Introduction to Building a webpage - Beginner Lesson 1
So you want to learn what the web is based off of and possibly make your own webpages? Great! Every single webpage on the internet is built from HTML. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, it’s a text file that tells your browser what to display. It is built from a bunch of “tags”. The first tag being the HTML tag, which looks like this: <HTML> Now, you’re ready to start making a webpage. Since you need to learn how to crawl before you can walk. Let’s start with creating a very basic HTML webpage.
1. Open a plain text editor (in Windows, Notepad works well, DO NOT USE WORD). To open notepad, go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad
2. Type ( or copy&paste) the following:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My first webpage</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Hello, this is my first webpage.
</BODY>
</HTML>
3. Save your file as mypage1.html ( be sure to type the “.html” in the filename. save it onto your desktop for now so that it is easier to find)
You should see an icon on your desktop that looks like the browser that you use (internet explorer, firefox, etc). If you double-click on the file it will open in your browser. The page should look empty except for “Hello, this is my first webpage.” at the top of the page. If you see this Congratulations! you’ve made your first page!
Now, here’s a few things to note, you probably notice the extra tags. Well, some have a / in the front of them, this tells the browser to stop the tag. So for example, the first tag is <HTML> and the last tag is </HTML>. This tells the browser that everything inbetween is to be html. You’ll also notice some other tags within the HTML tag (these are called nested tags). Here’s what the new tags mean and do:
<HEAD> - This tells the browser that this is part of the document heading. This is information that is not displayed on the page, but is used to relay information such as the title of the document, any keywords, etc.
<TITLE> - This is the title of the page. This is shown in the very top of your browser window.
<BODY> - This tells the browser that this is the body of your webpage. Everything within the BODY tag is displayed to the person viewing the page.
These tags are the basis of every webpage on the internet.
Of course, some programs or applications will let you just click on a page and type whatever you want while it writes the code for you. These programs are called WYSIWYG ( pronounced wi-see-wig), this stands for What You See Is What You Get. Some people like to write the code by hand, whereas others like to use one of these applications. It’s all just a matter of preference.
This should give you a very high-level understanding on webpages and how they are built. In the next lesson I’ll show you how to change your text font, color, and size.
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