Around the Web in Eighty Kilobytes
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Welcome to Nathsite's weekly 'Around the Web in Eighty Kilobytes', a 20-part free guide to building a website of your own, and using the web well.
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AROUND THE WEB IN EIGHTY KILOBYTES 1.1 - 1.2
   ATWI80KB 1

April 7, 2000

1) Introduction
2) Getting Started


1) INTRODUCTION
   There are some quite good WYSIWYG editors around (A WYSIWYG editor is one in which you can see what your page is going to look like while editing it). They're quite easy to use, and changing things can be done quickly. There's no problem about typing mistakes in the source code. So why learn HTML?
  • A well coded page takes hardly any time to load. Most WYSIWYG editors put a lot of useless tags in pages.
  • You can choose from any of 216 web-safe colors.
  • Things like frames, background colors etc. become easy to use.
  • Some HTML is needed for CSS and Javascript.
  • Your page will seem better when people look at the source code.
  • It's fun.
   There are quite a few other reasons, but you can probably figure them out as you write more and more code.


2) GETTING STARTED
   You don't need to know a lot about computers to learn HTML (HyperText Markup Language) from this tutorial. I'll assume you know the basics, like how to type, and use a chair etc. However, there are a few basic things you'll need to know:
  • Saving HTML documents:
       Open up any ASCII text editor (like Notepad) and type your document. When you're done, save it with a '.htm' or '.html' extension. If your editor automatically gives it a '.txt' extension (Notepad does), use another editor or type the filename within double quotes.
       eg. "mypage.html"

  • Naming documents 'index.html':
       The first page you want viewers to see should be called 'index.html'. Suppose you have a domain at 'http://www.yourname.com/', and call your home page 'mypage.html' or something. To see your page, you'll have to type 'http://www.yourname.com/mypage.html'. If you call it 'index.html', you'll just have to type 'http://www.yourname.com/'.

  • Viewing your pages as you write them:
       If you start writing an HTML file, and want to see what it looks like so far, just save it and open your browser. Just type in its exact path in the 'Location' or 'Address' box or click 'Open File', and select it.

See you in a week!
Aniruddh Nath


Email questions to atwi80kb@homepage.com - I'll reply if I have time. I might write stuff from your email in later ATWI80KB's.
NOTE: I'm not responsible for any damage done to your computer because of this tutorial.