HTML [01] DEFINITIONS HTML stands for "Hypertext Markup Language". Hypertext is a technical term for a computer screen text which has marks that may be clicked with the mouse to make the screen to move to other parts of the text, to other texts in the local computer, or to texts stored on servers of a computer network. A server is a computer that receives and sends files among computers linked to a network. Internet providers have servers that perform this function in the Internet. The Internet is the world largest computer network. Internet providers that store home pages are also known as hosts. A set of interconnected home pages about a subject is a website or simply a site. The first page of a site, which provides access to all the others home pages of the site is called a portal. The Windows Help files are hypertexts as is the popular Acrobat Reader that reads and displays .PDF files, but both were programmed in languages others than HTML. This course is a hypertext edited in HTML. [02] HTML CODES (TAGS) Tags are English words or abbreviations between < and > that literally express the formatting expected from a certain point in the text until the same word between </ and > is found. Thus the text between: a) <I> and </I> will appear in italic characters b) <B> and </B> will be shown in bold characters c) <CENTER> and </CENTER> will be centered on the screen. Examples: a) This text is in italic characters. b) This text is in bold characters. c) This line will be displayed in the center of the screen. These tags are interpreted by the browser for display on the screen as soon as the file that contains the home page is downloaded into the user's computer. These files must have their names ended with the extensions: .htm or .html The Internet Explorer and the Netscape are the most well known browsers. Both interpret, in an identical fashion, most tags, but not all. There are tags accepted by Netscape (Ex: BLINK, that shows a blinking text) that are not interpreted by the Internet Explorer. Similarly, Internet Explorer interprets the BGSOUND (background sound) attribute that Netscape does not. Therefore, after editing a home page, it is recommended that it be tested in both browsers. Only practice will allow the home page designer to master these differences and find solutions that will meet the requirements of both browsers for an acceptable appearance. [03] HTML EDITORS As in any computer program language, HTML tags and the formatted text have to be edited in text editors that save files in ASCII code (text without codes other than the ones typed by the programmer) In Windows only the Notepad does this. There are sophisticated websites designed and edited in Notepad. Wordpad (Ex-Write), Word, Excel and others contain hidden codes that may be wrongly interpreted by the browsers. However, they may have available tools to convert the text into a home page. More often than not, these converted home pages do not appear as expected. There are many HTML editors that allow editing tags with a few mouse clicks, however they require a minimum knowledge of the basic tags so that beginners may adequately decide which would better fit his requirements in designing a home page. This course is intended to fulfill this objective.