Class 2
|
In this lesson the learning objectives are:
- Creating a Simple Webpage
- Tag Fields
- Your Toolkit
- Headings
- Paragraphs and Breaks
- Lists - Ordered and Unordered
- Character Attributes
- Horizontal Rules and Attributes
- Special Characters
- Using Images
- Making Mistakes
- Comment Tags
|
Now you're ready to put together a website of your own. The good news is,
you don't have to spend a penny to get started. You can begin right now by
using any text editor like Notepad or TextEdit. You type in the HTML code,
save the file with an ".html" ending, and then use Firefox, Safari or
Internet Explorer to open the file. Even if you do not have an Internet
connection on your computer, you can use an Internet browser "offline" to
view the files you create for this class
|
This week we will begin to explore HyperText Markup Language (HTML)--the
coding system that turns plain text into colorful, interactive web pages.
For the same reason that you want kids to learn their multiplication tables
before they get their hands on a calculator, it's helpful to understand
basic HTML before relying on web authoring software (like Adobe DreamWeaver,
Microsoft Expression Web, Kompozer or Artisteer). That way, you know just
what you can do, how to do it, and how to resolve problems you encounter
|
Also, many web authoring tools don't support all the latest HTML tags. If
you know how to code HTML, it's easy to open an HTML file and add extra tags
by hand--including new tags that were developed after the site authoring
software hit the shelves. HTML is a living, growing language; understanding
how it works is critical to keeping up with its latest innovations
|
To begin, you will create your first web document (often referred to as a
"home page") and name it "index.html" (Do not give the file any other
name). This document will contain the basic tags found in every web page.
|
Class 3
|
In this lesson the learning objectives are:
- Creating Multiple Web Pages For Your Website
- Navigation and Storyboarding
- Structure - Linear, Hierarchical, Cluster
- How do I get back home ?
- Anchors
- Using .gif's as links and anchors
- Anchoring to a different page in the same folder
- Anchoring to a different page in a different folder or directory
- Paths
- Local Addressing
- Relative Addressing
- Absolute Addressing
|
Clicking on links is what makes the web so unique and exciting. Being able to
inform your reader that you have additional or relevant information elsewhere
in cyberspace and giving them the decision whether to access it, is a powerful
concept! You will need to understand the anchor (<a>) tag.
It connects your page to other web pages, to World Wide Web sites, to text within
a web page and to the email window on your internet browser
|
The "good news" is that information contained at a website does not have to be
linear (as in a book with a beginning, middle, and end). Instead, each page of
information made available for distribution on the World Wide Web can contain
words (called "hypertext") that create a link to another page
|
The "bad news" is that information contained at a website does not have to be
linear. Books may be restrictive in their layout - but when was the last time you
got lost within a book ? Getting lost within a website is all too common. As a web
author, one of your main tasks will be to create hypertext links which are clear
and descriptive. Also consider a layout which will allow your visitors to glide
effortlessly from one page to another, without getting lost
|
Class 4
|
In this lesson the learning objectives are:
- Graphics and Links
- A Touch on Cascading Style Sheets
- Body Tag Attributes
- background - Uses a picture for the background
- text - The color of the text
- link - The color of a link not visited
- vlink - The color of a link which has been visited recently
- alink - The color of a active link--while it is being selected
- Color and Background Colors
- bgcolor - Setting a solid background color
- Using named colors
- Using hexadecimal color codes
- The Font Tag
- Graphics Formats For The Web
- .png's - Smaller size but better appearance
- .gif's - Usually low resolution graphics
- .jpg's - Usually high resolution graphics
- Image Types - Interlaced & Non-Interlaced
- Animated gif's
- The Image Tag
- Controlling image size with HTML
- Using "alt" with the image tag
- Aligning and centering images
- Borders and spacing around images
- The Image Placement
- Vertical placement
- Horizontal placement
- Thumbnails
- Image link to an image
- What if I want to center the image and add navigation ?
- Image Maps
- Using an image as a navigation tool
- It might be called a image map but it does not have to be a map
- Hot spots
|
A text-only page isn't going to catch anyone's eye. After all, the World Wide
Web is all about color and pictures. You will now dress up your website by
adding graphics
|
I recommend you download graphics from graphical archives on the World Wide Web.
Although it is tempting to create original graphics for your website, it can
be a tremendous drain on your time if you are not already an experienced graphics
artist. Consider enrolling in a "Graphics Design" course after you have mastered HTML
|
With the growing popularity of Windows 7, 8 and 10; Mac OS X and Linux graphical
interfaces, web users now look for a button or picture to click on. Creating
graphics that link can add sophistication and pizazz to your website. But,
when you include linked graphics you will also need to consider those users who
are using mobile devices with much smaller screen sizes who cannot display large
graphics or other users (not many anymore but there may be a few) who may be
running a much older computer with a less than optimal video or operating system
who cannot view some graphics types
|
No matter what's on a web page, the standard white background which displays on
most browsers can get a little dull. Changing a page background color is as simple as
adding a bgcolor attribute and hexadecimal value to the <body> tag.
If adding color isn't exciting enough for you, you can use an image as your background.
Any image you choose will tile into the background--that is, it will go
into the background at whatever size it is and then reproduce itself over and over
to fill the page
|
Once you have changed the background color you may want to adjust the color of the
body text, linked text, visited links and active links so all the colors on your
page work together to be both pleasing to the eye and easy to read. The easiest
way to ruin your web page is to add a background color or graphic that makes the
page unreadable
|
One of the most powerful and effective navigation techniques is the image map.
In this lesson you will see how to create an image map and how to use the image map
technique to improve the usability of your site
|