File Management and Intro to HTML

Before you can start making any kind of webpage, you need a web browser (FireFox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Netscape, or any others) and a text editor (Notepad is good). You should know how to open the text editor, type in it, and save your data. Copy and paste is extremely useful, but it's not necessary. You need to be able to find the file you made again, and be able to edit it.

If you are not sure how to do any of the above, try the following website:

Windows 98

When making a HTML file in Notepad, open Notepad, put your HTML in the typing area, then click "File" then "Save as". The "Save" box should pop up. Choose where you want the document to be, then in the file name, type what you want it to be called. Say you want the file to be called "HI". Type "hi.html" in the "File Name" box. Then, in the "Save as Type" box, change it to "All Files". Click "Save" and you're done. You have created a HTML file.

HTML is the building block of any website. It stands for Hyper Text Mark-up Language. When you're just beginning (heck, even when you're an expert), you can make careless mistakes. However, the majority of HTML is simple and straightforward, and easy to understand.

Now to starting to learn the language. A "tag" is basically a piece of HTML. It looks like this:

<stuffinhere> or </stuffinhere>

The "stuffinhere" is never actually "stuffinhere", but is used for many different things. It's confusing now, but will get clearer in the next few lessons.

It's also helpful while reading these tutorials to make pages and practice all the tags you have learned on a regular basis. A good starting place would be AwardSpace for hosting your first test pages. It's not professional quality hosting, but it's free and it has no ads, making it perfect for a beginner.

In the next tutorial, you will learn what a DOCTYPE is, and how to use it.