The first code you see is HTML and if you look at the bottom of the source code, you will see /HTML. This is very simply the code to tell your computer that this document is using "hyper text markup language." The slash ( / ) means "end." Therefore we now have the document telling the computer when to start reading this language, and when to stop reading it. Simple right? Simple, maybe, but very, very important. Without these two tags, your page will not load unto a browser. Remember, this is the first and the last part of an html document. Okay, on to the next coded word set.

This is the code that says where the heading of your document is. Inside the heading you have only the codes for the TITLE and META (to be discussed much later.) tag sets.

Notice I underlined the word "sets." This is to be sure you understand that both the beginning and ending tags for TITLE and META go INSIDE the HEADing tag set.

Did you notice I was able to cause not only a specific word to be underlined, but also a word to be made italic? This is done with other basic "tag sets." U & /U for underline; I & /I for italic; and B & /B for bold. You can also use a combination of these to create a different look:

Here is another basic "tag set." This one does one simple job. Look at the extreme top of your computer screen. What do you see? If you have Internet Explorer, you see: "Tag Sets - Microsoft Internet Explorer. If you have Netscape, you see: "Netscape - (Tag Sets)." That is what this "tag set" does. If you forget to put this set in, by default, the url will be put here.

This tag is much more complicated, but nonetheless, extremely beneficial. In this tag, you get to put character and feeling into your site. This is the tag that allows you to adjust the background and text colors of your site, as well as the background image if you so choose. Let's break this tag up into its different 6 parts.

Part one is: BACKGROUND="" ... Inside of these quotation marks, you put the image you want to use as the backdrop of your page.

Part two is: BGCOLOR="#c0c0c0" ... This is the color of your background. If you have no image, it is important to choose a color that will be pleasing to the eye as well as not so bright that it makes the text hard to read.

Part three: TEXT="#000066" ... Here is the text color. Of course you can choose any color that you like to put in these tags. A color chart is located here for your convenience.

Part four: LINK="#0000a0" ... Now this color is the link color, which means that the text you use as a "linking word" to another page/site will be this color. Notice the word "here" in Part three is a different shade of blue? Making the link a contrasting color allows your viewer to easily see your links.

Part five: VLINK="#004080" ... A VLINK is a visited link, someplace your viewer has already been. Again, this is usually a contrasting color to show your view that they have "been there, done that!"

Part six: ALINK="#c0c0c0" ... Lastly, we have the ALINK, which only means active link. You have the opportunity to change the text color as it is being clicked if you so choose! Genereally, I make it the same color as the background so that the text 'disappears,' so to speak, when someone clicks a link. Did you notice that about the link to the color-chart?

This tag is a bit longer than others because of its nature. This is the link tag. Inside of its first tag you have this group of words: A HREF="index.html" (or another such page name) which will cause the link to go to that particular page. Here is where it gets tricky. For a page inside your directory (where your pages are stored) you need only put the page name, as I have done here. For a page outside your directory, and on another server, you must put the full url. However, if your site is on GeoCities and you want to link to your neighborhood's main page, you need only put a / (representing http://www.oocities.org) and the hood name: "/Heartland." If you want to link to another page in GeoCities (for example your son's site,) you would, again, need only the / plus the remainder of the url: "/EnchantedForest/Glade/5196." The / gets your viewer out of your directory, but not out of GeoCities. You can see how this works by looking at the status bar (at the bottom of your browser window) while placing the mouse over a link.

Now, that only covers what is inside the first tag. After that you will want to put the text or image you are using as the link, and then the ending tag: /A. IMPORTANT!! Do NOT forget to put in the ending tag, OR ELSE everthing beyond that first tag WILL be a link, and you don't want that to happen.

This is also the tag you would use to create an automatic email link. You need only add an extra word into the code. Here is the coded tag to email me:

Notice the MAILTO: part, don't forget the colon. Check the status bar to see what is says.

There is more that you can do with A HREF, too. If you have a very long page, and you want folks to be able to skip down to what they are interested in without seeing all that is there, you can make a documented link. This page is an example of what I mean. Try these:

Notice that these links take you to a different place on this page only. Notice also in the status bar (at the bottom of the browser) that the link looks like this: #5. To make a documented link, you first need the documented reference point. On this page, the reference for link 1 is just above the title for HTML & /HTML. The reference looks like this: < A NAME="#1" >< /A >. There is nothing in between the A NAME and /A. The further down, I have this link: < A HREF="#1" >HTML & /HTML< /A >. So that when you click on HTML & /HTML, you get taken to the A NAME="#1" .

Now that you understand the working of documented links and refernces, you should know that it is possible to use this on other pages as well. For example, if you want to go to my "backdoor" you can use this link, but if you only want to see my site map that is there, you would use this one. Go ahead, check it out, you will find that you go to two different places on that one page. These links look like this:

Just remember, that when going to another page, you need to list that page and then the reference. Okay, well, that covers that. On to something else.