HTML The Definitive Guide (10 page)
Read HTML The Definitive Guide Online
Authors: Chuck Musciano Bill Kennedy
ftp.netscape.com
and
ftp.microsoft.com
), or contact your local computer software dealer for a commercial version (about $50).
1.6.1.3 Internet connection
We think you should have bona fide access to the Internet if you are really serious about learning and honing your HTML writing skills. Okay, it's not absolutely essential since you can compose and view HTML documents locally. And for some, a connection is perhaps not even possible or practical, but make the effort: there's sometimes no better way to learn than by example. HTML examples both good and bad abound on the Internet, whose source HTML you can download and examine.
Moreover, an Internet connection
is
essential for development and testing if you include hypertext links to Internet services in your HTML documents. But, most of all, an Internet connection gives you access to a wealth of tips and ongoing updates to the language through special-interest newsgroups, as well as much of the essential and accessory software you can use to prepare HTML document collections.
1.6.2 An Extended Toolkit
If you're serious about creating documents, you'll soon find there are all sorts of nifty tools that make life easier. The list of freeware, shareware, and commercial products grows daily, so it's not very useful to provide a list here. This is, in fact, another good reason why you should get an Internet connection; various groups keep updated lists of HTML resources on the Web. If you are really dedicated to writing in HTML, you will visit those sites, and you will visit them regularly to keep abreast of the language, tools, and trends.
We think the following three web sites are the most useful for HTML authors. Each contains dozens, sometimes hundreds, of hyperlinks to detailed descriptions of products and other important information for the HTML author. Go at it:
http://www.stars.com
http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HyperNews/get/www.html
1.5 Nonstandard Extensions
2. HTML Quick Start
Contents:
Lists, Searchable Documents, and Forms
We didn't spend hours studiously poring over some reference book before we wrote our first HTML
document. You probably shouldn't, either. HTML is simple to read and understand, and it's simple to write, too. So let's get started without first learning a lot of arcane rules.
To help you get that quick, satisfying start, we've included this chapter as a brief summary of the many elements of HTML. Of course, we've left out a lot of details and some tricks you should know.
Read the upcoming chapters to get the essentials for becoming fluent in HTML.
Even if you are familiar with HTML, we recommend you work your way through this chapter before tackling the rest of the book. It not only gives you a working grasp of basic HTML and its jargon, you'll also be more productive later, flush with the confidence that comes from creating attractive documents in such a short time.
2.1 Writing Tools
Use any text editor to create HTML documents, as long as it can save your work on disk in ASCII text file format. That's because even though HTML documents include elaborate text layout and pictures, they're all just plain old ASCII documents themselves. A fancier WYSIWYG editor or an HTML
translator for your favorite word processor are fine, too - although they may not support the many nonstandard HTML features we discuss later in this book. You'll probably end up touching up the
HTML source text they produce, as well.
While not needed to compose HTML, you should have at least one version of a popular World Wide Web browser installed on your computer to view your work, preferably Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. That's because the HTML source document you compose on your text editor doesn't look anything like what gets displayed by a browser, even though it's the same document. Make sure what your readers actually see is what you intended by viewing the HTML
document yourself with a browser. Besides, the popular ones are free over the Internet. If you can't retrieve a browser copy yourself, get a friend to give you a copy.
Also note that you don't need a connection to the Internet or the World Wide Web to write and view your HTML documents. You may compose and view your documents stored on a hard drive or floppy disk that's attached to your computer. You can even navigate among your local documents with HTML's hyperlinking capabilities without ever being connected to the Internet, or any other network, for that matter. In fact, we recommend that you work locally to develop and thoroughly test your HTML documents before you share them with others.
We strongly recommend, however, that you
do
get a connection to the Internet and to the World Wide Web if you are serious about composing your own HTML documents. You may download and view others' interesting web pages and see how they accomplished some interesting feature - good or bad.
Learning by example is fun, too. (Reusing others' work, on the other hand, is often questionable, if not downright illegal.) An Internet connection is essential if you include in your work hyperlinks to other documents on the Internet.
1.6 Tools for the HTML
2.2 A First HTML Document
Designer
