Thursday, December 19th, 2002
Simple Webpage Creation
Introduction
The basis of webpages is html (hypertext markup language). Html is a markup language, which means that it identifies certain elements in a document. It works the same as MARC records. MARC records can be imported into any catalog capable of interpreting the coding, and html documents can be displayed by any browser that knows the language.
Html has evolved over the years, as web users needed more from it. The current standard for html is Xhtml (Extensible HyperText Markup Language). Xhtml is a child of html and XML (Extensible Markup Language ) that is acting as a bridge between the two. It uses the same elements as html 4.0 (the last revision) but with stricter rules required by XML. Since Xhtml (strict) is the current standard, that’s the one I’ll be using for this lecture.
Part of the stricter standards required in Xhtml is the “separation of style from content.” This is a recurring refrain because it is the most important point. When the World Wide Web became so popular so quickly, pieces of code (tags- both standard and proprietary to certain browsers) were added to html to allow designers to make their webpages more attractive and complex. (See In the Beginning…)But markup languages aren’t supposed to have anything to do with how things look, they are used to give structure. It’s like painting each individual board before you build your house. It looks nice when you’re finished but redecorating is a pain and paint gets into places it’s not supposed to be, messing the structure up. Most of the tags that were added are now being withdrawn from the standard and future browsers won’t support them anymore.
This is where Cascading Style Sheets come in. The information can be marked up in Xhtml, and then the design can be applied using style sheets. The result is html that is much easier to read and a website that is far easier to change. It is also easier, I’m told, for a Xhtml/CSS site to comply with the federal regulations for accessibility for people with disabilities.
By Laura @ 9:27 am in Tutorials
