of little things you should know about HTML. Hints and such.
HTML... What does it mean? HTML is short for HyperText Markup Language.
*K*I*S*S* = Keep It Simple Stupid.... Less is More... Get it? Everyone starting out is guilty of this. Putting far too much on a first page. Which I am even guilty of on my first site I did which sometime this year will get a major overhaul.
There is a lot of great stuff out there to put on pages these days but keep this in mind. If it takes your page a long time to load no one is going to stick around and wait forever. They will leave and not come back. And, just as important.... they may be using an older version browser and not even be able to see all that fancy flashy stuff you are using! Or, may not want to download cresendo for music or flash for special effects, etc. I don't.
Don't use neon colours... ok.. personal preference but they can be blinding to read, especially if there is a lot of text on a page. And don't use dark backgrounds with almost equally dark coloured text. Some of us out here are colourblind and it looks like nothing there! *LOL*
Break up your pages.... better 6 different pages of photo's than 14 on one page. It is called "surfing" for a reason. Everything doesn't have to be on one page.
Syntax... oh you are safe, it is not a tax on your sins!. *LOL* It is simply a word for the how the computer interupts all the html. More of less.... don't worry about it. The only thing you have to worry about is getting it right! :-) Which brings me to........
Copy and Paste!! This is the neatest trick around and so worth learning. Use this and you'll make a lot less mistakes in whatever you are doing. Great shortcut too. What is copy & paste? It is just what it says... copy from one thing and paste it into another.
You just put your cursor at the beginning of what you want to copy and left click..... hold that click!!!! Don't let it go. Now drag that cursor over the entire thing you want copied and you will see it highlight for you in blue. Once you get to the end of the sentence or html code or whatever, just let the left click go, then right click and a little menu will come up. See the word "copy"? Click it.
Now to paste... Find where you want to put this information you just copied. The put your cursor where you want it to begin. Now, RIGHT CLICK this time. You will see that little menu pop up again and this time you click on "paste". Presto! There it is in all it's glory.
This is so very handy when you are doing things like the stuff at the bottom of this page. From my instructions on how to icq this page to someone right on down to the bottom is all the same on every page except the name of the page in the counter code. So I just copy and paste the entire section into whatever page I am doing and all that work is done in seconds. The only thing I have to do is change the name of the page in the counter code. Extremely quick and easy.
Opening and closing tags: These are a must! For every HTML tag there is an opening one and a closing one. The opening one just has a bracket around it and then has a closing one with brackets with a / in it after what you are doing. As in the sample below....
<center></center>
Typos... We all make them. Try your best to proof-read everything. This can be time consuming but worth it. Go slow because you have read the thing so many times that you tend to read right over mistakes. If someone is nice enough to point out a typo to you, be kind in your response to them. But, if they are snitty about it... tell them to chill out, mistakes happen, or offer them the job as your proof reader... bet you don't hear back from them.
Fonts... fonts come with your windows program. You didn't know that? Well.... go to "my computer", then click on "control panel", then you will see an icon called "fonts"! There they are. There are many, many other fonts available on the net. I suggest you look around for a good and reliable site to download from though. Not just "anyone's" site. There is a short section on font's on this site and a few of the basic things you can do with them. Fonts is just a fancy word for different kinds of text. How they look. Fancy, simple, thick, thin, looks like handwriting, etc. You will see if you go into your "my computer".
Trial Page! I always suggest to anyone trying any html out for the first time to make a trial page for themselves in their directory and use it to try the new things out first. If they don't work, no harm done. When they do work, then you have an example there to refer to later on if needed.
Cheating!!! Oh yes.. go ahead and cheat! And a wonderful html cheat is this... Find a page you like, that you have seen something you would like to try. Remember the "more is less" rule and the *K*I*S*S*. I would advise not to jump in with both feet. By the way, these instructions are for Internet Explorer, I'm not sure about Netscape these days but it is probably very similiar if not identical. Anyway....
1) Bring the page up in your browser
2) Go to the top of the browser and click on "View"
3) A menu will drop down
4) Go near the bottom of that menu and you will see "source"
5) Click on "Source"
6) What will happen is a new window will open and low and behold it is all the html for that page!!!
ok.... so you now have the html coding for that page. What do you do with it? Look it over and compare it to the site page. Find where that particular html starts..
Print out the popped up window with the html coding in it... then do yourself a favour and print out the page you like also. Then you can really take the time to compare.
Find what you want to try, and go to your trial page and give it a shot.. or two... or three.. or a dozen if needed... Sooner or later you will get it right. Don't let frustration take over. You will get it. Leave the one that worked on your trial page and use it for reference in the future if you need it again.
Print things out!!! Always. Get a big old cheap binder and start printing instructions out. Make sections if you like. You will be glad you did this later on. There are days I still refer to my old printouts.
Use Search Engines!! Go to search engines and type in HTML TUTORIALS and see what you come up with. There are millions out there. I have also start a page here with a few very good links on it for other tutorials. Including Webtv.
If you would like to send these pages to a friend on ICQ simply click on their name on your ICQ list and when the window comes up click on "URL". A new window will come up with this URL already printed in it for you, just click "send". (If you want to send to more than one person on your list, click on "Multiples" before you send.)
Or if you are not on ICQ, simply click on the pretty little button below to
automatically email this page to a friend! It will bring you
to a page that all you have to do is type in the recipient's
email address and the URL of the page you are sending will
be sent to them.
(exceptions are company logo's)
