Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a type of computer language used to create pages that can be published on the Internet or sent via email. Although it may seem complex to many people, it is considered a relatively simple language. All text, graphic, and layout elements on a page designed in this language are “tagged” with code that tells the web browser or email program how to display these elements. Tags also provide layout and formatting information to make the web page or email look as close as possible to what its designer intended. For the novice website designer or anyone else who needs to know a certain code or wants to learn how to create a complete website, there are many software utilities, programs, and websites that can help you write HTML code.
All websites have codes that a person can view by clicking on the “source”, “view source” or “page source” options.
Structure
The HTML encoding is structured like a tree, with each different tag nested within it. In most cases, each format element requires a start tag and an end tag, and the different tags should not overlap. This is what “nested” means; if tag 2 is opened after tag 1, then tag 2 must be closed first so that tag 2’s formatting element is fully included in tag 1. Elements are the individual components that make up the code and include the opening and closing and the content between them. Attributes provide more information about the element and are made up of the attribute and its value, connected by an equals sign.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is used to create pages that are sent by email or published on the Internet.
To create an HTML element, the user creates a tag that begins and ends with angle brackets and places it before the text to be formatted. The code, usually one or more letters, numbers, words, and/or symbols, within the brackets indicates what the element is and what attributes the content must have, such as size, font, or other characteristics. To finish the formatting, the user types the first angle bracket, then a backslash, repeats the element’s code, and closes the bracket. For example,
What is HTML? is the code used to format the title of this article; the “strong” element tag is nested inside the “title” tag.
Types of codes
There are many codes that allow you to format different texts, including italics, tables, paragraphs, and hyperlinks to web pages. The codes can also tell the browser or email program how to display or use other elements, such as images, graphics, video, and sound. Other types of codes without angle brackets can be used to create punctuation marks, diacritics, and other symbols that may appear in text. While all web browsers and many email programs use HTML, each may interpret and display the code slightly differently, and designers generally need to consider these variations when creating a web page.
An evolving language
Since the development of HTML in the early 1990s by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, there have been many changes and versions. These versions have been maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) since 1996. In January 2008, the working group that was developing this specification published the first public working draft of HTML 5. Still in development in 2011, it was expected that this revision will drastically change the development of web applications. It introduces a number of new elements, including those related to site structure, interactivity, and audio and video support, as well as new attributes.
View the code of a web page
The code used to create any web page can be viewed by navigating a browser to the page and then choosing the correct option from the browser’s menu. In most browsers, the user can click on the “view” menu and select an option such as “source”, “view source” or “page source”. This will bring up a popup window and display the code that was used to create that web page.
It is important to note that not all content found on all web pages is written in HTML. Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) are other types of markup languages used in web development. Also, style sheets, such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), are used to attach style to HTML documents. Languages such as Flash® and Java® are used to create interactive content. Many other programming languages can be used to add specific functionality to a website.
Compared to HTM
Practically speaking, there is little difference between HTM and HTML extensions, as most machines read both as an HTML file. The reason there were two different extensions to begin with is that certain types of computers, such as those running on 16-bit DOS systems or Windows® 3, couldn’t read four-character extensions, so they needed the HTM extension of three characters. Most systems that can read four-character extensions are automatically programmed to recognize HTM files as HTML files, although computer users may occasionally need to convert an HTM file to a format that the system recognizes.
