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HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language)

About HML on my website

HTML is the standard mark-up language used to create and structure content on the web. It is the backbone of most websites and provides the basic building blocks for displaying text, images, videos, and interactive elements in web browsers.


Key Uses of HTML:

You can’t really have a web page without HTML, you would have unformatted content, some formatting can be done within CSS but HTML is the language which structures a web page. It also provides search engines with information about your website. There’s a video further down the page if you prefer to just learn that way. I can teach you CSS should you require it.

  1. Structuring Web Pages:
    • HTML defines the structure of web pages using a system of tags and elements.
    • Example: <h1> for headings, <p> for paragraphs, and <div> for sections.
  2. Displaying Content:
    • HTML tags specify how text, images, and other media appear on a webpage.
    • Example: <img> for images, <video> for video content, and <a> for hyperlinks.
  3. Creating Links:
    • HTML enables navigation between web pages using hyperlinks (<a> tags).
  4. Integrating Multimedia:
    • HTML supports embedding multimedia elements like audio (<audio>) and video (<video>).
  5. Interactive Forms:
    • HTML forms (<form>) collect user input through elements like text fields, checkboxes, and buttons.
  6. Foundation for Styling and Scripts:
    • While HTML provides structure, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is used to style it, and JavaScript adds interactivity.

Example: A Simple HTML Page

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>My First HTML Page</title>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Welcome to My Website</h1>
  <p>This is a paragraph of text on my first HTML page.</p>
  <a href="https://example.com">Visit Example.com</a>
</body>
</html>

Why is HTML Important?

HTML is essential for:

  • Building Websites: All websites use HTML as a foundation.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Proper HTML structure ensures web pages are understood by search engines.
  • Web Accessibility: Correct HTML ensures web content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.

Would you like to dive deeper into HTML or explore a specific feature? 😊

Hyper Text Mark-up language history.

Hyper Text Mark-up language developed in the early 90’s, with a version of HTML released by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993, development probably started around 1990. At first HTML was the only text based language for early Browsers like Netscape.

For learners

Consider learning the other main languages used in web development such as CSS, PHP and JavaScript. For applications such as WordPress you will also need to understand SQL and Relational Database Systems’.

I don’t need to write the story of HTML as many have done that before me. So here is a video you might like to watch to learn more. And following on from the video a brief history of HTML and associated mark-up languages.

HTML in 5 Minutes.

HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) is the standard language used to create and structure web pages. Here’s a brief history of its development:

  1. 1989–1991: Creation by Tim Berners-Lee
    HTML was created by Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, while working at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in 1989. Berners-Lee proposed a system for sharing documents over the internet, which led to the development of the World Wide Web (WWW). In 1991, he published the first version of HTML, called “HTML Tags.”
  2. 1993–1994: Early versions and standardization
    The first public description of HTML was introduced in 1993 by Berners-Lee. Soon after, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) formed the HTML Working Group, which released HTML 2.0 in 1995. HTML 2.0 became the first standardized version.
  3. 1997–1999: HTML 3.2 and HTML 4.0
    HTML 3.2 was released by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1997, followed by HTML 4.0 in 1999. HTML 4.0 brought significant improvements, such as the separation of structure (HTML), style (CSS), and behavior (JavaScript).
  4. 2000s: XHTML and the shift to XML
    In the early 2000s, W3C pushed for the adoption of XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language), which was a more rigid version of HTML based on XML. However, developers found it too strict, leading to slower adoption.
  5. 2008–Present: HTML5 and modern web development
    The development of HTML5 began in 2008, spearheaded by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) in collaboration with W3C. HTML5 was officially released in 2014, focusing on rich multimedia content (video, audio), better support for web applications, and device compatibility. HTML5 remains the standard used today, evolving with new features to meet the needs of modern web development.

HTML continues to evolve, laying the foundation for the web’s growth and adaptability over time.


Do you want to learn HTML?

You can learn from me or learn from the web masters at WC3 Schools.

I will drop in later to add some more information and examples but WC3 schools is a good place to start learning. As I did back in 2008. If you want to learn HTML then here’s the link to WC3 schools. HTML is worth looking at because like CSS you will learn more about the way WP works which will make you produce better websites.

“The concept of sending messages between computers or servers was not new by the time Tim Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web. What was revolutionary was the idea of storing documents in a standardized format that could be accessed remotely via the internet, organized using HTML tags, and linked through a system of hypertext.”

If you would like to know more about how the internet works I will soon be creating a page giving information about the structure of the Internet. What Tim Berners-Lee did was to create the WWW.

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