Hi All, we had some technical difficulty with some of the mail programs not accepting the use of the HTML tags in the messages, so I've revised Lesson #2. HTML Lesson #2 Okay, so you have your goals and your Table of Contents. Now you are ready to create a web page without an editor. Are you game? :) First - create a directory to your hard drive and call it: "Myweb". The location will be something similar to: c:\myweb depending on the location of your hard drive. Okay, now on to HTML discussion: HTML documents use "tags" to define the document styles, formatting options, hyperlinks and graphical images. So, what am I taking about before you fall asleep? The very first HTML tag is : <HTML> It goes at the top of every HTML page you create. It also needs a Closing Tag - so at the very bottom of every page, you need to type: </HTML> See that "/" line? That diagonal line closes most HTML tags. There are a few cases when you don't need it, but we'll get to them later. So, you now have: <HTML> - opens an HTML page </HTML> - closes an HTML page Easy, enough, right? :) Okay, so what else? Well, you need to describe the contents of each page. How? With another tag: <HEAD> and yes, it does require a closing tag for it to work correctly : </HEAD> Where does it go? Let's use the example - with the title os "My First HTML Document" <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>My First HTML Document </TITLE> </HEAD> </HTML> This means that the page we are working on is the main page entitled "My First HTML Page". This name will be viewed at the top bar of your browser, and not part of your screen when browsing. The next step is to place the words "Table of Contents" you want displayed on this particular page - we place it in the section we call <BODY>. <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>My First HTML Document </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <H1>Table of Contents </H1> </BODY> </HTML> So, what is <H1>? It stands for "Header". There are 6 different sizes of headers. You may use the last 5 headers over again in your document. Huh? Well, it's works this way in a very boring example : <H1>Table of Contents</H1> <H2>Part One</H2> <H3>Me</H3> <H4>Where I was born </H4> <H4>Where I grew up </H4> <H4>Places I have Lived </H4> <H5>New York </H5> <H6>New York City </H6> <H5>New Jersey </H5> <H3>My Family </H3> <H4>My husband </H4> <H5>Tom's name and link to his own page </H5> <H2>Part Two </H2> <H3>My Pets </H3> <H4>Greyhound </H4> <H4>Cats </H4> <H5>Streaky </H5> <H5>Ginger </H5> <H4>Birds </H4> <H5>Feeding of Birds </H5> <H6>Types of Bird Food </H6> <H2>Part Three </H2> <H3>My Crafts </H3> <H4>Sculpting </H4> <H4>Miniatures </H4> <H4>Needlework </H4> - Header 5 and 6 produce a smaller type than most plain text browsers Cut and paste Your Table of Contents to a file in your "Myweb" directory created at the beginning of this session - call it "index.htm" - Why not ".html"? Because PCs can only accept the three letter file extension name. So, when it's on your home computer, use "index.htm" and when it uploaded to the Unix computer running most web sites, you need to change the name to "index.html" . There are some web server exceptions, and these accept the ".htm" file extension. Fortunecity uses ".html" . Click on your browser and you will be able to see the different size fonts used for the headers. What else can you do with headers? Well, you can center them, left align or right align to your browser screen. How? <H1 ALIGN="CENTER">My First HTML Document </H1> This will center the header in the document. The following line will be left justified on your screen <H1 ALIGN="LEFT">My First HTML Document </H1> The following line will be right justified on my screen <H1 ALIGN="RIGHT">My First HTML Document </H1> In many cases, centering the headers and things on your page has a nice neat effect. But not always, and the choice is up to you! It's your web design, after all. Try them out, and see which ones suit you for your purposes. They can be changed later. HINT: Always change the name of the file each step of the way as you are working on it. So, if the first one is index.htm, then the next revision should be called "indexb.html". In this way, if you make a mistake, you can easily go back and get your earlier version. You can always delete the extra files when you are all finished. It saves a lot of time and effort and frustration. Especially frustration! Right, Patty? :) Your assignment: Test the headers with your browser, and see which ones you want to use in your Table of Contents. Cpr. September 05, 1997 Revised September 07, 1997. In Lesson #3 we will learn to format paragraphs and how to create lists and lists within lists. Louise R. Fielding Co-owner of Dollhouse Guild Listserv (DHG), The General Store, and Comic Cave and Book Emporium DHG For Sale List and DHG Member Links List Coordinator.