HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages.
HTML is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags, enclosed in angle brackets(like <html>), within the web page content. HTML tags most commonly come in pairs like <h1> and </h1>, although some tags, known as empty elements, are unpaired, for example <img>. The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag . In between these tags web designers can add text, tags, comments, and other types of text-based content.
The purpose of a web browser is to read HTML documents and compose them into visible or audible web pages. The browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses the tags to interpret the content of the page.
HTML history and evolution
In 1980, physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who was a contractor at CERN, proposed and prototyped ENQUIRE, a system for CERN researchers to use and share documents. In 1989, Berners-Lee wrote a memo proposing an Internet-basedhypertext system.Berners-Lee specified HTML and wrote the browser and server software in the last part of 1990.
In that year, Berners-Lee and CERN data systems engineer Robert Cailliau collaborated on a joint request for funding, but the project was not formally adopted by CERN. In his personal notes from 1990 he lists "some of the many areas in which hypertext is used" and puts an encyclopedia first.
HTML Evolution
Basic HTML Tags
<html>
<head>
<title>
Here is the title of the HTML document.
</title>
<meta name=" " content=" " />
... (there may be one or more meta tags)
</meta>
</head>
<body>
Here is the body of the HTML document.
</body>
</html>
HTML Evolution
How HTML works
HTML markup consists of several key components, including elements (and their attributes), character-based data types, character references and entity references. Another important component is the document type declaration, which triggers standards mode rendering.
Example :
<html> <head> <title>Hello HTML</title> </head> <body> <p>Hello Guest!</p> </body> </html>
What are the Advantages & Disadvantages of HTML?
Advantages
Its plain text so is easy to edit. Its also fast to download (text is highly compressable). Is very easy to pickup\learn Its now a standard Its supported by most browsers across most if not all platforms. Simple to edit only requires a text editor. Can be easily edited with WYSIWYG editors (no coding required) Can be used to present just about any kind of data. Tags can be used (or used to be able to be used) very loosely (i.e. used to be able to omit end tags etc).
Disadvantages
It is static needs to be manually updated or needs some scripting support to change it in some way. Isn't rendered correctly in all browsers Isn't really as flexible as other standards or technologies Its not centralised (all pages must be edited individually). Very limited styling capabilities (we're not talking css here!) Its essentially massively outdated (xhtml and xml suite of standards). Different vendors added (mostly Microsoft early on) their own custom tags that aren't widely supported if at all by most browsers (e.g. marquee tag). Tags can be used (or used to be able to be used) very loosely (i.e. used to be able to omit end tags etc).
Basic HTML Tags
<title>
This indicates the title of this HTML page. The title is what is displayed on the upper left corner of your browser when you view a web page. For example, right now you can see "Basic Tags: html, head, title, meta, body" there. That is the title of this page.The title tag is important when it comes to search engine ranking. Many of the search engines pay special attention to the text in the <title> tag. This is because (logically) that words in the <title> tag indicate what the page content is.<meta>
The <meta> tag information is not directly displayed when the page is rendered on the browser. Rather, this is used for the author of the HTML page to record information related to this page. Two common attributes are name and content. The <meta> tag used to hold great importance in search engine optimization, with authors carefully drafting what's inside the tag to gain better search engine ranking, but recently its importance has been decreasing steadily.<body>
The <body> tag includes the HTML body of the document. Everything inside the <body> tag (other than those within the <script> tag) is displayed on the browser inside the main browser window.The <body> tag may contain several attributes. The most commonly used ones are listed below:- bgcolor: This is the background color of the entire HTML document, and may be specified either by the color name directly or by the six-digit hex code.
- alink: The color of the links.
- vlink: The color of the visited links.
- topmargin: The margin from the top of the browser window.
- leftmargin: The margin from the left of the browser window.
<html>
<head>
<title>
Here is the title of the HTML document.
</title>
<meta name=" " content=" " />
... (there may be one or more meta tags)
</meta>
</head>
<body>
Here is the body of the HTML document.
</body>
</html>
