Forum 99199: HTML Editing

Homestead is another place and includes a built in editor. But I presume you want to learn the actual HTML not just the quick and easy way.

1) Use the View Source function to look at various pages source HTML (right click menu for window users). You might not understand what everything means, but you'll at least get to understand how somethings work, what is always in a file, etc.

2) Use a free HTML editor (the quick and easy kind) such as Netscape Composer, make a simple page, and then view the source. You'll be able to look at something in particular instead of a whole mess of things.

3) Do a web search. You'll find a lot of things; basic tutorials are harder to find, but it's better to just start picking things up.

4) Get a book. The Dummies series is alright for basics. Just don't start out buying a Advanced DHTML Bible or something.

5) Ask questions :) Granted, this isn't a HTML site, but there is bound to be a few people that'll help (just be sure to use email or something so as not to spam the forum unneccesarily). Me for instance; feel free to email me with questions and whatever you're curious about.

6) For the time being, ignore anything you see on... CSS/Cascading Style Sheets, JS/Java/Applets/JavaScript, Perl, CGI, SSI/Server side includes, DHTML, XML, ColdFusion, any sort of database stuff, and anything that isn't HTML. Ignore Meta tags, script tags, style tags, and anything that looks like programming.

7) Here's some starting points...

Most HTML commands (called tags) require that you enclose whatever you want with a closing tag. A tag is something in side < >. For instance, when bolding something you start it with <b> then type whatever you want, then stop bolding with </b>. The ones that don't use end tags generally are the ones that it wouldn't make sense to (like pictures)

 are comment tags. They won't be read by the browser (they don't show up in a document when you view it) but they'll remain in the actual HTML. Use them, so you don't forget what something does.

A basic HTML document template...

<html> 
<head> 
<title> 
</title> 
</head>

<body> 

</body>
</html>

This should get you started. Any other stuff like images and background colors and whatever are way beyond the context of this forum (I'm probably pushing the limit just by posting this) but you shuldn't have trouble finding things on the web or in a book store or from a friendly someone.

HTML Editing

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Nit :)