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Issue 1, June 1997 ISSN 1368-1591

Tutorial

An introduction to HTML
Prologue | Special offer | Tutorial topics

An introduction to HTML

    A tutorial by Dr Clare Sansom PhD and Dr Alan Mills PhD of Birkbeck College and Venus Internet Ltd.

In this tutorial we overview the basics of Web page creation. Creating Web pages is a lot easier than most people think, and is a useful alternative to using other people's home pages and lists of links.

Prologue

All documents on the World-Wide Web are 'coded' with embedded tags which tell the browser how to display the document in its window, essentially imparting information about how the document is structured, where the images are, where there are the hyperlinks, and so on.

These tags, and their useage, constitute what is known as 'HyperText Markup Language' (HTML). You can get an idea of what HTML looks like by selecting View... Document Source in your browser menu (do it now!).

Some people learn these tags and edit them directly into their documents in a simple text editor, then test the result in a browser. Others prefer to use dedicated authoring packages right from the start, or programs that convert existing documents produced in word-processors. These are often very useful to save time, but the results often need 'tweaking', so we always recommend that Web authors at least understand the basics of HTML, or know where to find reference data explaining tags and their use.

Early attempts tried to produce an HTML 'standard' (first 1.0, then 2.0) were confounded by independent operators who introduced various extensions and 'enhancements', leading to the 'Balkanization' of the Web. In Spring 1996 the proposal for HTML 3.0 expired before it received ratification! However, most of the operators in the industry now look to HTML 3.2 as the superset of tags to emulate, although at the time of writing, not all browsers currently support all of the features in HTML 3.2.

You should understand that most Web servers run on UNIX platforms. This means that your file names should not contain spaces (as Macs allow), and also file names are case sensitive (i.e. UPPER CASE is different from lower case). This applies both to HTML files, which usually take the extension .htm or .html, and image files, which usually take the extension .gif, .jpg or .jpeg depending on whether they are GIFs or JPEGs (the only two graphic file formats widely supported on the Web).

Another issue which authors should bear in mind is that the Web population globally are using a mixture of legacy (older) browsers, some of which don't support the newer features (backgrounds, centering, Java, tables, frames). Too many Web authors produce pages (sites) which look great in their own browser, with all sorts of up-to-the-minute whizzy whistles and bells - but forget that those pages look broken, weird, or just plain awful, to some people viewing their site.

Graphics should be used with restraint, since many people browse on slow connections, or are busy people with little time to wait. Some people browse with images turned off, so it is wise to provide meaningful text in the ALT="..." element in <IMG> tags, and remember that clickable maps should have textual hyperlinks available as an alternative.

Some of these issues are matters of style, and with HTML (even more than with DTP or print design) it is important to appreciate how style, layout, content, and HTML tag coding interact, since many factors determining the appearance of pages under not under the author's direct control.

There are many reference, teaching, and explanatory resources dealing with HTML, Web-authoring, graphics, and all sorts of related stuff, out there on the Web. Here are a few starting points to get you going:

Special offer

Venus Internet, a provider of Internet services and solutions for the scientific community, have kindly offered space on their Web server for any member of the Society for the Internet in Medicine wishing to create a home page. Details of the offer, including terms and conditions, may be found in the members area of the SIM Web site:

<URL:http://www.mednet.org.uk/mednet/>

Tutorial topics

This tutorial covers the topics listed below. The main page for the tutorial is located at:

<URL:http://www.venus.co.uk/doc/html2/>

Alan Mills PhD
Venus Internet Ltd.
London, UK

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Comments to: simq@cybertas.demon.co.uk

Copyright © 1997 Society for the Internet in Medicine. All rights reserved.
Date: May 29, 1997
Document URL: http://www.cybertas.demon.co.uk/simq/issue1/tutorial.html