First Things First:
What the Heck is HTML?
HTML documents are plain text files that can
be created using any text editor. You can 
also use word processing software if you 
remember to save your document as 
"text only with line breaks."

Some Basic Terminology


HTML: Stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.
It is the basic "language" that web pages 
are written in.
 
ANGLE BRACKETS: These two characters < and >
appear on your keyboard as [shift key] + 
comma and [shift key] + period. They are 
used to set HTML tags off from the rest of 
the text on the page. All HTML tags are 
surrounded by these two symbols.
 
TAGS: These are the embedded words and/or 
symbols that enable us to turn ordinary text
into HTML. <HTML> and </HTML>, for example,

are the opening and closing tags that 
indicate a document is written in HTML.
 
SERVER: The server is the computer on which 
your web pages will reside.
 
FTP: Stands for "File Transfer Protocol," 
one of the ways to send files from one 
computer to another on the Internet so that 
they can be viewed by others on the web.
 
URL: Stands for "Uniform Resource Locator." 
The "URL" is the "address" of a web page. 
For example, the "URL" or address of the 
Buffalo Bison HTML page  is
 http://www.geocities.com/bisonhtml
or

http://www.geocities.com/bisonhtml

and the URL for the Bison Band is 

http://www.geocities.com/buffaloband.
 
HYPERLINKS/LINKS: These are the HTML coded 
locations, usually set apart by a different 
text color and underlining, that lead you 
to other places on the web or to another 
spot within a particular page. 

HOME PAGE: The first page that is seen when 
you visit a URL or the first/main page of 
your web pages.
 
UPLOAD: To sent your files from your hard 
drive to the server or computer on which 
your web pages will reside.

DOWNLOAD: To copy or receive files from 
another computer to your hard drive.

HTML Editors
You can learn HTML by using a basic word 
processing program such as Notepad (Windows)
or SimpleText (MAC). Any basic editor will 
work, the simpler the better.
 
Some WYSIWYG editors are also available. You
may wish to try one of them after you learn 
some of the basics of HTML tagging. WYSIWYG 
is an acronym for "what you see is what you 
get." It means that you design your HTML 
document visually, as if you were using a 
word processor, instead of writing the markup
tags in a plain text file and imagining what
the resulting page will look like. It is 
useful to know enough HTML to code a 
document before you determine the usefulness
of a WYSIWYG editor, in case you want to add
HTML features that your editor doesn't 
support.
 
We will be using Geo Cities Advanced HTML 
Editor for this class.

Advanced HTML Editor 

You can use this editor to create new html 
files, and to edit any of the html files 
you have in your directory. The advanced 
editor will place the document that you 
chose to edit in an editing window, you 
then can edit and view your changes. If you 
wish to create a new file, just enter it's 
name. To access the Advanced HTML Editor, 
just go to the File Manager utility, find 
Choose Your Editor:, then select 
Advanced HTML Editor, then select 
Create New HTML file. If you want to 
"edit" or change something in a file that 
already exists; First, select the file from 
your list of files and then select the Edit 
button instead of the Create New HTML file 
button.

The Minimal HTML Document


Every HTML document should contain certain 
standard HTML tags. Each document consists 
of head and body text. The head contains the
title, and the body contains the actual text
that is made up of paragraphs, lists, and 
other elements. Browsers expect specific 
information because they are programmed 
according to HTML specifications.
 
Required elements are shown in this sample 
bare bones document:
 
 
    <HTML>
    <HEAD>
    <TITLE>My Future Home Page</TITLE>
    </HEAD>
    <BODY>
    <H1>HTML is Easy To Learn</H1>
    <P>Welcome to the world of HTML.  
    This is my first paragraph. While short 
    it is still a real paragraph!
    <P>And this is the second paragraph.
    </BODY>
    </HTML>

The required elements are the
 <HTML>, <HEAD>, <TITLE>, and
<BODY> tags 
and their corresponding end tags. 
Some browsers will format your HTML file 
correctly even if these tags are not 
included. But some browsers won't! So make 
sure to include them.
 

HTML Tags


The first thing to remember about tags is 
that almost always travel in pairs. 
Every time you use a tag , say <Title>, 
you should also close it off with another 
tag , in this case, </Title>.
 
Note the slash / before the word Title, 
that's what distinguishes a closing tag 
from an opening tag. Below are the sets of 
tags needed to set up a basic web page.
 
<HTML> 
<HEAD> 
<TITLE> 
</TITLE> 
</HEAD> 
<BODY> 
</BODY> 
</HTML> 
Now isn't that easy? These four sets of tags
allow you to create a no frills document 
that is readable by any web browser.

Click on the graphic below 
to go to the next part of lesson one.