Lesson 1: Getting started on your Web page
Start setting up your lab Web page (your "index" or "home" page) with the proper tags and text of your choice, up to four paragraphs, with headings; you can also use preformatted text. Begin locating a free Web host so you will be able to publish your pages/site later.
Introduction
What is HTML? HTML is the programming language used to design Web pages to publish information over the Internet. HTML stands for "hypertext markup language".
What is a Web page? It is a document coded with the HTML programming language that includes text information, graphics, photos, logos, tables, and sometimes also includes other programming languages (designed for the Internet) such as Javascript.
The Web page is what you publish (programmed by HTML code), and it is displayed in the Web browser (software that lets you "surf" the Internet, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator/Communicator) that allows you to view it. Other kinds of Web programming languages, such as XML, are all based on HTML.
What are HTML tags? Tags are instructions that tell your web browser how to display that particular information or data as it is viewed on a web page, and are enclosed by < and > brackets.
Did you know that when you finish this course and design your own Web page, you will be a programmer?
First thing's first
First of all, do you have any idea about what you want to put on your Web page?
Knowing why and how you want to design a Web page is the first (but not so easy) step you must take in order to design it. Knowing what you want to put on the page--that is what you must first decide. It could be as simple as a personal Web page about yourself; it could be a page you've been wanting to make but never could get yourself motivated to start, a personal or business site.
Where do you upload (send onto the Internet) your web page when you do finish it? In other words, where do you "park" the page? You can either buy a domain and then look for a web host (some for $10 or less) in one of the search engines (keyword = web host) or you can register with a free web host such as Geocities for a personal site (NOTE: Yahoo ID required!). However, if you use a free service be prepared for those annoying pop-up ads.
For the purposes of this course, however, I suggest you locate a free host, design your page(s) or site, and, when you have it the way you want it, you can then transfer it to a paid domain web host.
Note too that it's going to take a lot of trial and error before your page looks good.
So let's get started.
Step 1: Decide what you want on your Web page
Step 2: Locate a free Web host where you can "park" your Web page and see how it looks
Step 3: Register for a site on one of the free hosts.
Just a note here...
The textbook recommends that you write your text using any text editor you choose, then put in the html tags. It's a good rule to follow. The text you are writing (to be formatted with html tags) is actually a file, of course. Since you are going to code it with html and it will probably be the first or home page on your site, call this file "index.html", and place it in a special folder called "my web site". Place the folder on your desktop.
One thing to remember...
If you haven't already found a Web host but need to review your page, open up your browser (Explorer, Netscape, whatever), click on File, then Open. When the dialog box appears (for IE, it'll be MSN.com; for Netscape, it'll be Netscape.net), click "browse" and locate the file you want to open so the file name appears in the box. Click the "open" button, then click OK. Your page should look just as you typed it, and will now be inside the web browser window. To see changes later, you will have to "refresh" or "reload" your page in your browser so that the changes, not the original page, will be displayed.
Finally, if you really, really don't want to build a Web page right now, print out this course to save for later!
Note: Students may want to work on their web pages as they go through the lessons. To do this, open your web page file (index.html) on your computer while your web browser is open to the lesson, and switch back and forth as you work. Also note: I have designed a business web site for Trippel Survey and Research, which takes employee and employer surveys in the relocation industry, here.
