Ian MacAllen - The Official Site - Internet Rockstar Guide

Learn HTML in 19 Minutes

HTML is simple enough once you know the commands. Logically, every statement is opened and then closed. Memorizing the basic commands makes it easier to write your own HTML, and also allows you to edit pages created in Dreamweaver or some other software that generates HTML documents.

One trick for learning new HTML techniques or simple javascripts is to view the HTML source of documents. By Right clicking on the page and selecting from the menu "View Page Source", you can look at how other HTML writers have tackled problems you are facing.

Confident web authors can jump right to the Sample HTML Page.

<HTML> </html>	Tells the browser to read the file as an HTML file.
<head> </head>	The Header is where your Meta Tags, Title, and other pre-page data goes.
<meta name="description" content="A Brief (ten to twenty word) description of your site">	The description tag is often used in search engines as a description of the content of the site.
<meta name="keywords" content="keywords, go, here,">	The Keywords tag is less important now then it once was, but is still useful in some cases. It doesn't hurt to include it.
<title> </title>	The title that appears in the browser
<body background="image.gif" bgcolor="yellow" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" link="orange" vlink="pink">	BODY Sets attributes for the body of the document. BACKGROUND Sets an image as the background of the page BGCOLOR Sets a single color as the background, can be entered as a hexidecimal number LEFTMARGIN Sets the number of pixels to begin displaying the page from the left edge of the browser TOPMARGIN Sets the number of pixels to begin displaying the page from the top edge of the browser LINK Sets the color of links. The default is blue VLINK Sets the color visited links. The default is purple
<font color="yellow" size=3 face="verdana> </font>	FONT Defines the kind of font COLOR Defines the color of the font SIZE Defines the size of the font; some browsers set the font larger or smaller depending on user preferences. FACE Defines the font used to display the text; restricted to fonts installed on the users computer, not the webmasters computer.
<b> </b>	Bold
<i> </i>	Italic
<u> </u>	Underline
<center> </center>	Center All Content
<img src="apicture.jpg" border=1 alt="Alternative Text" width=100 height=100>	IMG Places an image on the page SRC The location of the file; must be a GIF or JPG or JPEG BORDER Sets the width of a border for the image ALT Sets alternative text to be displayed if the image fails to load WIDTH Tells the browser the width of the picture before it loads HEIGHT Tells the browser the height of the image before it loads
<A href="http://ianmacallen.com" target="new_window">ianmacallen.com</A>	A Begins a link HREF The link you are sending to. TARGET Used if you are trying to open a new browser, otherwise, not used.
<A href="mailto:webmaster@yoururl.com">webmaster@yoururl.com</A>	MAILTO creates an email link.
<table width="500" border=0 bordercolor="blue" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" bgcolor="yellow"> <tr> <td valign=top align=left bgcolor="yellow" width=20%> </td> </tr> </table>	TABLE Defines a new table WIDTH Sets the number of pixels for the table; may also be set as a percetnage BORDER Sets the number of pixels in the border of a table BORDERCOLOR Sets the color of the border, can be entered as a hexidecimal number CELLPADDING Sets the number of pixels between the edge of rows CELLSPACING Sets the number of pixels between the edge of columns BGCOLOR Sets the color of the entire table. TR creates a horizontal row TD creates a single cell in the table VALIGN Sets the content of the table cell to align vertically; may also center ALIGN Sets the content of the table cell to align to the left BGCOLOR Sets the color of only that table cell WIDTH sets the width for that entire column; Tables with multiple horizontal rows are constrict each cell in a column to the same length