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HTML and CSS Tutorial - The Basics

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HTML and CSS Tutorial - The Basics

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yet another insignificant programming notes...

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Table of Contents (Hide)

1. Introduction to HTML/CSS
2. Introduction to HTML
3. HTML By Examples

HTML/CSS 3.1 Example 1: Basic Layout of an H

3.2 Example 2: Lists and Hyperlinks
3.3 Example 3: Tables and Images

Basics
3.4 HTML Template
3.5 HTML Document Validator
3.6 Debugging HTML
4. HTML Basics
4.1 HTML Tags, Attributes and Elem
4.2 The Basic Document Skeleton
4.3 HTML Comment 
1. Introduction to HTML/CSS 4.4 Block Elements vs. Inline Eleme
4.5 Block Elements
If you are the “content provider”, read HTML. If you are the
4.6 HTML5's New Semantic Block El
“graphic designer”, read CSS. If you are a programmer and want
4.7 Inline Elements - Logical Style vs
to add dynamic effects to your web page, read JavaScript. But if
4.8 HTML5's New Semantic Inline E
you operate in OMO (one-man-operated) and are expected to
4.9 Entity References for Reserved &
create a reasonably good-looking website, you need to
4.10 Lists
understand HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This is the reason that I
4.11 Tables
combine both the HTML and CSS in this article as they are
4.12 Anchors and Hyperlinks
inseparable.
4.13 Images
To create an OMO website, I suggest that: 5. Introduction to CSS
1. Understand HTML, CSS and JavaScript thoroughly. 6. CSS By Examples
6.1 CSS Example 1: CSS Syntax and
2. Pick an authoring tool: Use Dreamweaver if you can afford.
6.2 CSS Example 2: CSS Class-Select
Otherwise, find a free source-code editor (such as VS Code,
6.3 Validating CSS
Sublime Text, Sublime Text, NotePad++). For programmers,
6.4 Inspecting Element's Styles via F
Eclipse/NetBeans/VSCode are good choice for
7. CSS Basics
HTML/CSS/JavaScript as they perform syntax checking and
7.1 CSS Syntax
provide auto-code-complete.
7.2 Inline, Internal and External Sty
3. Design and organize your page. Decide on the look and feel 7.3 Inheritance
of your website. How many columns? What are the major 7.4 Resolving Conflicting Rules
sections (e.g., header, navigation menu, main content, 7.5 How to Use CSS for Styling HTM
sidebar, table of content, footer)? Do you need a navigation 7.6 Types of CSS Selectors
menu or panel? What is your theme (colors, fonts)? And so
8. CSS Style Properties
on. 8.1 CSS color and background-col
4. Take a close look at your favorite websites!!! CSS is 8.2 CSS Length Measurements
humongous and complex! You can't invent this wheel! Use 8.3 CSS Box Model and Properties m
F12 Debugger to inspect HTML/CSS of your favorite websites. 8.4 CSS font Properties
Use a CSS framework, such as BootStrap, to jump-start your 8.5 CSS text Properties
design. 8.6 CSS background Properties
5. Start with an initial CSS design. Website design begins with 8.7 CSS list-style Properties
CSS, NOT HTML?!. Work on your CSS: 8.8 CSS Table Properties
a. Partition your web page into logical section via <div> (or 9. More HTML
HTML5' <header>, <footer>, <section>, <nav>), such as 9.1 Image Maps
header, content, footer. Assign an id to <div> that is 9.2 Frames
9.3 Embedding Programs
unique (e.g., "header", "footer". Assign a common 9.4 HTML Global Attributes
classname to sections (non-unique) that share the same 9.5 HEAD Section's Tags
style (e.g., "entry", "side-note"). Write the CSS id- 10. More CSS
selectors and class-selectors (e.g., #header tag- 10.1 CSS Variables (Custom Propert
name,... #footer tag-name,... #menu tag-name,...) 10.2 Modifying CSS Properties from
10.3 CSS position Property - Positi
for common tags (such as h1, h2, h3, p, a:link,
10.4 CSS float and clear Property
a:visited, a:hover, a:active), in each of the <div>'s.
10.5 CSS display and visibility P
Basically, what I am saying is to design each of the
10.6 CSS cursor Property
sections by itself - a "divide and conquer" strategy.
b. Create sub-classes for common styles, such as layout out
tables and images and special effects (e.g., ".highlight",
".underline", ".center"). They could be used in <div>
and <span>.
c. There are many good and free CSS templates (or web templates) available online (just google
"CSS Templates" or "Web templates"). Pick one that meets your taste to model after. You can also
look at the CSS of any website that you find interesting. Be aware of the Intellectual Property
Right, do not use any images or graphics unless they are in the public domain. It is extremely
easy to create one yourself with an imaging tool, such as PhotoShop, Element, Illustrator or even
Paint.
Use a CSS framework, such as BootStrap; and pick your favorite design from the samples.
6. Write your HTML pages. You may need to modify the CSS as you go along. The most challenging thing
for an OMO web author is that he has to be concerned about both the contents and appearances at
the same time, and can lose focus at times!
7. Repeat the previous steps until you are happy with your page's look and feel, layout, and most
importantly, the contents - try not to create yet another insignificant website.

I wrote the above many years ago while creating these web pages (You can check out my CSS). Today, I
would recommend that you learn the basics of HTML/CSS, but quickly jump into a framework such as
BootStrap to produce professional-looking web pages. You can't write better than these people!

2. Introduction to HTML

What is HTML (HyperText Markup Language)?

1. HTML is the language for publishing web pages on the WWW (World-Wide Web, or World-Wide Wait?).
2. HTML is a Document Description Language (aka Document Markup Language). HTML is the standard
markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. HTML is NOT a
programming language like C/C++/C#/Java, which is used to implement programming algorithm.
3. An HTML document is a text document, and it is human-readable.
4. Today, HTML works together with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) (for layout) and JavaScript (for
programming).

HTML Versions
HTML Draft (October 1991): Tim Bernes-Lee (of CERN) proposed the early HTML (with 18 tags) for
sharing of document in a hypertext system.
HTML 2.0 (November 24, 1995): Published as IETF RFC 1866.
HTML 3.2 (January 14, 1997): Published as W3C HTML 3.2 Recommendation.
HTML 4.0 (December 1997): Published as W3C HTML 4.0 Recommendation, with strict, transitional
and frameset. In December 24, 1999, HTML 4.01 was published as the final HTML specification by
W3C. In May 2000, HTML 4.01 Strict as published as ISO/IEC International Standard 15445:2000.
XHTML 1.0 (January 2000): W3C considered HTML 4.01 as the final HTML, and moved on to develop
XHTML 1.0 with stricter rules and syntaxes, followed by XHTML 2.0. XHTML 2.0, although theoretically
elegant, is impractical as it is not backward compatible with HTML4/XHTML1.0. A rebel group called
WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) continued to work on extending
HTML with more features in a backward-compatible manner. In 2004, WHATWG released HTML5. By
2007, HTML5 has captured the attention of the developers. W3C decided to abandon the XHTML 2.0
and embraced the HTML5.
HTML 5 (October 28, 2014): HTML 5 was published as W3C Recommendation, followed by HTML 5.1
on November 1, 2016, and HTML 5.2 in December 14, 2017.
On 28 May 2019, the W3C announced that WHATWG would be the sole publisher of the HTML and
DOM standards.

Today, the prevailing specifications are HTML5 (@ https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/). Nonetheless,

the most interesting thing about standards is that nobody really follows them strictly. Every browser
(Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer) has its own variations and support the standards to
various extents (so as to out-do others).

Markup Tags
HTML uses markup tags, such as <p> (for Paragraph), <h1> to <h6> (for Heading Level 1 to 6), <img> (for
Image), <a> (for Anchor or Hyperlink), to markup a document. HTML markup tags perform these
functions:
1. Layout the documents, e.g., <p> (layout as a paragraph), <h1> to <h6> (layout as heading level 1 to 6),
<br> (perform a line break), <hr> (draw a horizontal rule), <table> (tabulating data), <ol> (layout an
ordered list).
2. Provide link (called hyperlink) to another HTML document, via the <a> (Anchor tag). These hyperlinks,
a distinct feature in HTML, greatly help the users in navigating the web and enrich the users'
experience. Hyperlinks make the HTML popular.
3. Embed images, audios, videos, programs (in JavaScript, VBScript, Applet, Flash, or MS ActiveX control),
and objects within an HTML document. HTML is multimedia! The hypertext document may contain
texts, images, audios, videos, and even programs.

Separating Content and Presentation

The purpose of a markup language is to relieve the content provider from worrying about the actual
appearance of the document. The author merely indicates (via markup tags) the semantic meaning of the
words and sentences (such as paragraph, heading, emphasis, and strong), and leave it to the browser to
interpret the markups and render the document for display on the screen. In other words, it allows the
separation of content and presentation. The content provider focuses on the document contents, while
the graphic designer concentrates on the view and presentation.

Nowadays, HTML should be used solely to markup the contents, while its companion technology known
as CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) be used for defining the presentation of the document, so as to separate
the content and presentation.

These are the common pitfalls in older HTML documents and you should avoid:
Do not specify "appearance" properties, such as foreground and background color, text alignment,
font face, font size, border, margin and padding, in the HTML document. Use an external CSS instead
to set the appearance and presentation. Presentation-related tags (such as <font>, <center>) and
attributes (such as align, bgcolor, link, vlink, alink) have been deprecated in HTML 4, in favor of
CSS.
Do not use nested tables or frame for formatting the document, use <div> and <span>, or HTML5
new tags such as <header>, <footer>, and <section>.

HTML Authoring Tools

HTML documents can be created by a wide range of tools, from simple plain-text editors (not
recommended), source-code editor (e.g., VS Code, Sublime Text, Notepad++), programming IDE (e.g.,
Eclipse, NetBeans) to sophisticated WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors (e.g., Dreamweaver).

3. HTML By Examples
Let's go thru some HTML examples and the syntaxes. Do not attempt to start designing your website until
you understand the CSS.

3.1 Example 1: Basic Layout of an HTML Document

Let's begin with a simple example to illustrate the basic layout of an HTML document.

1 <!DOCTYPE html>
2 <html lang="en">
3 <head>
4 <meta charset="utf-8">
5 <title>Basic HTML Document Layout</title>
6 </head>
7 <body>
8 <h1>My First Web Page</h1>
9 <hr>
10 <p>This is my <strong>first</strong> web page written in HTML.</p>
11 <h3>HTML</h3>
12 <p>HTML uses <mark>markup tag</mark> to <em>markup</em> a document.</p>
13 </body>
14 </html>

Use a source-code editor, which provides syntax highlighting, auto-

code-complete, snippets, etc (such as VS Code, Sublime Text, Atom,
NotePad++) to enter the above HTML codes and save as My First
"MyFirstWebPage.html".

Notes: If you use macOS's default TextEdit (NOT Recommended), select

Web Page
"Format" to "Make Plain Text" and choose "Unicode (UTF-8)" for
character encoding before saving your file. Also, Windows NotePad is This is my first web page
NOT Recommended, as it does not provide syntax highlighting, auto- written in HTML.
code-complete, snippets, etc.
HTML
Open the file in a browser (such as Firefox, Internet Explorer/Edge,
Chrome, Safari, Opera) by double-clicking the file; or drag and drop the HTML uses markup tag
file into the browser; or through the browser's "File" menu ⇒ "Open to markup a document.
File..." ⇒ "Browse..." and select the file.

How it Works?
1. An HTML document begins with a Document-Type Declaration <!DOCTYPE html> (Line 1) to identify
itself as an HTML document to the browser.
2. The HTML content is contained within a pair of <html>...</html> container tags. You can specify the
default language of your document via attribute lang="en" (for English) inside the <html> opening
tag.
3. There are two sections in the document: HEAD and BODY, marked by <head>...</head> and
<body>...</body> tags, respectively.
4. In the HEAD section:
a. The <meta charset="utf-8"> element (Line 4) specifies the character encoding scheme of the
document. Today, virtually all (English) HTML documents are encoded using the UTF-8 character
encoding scheme, which is compatible with ASCII code for English alphabets and allow you to
include other Unicode characters (such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean) efficiently.
When saving your file, you need to choose "UTF-8 encoding" in the "save-as" dialog menu.
b. The <title>...</title> element (Line 5) provides a descriptive title to the page. The browser
displays the title on the title-bar of the tab/window.
5. In the BODY section:
a. The <h1>...</h1> container tags (Line 8) mark the enclosing texts as Level-1 Heading. There are
six levels of heading in HTML, from <h1>...</h1> (largest) to <h6>...</h6>. Line 11 uses a
<h3>...</h3> (Heading Level-3).
b. The <hr> standalone element (Line 9), which does not enclose text content, draws a horizontal
rule (or line).
c. The <p>...</p> container tags (Line 10 and 12) mark the enclosing texts as a paragraph. <p>...
</p> is the most frequently-used tag in HTML.
d. The <strong>...<strong> tags (nested under the <p>...</p> in Line 10) specify "strong
emphasis" for its content - rendered in bold by the browser. Similarly, the nested <em>...</em>
tags (Line 12) specify "emphasis" rendered in italic; and <mark>...</mark> (HTML 5) requests for
highlight.

View Page Source

You can read the HTML source code by right-clicking on the page and select "View Source" (or
"View Page Source", or "Show Page Source"). Try it out.

Note: For macOS's Safari, you may need to enable "Show Page Source" via "Preferences" ⇒
Advanced ⇒ "Show Develop menu in menu bar".

Don't Load the Cached Page (Ctrl-F5)!

Most browsers cache web pages (and the associated images, style sheets, JavaScripts) to boost
the speed for web surfing. When you modify and reload a page (via the refresh key F5), the
browser might retrieve the un-modified cache copy. To force the browser to reload the page
(and all its associated resources) from the source, hit Ctrl-F5.

Most Frequently-Used HTML Elements

The most frequently-used HTML elements are:
block elements: <p> (paragraph), <br> (line break), <h1> to <h6> (heading level 1 to 6), <hr>
(horizontal rule), <ul><li> (unordered list), <ol><li> (ordered list).
inline elements: <b> (bold), <i> (italic), <img> (image), <a> (anchor for hyperlink).
table <table><tr><th><td>.

I shall illustrate the use of these elements through the following examples.

3.2 Example 2: Lists and Hyperlinks

1 <!DOCTYPE html>
2 <html lang="en">
3 
4 <head>
5 <meta charset="utf-8">
6 <title>Lists and Hyperlinks</title>
7 </head>
8 <body>
9 <h1>Lists and Hyperlinks</h1>
10 <p>There are two types of <em>lists</em> in HTML:</p>
11 <ol>
12 <li>Ordered List.</li>
13 <li>Unordered List.</li>
14 </ol>
15
16 <p>This is a nested unordered list of links:</p>
17 <ul>
18 <li>Online Validator:
19 <ul>
20 <li>W3C Online HTML Validator @ <a href="https://validator.w3.org/">https:/
21 <li>W3C Online CSS Validator @ <a href="https://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validato
22 </ul>
23 </li>
24 <li>Specifications:
25 <ul>
26 <li>HTML5 @ <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/">http://www.w3.org/TR/html
27 <li>CSS3 Selectors @ <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/">http://
28 </ul>
29 </li>
30 </ul>
31 </body>
32 </html>

How it Works?
1. The  (in Line 3) is an HTML comment. Comments are ignored by the browsers, but are
important to provide explanations to the readers as well as the author.
2. There are two types of lists in HTML: ordered list and unordered list. An ordered list is marked by
<ol>...</ol> and displayed with numbers; while a unordered list is marked by <ul>...</ul> and
displayed with bullets. Each of the list items is marked by <li>...</li>.
3. You can nest a list inside another list, by placing the complete inner list definition inside a list item
<li>...</li> of the outer list.
4. Hyperlink is marked by <a> standalone tag. The attribute href="url" provides the destination URL of
the link.
3.3 Example 3: Tables and Images

1 <!DOCTYPE html>
Lists and
2
3
<html lang="en">

Hyperlinks
4 <head>
There are two types of lists in
5 <meta charset="utf-8">
HTML:
6 <title>Table and Images</title>
7 <style> 1. Ordered List.
8 table { /* table */ 2. Unordered List.
9 border: 1px solid black;
This is a nested unordered list of
10 border-spacing: 5px;
links:
11 border-collapse: separate;
12 }
13 th, td { /* cells */
14 border: 1px solid #aaa;
15 padding: 5px 10px;
16 }
17 </style>
18 </head>
19 <body>
20 <h1>Table and Images</h1>
21 <table>
22 <caption>Logo of Languages</caption>
23 <tr>
24 <th>S/No</th>
25 <th>Language</th>
26 <th>Logo</th>
27 </tr>
28 <tr>
29 <td>1.</td>
30 <td>HTML5</td>
31 <td><img src="../images/HTML5_Logo_128.
32 </tr>
33 <tr>
34 <td>2.</td>
35 <td>CSS3</td>
36 <td><img src="../images/css3.png" alt="
37 </tr>
38 <tr>
39 <td>3.</td>
40 <td>JavaScript</td>
41 <td><img src="../images/js3.png" alt="J
42 </tr>
43 </table>
44 </body>
45 </html>

How it Works?
1. A table, consisting of rows of cells, can be marked via <table>...</table>.
2. A HTML table is row-centric. You shall first mark a row via <tr>...</tr>, and then mark the cells of
the row via <th>...</th> (for header cell) or <td>...</td> (for details cell).
3. The <caption>...</caption> element can be nested under
<table> to provide a caption for the table.
4. Image is marked via the <img> tag. The mandatory attribute src Table and
specifies the path (or url) for the image source file; alt gives the
alternative text if the image cannot be displayed. I used relative
Images
path in the src, where ".." denotes the parent directory. You need
Logo of Languag
to find some images, store them and figure out your own relative
path. S/No Language
5. The <img>'s optional attributes width and height specify the width
and height of the image displayed area. They are used here to
1. HTML5
resize the images for consistent display.
6. In the HEAD section, I added some so-called style rules under the
<style>...</style> tags, so as to nicely display the table. You
could ignore the styles now, which will be covered later in the CSS section.

3.4 HTML Template

HTML Document Template

1 <!DOCTYPE html>
2 <html lang="en">
3 <head>
4 <meta charset="utf-8">
5 <title>YOUR TITLE HERE!</title>
6 <link href="filename.css" rel="stylesheet">
7 <script src="filename.js"></script>
8 </head>
9 <body>
10 
11 </body>
12 </html>

External CSS and JavaScript are often used in an HTML document. Line 6 includes an external CSS file; and
line 7 includes an external JavaScript file.

3.5 HTML Document Validator

You can submit your HTML document to the W3C Online Validator (@ https://validator.w3.org/) for
validation.

3.6 Debugging HTML

F12 Debugger (Web Developer Tools)

Recall that you can right-click ⇒ View Source (or View Page Source) to inspect the raw HTML markups.

In most of the browsers, you can push F12 to get into Web Developer Tools, which support debugging
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DOM and more.

To debug HTML:
1. Choose the "Inspector" panel to view your HTML codes.
2. To inspect an element, click on the "picker" and point to the HTML element of interest. You can
check/modify the "Style", "Layout", "DOM" and "Events" (on the right panel) associated with the
selected element.
Try it out on the earlier examples.

4. HTML Basics

4.1 HTML Tags, Attributes and Elements

HTML Tags
An HTML opening tag is enclosed by a pair of angle brackets in the form of <tag-name> (e.g., <p>,
<title>), which is associated with a matching closing tag </tag-name> having a leading forward slash,
(e.g., </p>, </title>). The tag-name shall be in lowercase.

Tag's Attributes
Attributes, in the form of name="value" pairs can be included in the opening tag to provide additional
information about the element.

Example 1: In <html lang="en">, the attribute lang="en" specifies the natural language for this
document.

Example 2: In <meta charset="utf-8">, the attribute charset="utf-8" specifies the character encoding
scheme.

Example 3: An <img> (image) tag may contain these attributes:

<img src="logo.gif" alt="logo" width="50" height="30" >

The attribute "src" specifies the source-URL of the image; "alt" specifies an alternate text, if the image
cannot be displayed; "width" and "height" specify the width and height of the image displayed area.

Some of the attributes are mandatory (e.g., the "src" and "alt" attributes of the <img> tag); while some
are optional (e.g., the "width" and "height" attributes of the <img> tag, which are used by browser to
reserve space for the image and resizing the image; but browser can figure out the width and height after
the image is loaded).

Multiple attributes are separated by space, as follows:

<tag-name attName1="attValue1" attName2="attValue2" ...> ... </tag-name>

Attributes are written in the form of name="value" pairs. The value should be enclosed in single or
double quotes for XHTML/XML compliance (although HTML5 does not enforce it).

HTML Elements
An HTML element consists of the opening and closing tags, and the content in between, e.g., <p>A for
apple</p>, <strong>Caution!</strong>.

There are two types of elements:

1. Container Element: A container element has an opening tag <tag-name> that activates an effect to
its content, and a matching closing tag </tag-name> to discontinue the effect. In other words,
container elements apply formatting to their contents. For example:
<h1>The h1 tags enclose a heading level 1</h1>
<p>The p tags is used to <em>markup</em> a <strong>paragraph</strong>.</p>

2. Void Element (or Standalone Element or Empty Element): A void element does not enclose
content but is used to achieve a certain effect, e.g., <hr> is used to draw a horizontal rule; <br> to
introduce a manual line-break; and <img> for embedding an external image.
In XHTML, you need to end a standalone element with a trailing '/' in the opening tag. For examples:

Alternatively, you can also close a standalone element with a matching closing tag. This is
cumbersome but consistent in syntax to the container element. For example,
<br></br>
<hr></hr>
<img src="logo.gif"></img>

HTML5 no longer enforces the above rules. Today, most developers omit the trailing '/' for brevity,
e.g., <br>, <hr>.
HTML4 has these void elements: <area>, <base>, <br>, <col>, <hr>, <img>, <input>, <link>, <meta>,
<param>.
HTML5 added <command>, <keygen>, <source>.

Nesting Elements and the Document Tree

An HTML element can be nested within another element, e.g., <p>This is my <em>first</em> web
page!</p>. It is important to properly nest the elements, e.g., the sequence <p>...<em>...</p>...</em>
is invalid.

A valid HTML document exhibits a tree structure (called DOM or Document Object Model), with the
element <html> as the root element of the document tree, with two child elements: <head> and <body>.

[TODO] Draw the DOM tree for one of the examples.

Rendering HTML Pages

Browsers follow these rules when rendering HTML documents:
1. In HTML5, the tag-names are NOT case sensitive. I recommend using lowercase, as it is easier to type
and XHTML compliance. (XHTML/XML is case sensitive.)
2. Blanks, tabs, new-lines and carriage-returns are collectively known as white spaces. "Extra" white
spaces are ignored. That is, only the first white space is recognized and displayed. For example,
<p>See how the extra white spaces,
tabs and
line-breaks are ignored by the
browser.</p>

produces the following single-line output on screen with words separated by a single space:
See how the extra white spaces, tabs and line-breaks are ignored by the browser.

You need to use the paragraph tag <p>...</p> to lay out a paragraph; or insert a manual line-break
tag <br> to break into a new line. In other words, you control the new-lines via the mark-up tags. The
<p>...</p> leaves additional space after the paragraph; while <br> does not.
To get multiple whitespace, use a special code sequence   (which stands for non-breaking
space). For example,
<p>This is a
paragraph.</p>
<p>Another paragraph<br>with a line-break in between and more spaces   &nb

This is a paragraph.

Another paragraph
with a line-break in between and more spaces before this.

4.2 The Basic Document Skeleton

The <html> Element and its Child Elements <head> and <body>
An HTML document has the following skeleton:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>...</head>
<body>...</body>
</html>

The <html>...</html> container element defines the extent of an HTML document.

There are two sections: HEAD and BODY:

1. <head>...</head> container element defines the HEAD section, which contains descriptions and
meta-information of the HTML document. Browsers interpret these descriptions to properly display
the body content.
2. <body>...</body> container element defines the BODY section, which encloses the content that
users actually see in the browser's window.

The HEAD Section and the <title>, <meta>, <link>, <script> Elements
The HEAD section may contain these elements: <title>, <meta>, <link>, <script>, <base>.

The <title>...</title> container element encloses the title for the page. You should use a meaningful
title because:
The title shows up at the title-bar of the browser window.
The title shows up in bookmarks and history lists (the URL is stored if there is no title).
Titles are used by search engines to index your page.

The <title> element is mandatory in HTML5.

The <meta> element contains meta-information, for use by browser to properly render the document. For
example, <meta charset="utf-8"> specifies the character encoding scheme for the document.
You can use a <link> element to add an external CSS Style Sheet (and <style>...</style> element for
internal styles):
<link href="filename.css" rel="stylesheet">

Note: HTML4/XHTML1 require an additional attribute type="text/css" in the <link> tag.

You can use a <script>...</style> element to define programming scripts. For example, to add an
external JavaScript file:

Note: HTML4/XHTML1 require an additional attribute language="JavaScript" in the <script> tag. Also
take note that the closing </script> tag is needed, even though there is no content within <script> and
</script>. We usually place the JavaScript after CSS, as the JavaScript may use the CSS.

The <body> Element

The <body>...</body> element defines the BODY section of an HTML document, which encloses the
content to be displayed on the browser's window.

The <body> tag has the following optional presentation attributes. All of these presentation attributes are
concerned about the appearance instead of the content, and have been deprecated in HTML 4 in favor of
style sheet. However, many older textbooks present them in Chapter 1. Hence, I shall list them here for
completeness. BUT do not use these attributes. I shall describe how to control the appearance of <body>
using CSS very soon.
text="color": color of body text.
bgcolor="color": background color.
background="url": URL of an image to be used as the background.
link="color": color of un-visited links.
vlink="color": color of visited links.
alink="color": color of active (clicked) links.

For example:

<html>
<body text="blue" bgcolor="lightblue" link="green" vlink="red" alink="yellow">
<p>Hello</p>
<a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>
</body>
</html>

The foreground color (of the texts) is "blue", on background color of "lightblue". You can set different
colors for the three types of links via attributes "link" (for un-visited links), "vlink" (for visited links), and
"alink" (for active link - the "alink" color shows up when you click on the link).

4.3 HTML Comment

HTML comments are enclosed between . Comments are ignored by the browser. You need
to look into the HTML codes (via "View Source" or "View Page Source") to read them. Comments are
extremely important in programming to explain and document a section of programming codes and logic.
HTML documents are textual and self-explanatory, comments are less important (but still nice to have) to
describe the various part of the documents.

Comments are also useful in temporarily disable a certain part of the HTML codes during development.

You can comment out an entire elements, e.g.,

But you cannot place comment inside a tag, e.g.,

<h1 >hello, world</h1>

4.4 Block Elements vs. Inline Elements

Elements can be classified as:
1. Block Elements: A block element (such as <p>, <h1> to <h6> and <div>) starts on a new line, takes
the full width, and ends with a new line. It is rectangular in shape with a line-break before and after
the element.
2. Inline Elements (or Character Elements): An inline element (such as <em>, <strong>, <code> and
<span>) takes up as much space as it needs. It does not force a line-break before and after the
element, although it can span a few lines.

In brief, a block element is always rectangular in shape, while an inline element spans a continuous run of
characters.

4.5 Block Elements

Paragraph <p>...</p>
Function: When the browser reads a <p> tag, it breaks to a new line, and skips some white spaces. For
example,

<p>This is a paragraph of texts.</p>

Older HTML documents often omit the closing </p>, which is a bad practice, not recommended, and
disallowed in XML/XHTML.

To create an empty paragraph, you need to use <p> </p> which encloses a non-breaking space.
This is because browsers typically ignore <p></p>.

Line Break <br> (Standalone)

Function: Instruct the browser to break to a new line, without skipping white spaces as in <p>. Note that
the line breaks in the HTML codes are treated as white spaces and do not translate to new lines in the
display. Hence, you have to insert the <br> manually. For example,

<p>This
paragraph<br>with a
line-break
in between.</p>

This paragraph
with a line-break in between.

Heading Level 1 to 6 <h1>...</h1> to <h6>...</h6>

Function: Establish six levels of document headings. <h1> is the highest (with the largest font size) and
<h6> is the lower. Headings are usually displayed in bold, have extra white spaces above and below. For
example,
<h1>This is Heading Level 1</h1>
<h2>This is Heading Level 2</h2>
<h3>This is Heading Level 3</h3>
<h4>This is Heading Level 4</h4>
<h5>This is Heading Level 5</h5>
<h6>This is Heading Level 6</h6>
<p>This is a paragraph</p>

Horizontal Rule <hr> (Standalone)

Function: Draw a horizontal line (or rule). By default, the rule is full width (100%) across the screen, 1 point
in size, and has a shading effect for a 3D appearance. For example,

<h1>Heading</h1>
<hr>
<p>Discussion begins here...</p>

Pre-Formatted Text <pre>...</pre>

Function: Texts enclosed between <pre>...</pre> container tags are treated as pre-formatted, i.e., white
space, tabs, new-line will be preserved and not ignored. The text is usually displayed in a fixed-width (or
monospace) font. <pre>...</pre> is mainly used to display program codes. For example, my favorite
Java's "Hello-world":

<pre>public class Hello {

public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello");
}
}</pre>

public class Hello {

public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello");
}
}

Without the <pre> tag, the entire program will be shown in one single line.

Quote <blockquote>...</blockquote>
Function: Mark out a block of quote. Browsers typically indent the entire block to the right. For example,
<blockquote>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi
ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in
reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui
officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</blockquote>

Division <div>...</div> and Span <span>...</span>

The <div> block elements, together with its inline counterpart <span>, are extensively used in the modern
web pages to mark out a rectangular block or inline span of text. The <div> and <span>, by itself, does
not do anything. Unlike elements such as <h1>, <p> and <strong>, which possess certain visual
properties, <div> and <span> do not have any inherent visual properties. They are simply markers and to
be used together with CSS for applying custom formatting style. We shall describe them later in the CSS
section.

Best Practices:
Notes: With the introduction of many new semantic block elements in HTML5, such as <header>,
<footer>, <main>, <section>, it is strongly encouraged "to view the <div> element as an element of
last resort, for when no other element is suitable. The use of more appropriate elements instead of
the <div> element leads to better accessibility for readers and easier maintainability for authors".
Avoid deep nested container layouts using <div>. "should be not nested deeper than 6 layers".
Use as little HTML elements as possible (to increase the content to tag ratio and reduce page load).

4.6 HTML5's New Semantic Block Elements

Before HTML5, we rely on the all-purpose generic container <div> elements to structure a document into
various sections and apply the formatting style, For example,
<div class="header">
......
</div>

This is less than desirable, as <div> elements do not provide semantic information about the sections.

HTML5 added many semantic block elements, which extends <div> to structure a document. They are:
<header>, <footer>, <nav>, <section>, <article>, <summary>, <details>, <aside>, <figure>,
<figcaption>, and <main>. You are encouraged to replace some of the <div>'s with these more
descriptive semantic elements. Nonetheless, it is important to note that NOT all browsers (notably older
IE versions) support these new elements.

Header <header>...</header>, Footer <footer>...</footer> and Section

<section>...</section>
The <header>...</header> and <footer>...</footer> elements can be used to markup the header and
footer of a web page, in place of the less semantic pre-HTML5 <div id|class="header"|"footer">.

The <section>...</section> element can be used to markup each content section in a document (such
as each chapter of the book). (HTML5 does not define a <content> element!) For example,

Article <article>...</article>
The <article>...</article> element is used to markup an independent and self-contained article such
as a news story, which could have its own header, footer and content sections.

Figure <figure>...</figure> and Figure Caption <figcaption>...</figcaption>

You can markup a figure via <figure>...</figure> and <figcaption>...</figcaption>, e.g.,

You can remove the alt attribute from the <img> tag, as <figcaption> typically provides better
description.

In a web page, figures are typically float alongside the text. For example, you can apply the following style
rules to <figure> and <figcaption> to float the figure to the left:

figure {
float: left;
margin-left: 0px;
margin-top: 0px;
margin-right: 20px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
}

figcaption {
font-size: small;
font-style: italic;
margin-bottom: 5px;
}

Sidebar <aside>...</aside>
The <aside> element can be used to introduce related contents, typically formatted in a floating sidebar
alongside the main texts.

Navigation Menu <nav>...</nav>

The <nav>...</nav> element wraps a set of links into a navigation menu. For example,

You can place the <nav> under an <aside> if the navigation menu is to be shown in a sidebar (or side
panel).
Which Element to Use?
The HTML5 Doctor provides a nice flowchart for you to decide which HTML5 element to use @
http://html5doctor.com/downloads/h5d-sectioning-flowchart.pdf.

Summary <summary>...</summary> and Details <details>...</details>

The <summary> and <details> elements are meant for showing the summary and details, typically in a
collapsible box. You can use the following JavaScript to show/hide the box:
var box = document.getElementByID("...");
// Hide the box
box.style.display = "none";
// Show the box
box.style.display = "block";

However, the browser supports for these two tags are poor, and it is best to avoid them.

Main Content <main>...</main>

The <main> element (introduced in HTML5.1) marks the main content of a web page, excluding the
header, footer, and navigation menu. There shall NOT be more than one <main> element in a document.
For example,

The <main> element shall NOT be a descendant of an <article>, <aside>, <footer>, <header>, or <nav>
tags.

Providing Backward-Compatibility
Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera have no problems with these HTML5 tags, so does IE (Internet
Explorer) 10. However, IE 9 and IE 8 may have problems rendering these tags.

To provide compatibility to older browsers, you could:

1. Add a CSS rule to render these tags as block element (does not work for IE 8):
article, aside, figure, figcaption, footer, header, main, nav, section, summary {
display: block;
}

2. Use the HTML5 Shiv (@ https://github.com/afarkas/html5shiv), which contains JavaScript to create

these elements.
3. Use Modernizr (@ http://modernizr.com/) - a JavaScript library that detects HTML5/CSS3 features.

4.7 Inline Elements - Logical Style vs. Physical Style

Logical-style formatting tags specify the semantic meaning (e.g., strong, emphasis, code); whereas
physical-style formatting tags define the physical or typographical appearance (e.g., bold, italic, teletype).
Logical styles should be used instead of physical styles. This is because physical styles deal with the
appearance, which should be defined in style sheet, so as to separate the content and presentation.
Logical-Style Formatting Tags
The logical style character-level (inline) tags are:

Logical-Style Tag Meaning

<mark>...</mark> Highlight
(HTML 5)

<strong>... strong emphasis (bold)

</strong>

<em>...</em> emphasis (italic)

<code>...</code> program code (fixed-width monospace font)

<q>...</q> quotation (enclosed in curly double quotes)

<ins>...</ins> inserted

<del>...</del> deleted

<def>...</def> definition (bold or bold-italic)

<cite>...</cite> citation (italic)

<kbd>...</kbd> Keyboard (fixed-width monospace font)

<samp>...</samp> sample text (fixed-width monospace font)

<abbr>...</abbr> abbreviation (dotted underline, with title as tool tip)

<acronym>... acronym (dotted underline, with title as tool tip).

</acronym> Recommend using <abbr> instead.

<address>... address
</address>

<var>...</var> variable (fixed-width or italic)

The commonly-used tags are: <strong> (displayed in bold), <em> (displayed in italics), and <code> (use
monospace font for programming codes).

Example:

<p>Lorem <q>curly quoted</q>, consectetur adipisicing elit,

sed do <cite>citation</cite> incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis <samp>sample</samp> exercitation ullamco laboris nisi
ut <code>code</code> ex ea <kbd>keyboard</kbd> consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in
reprehenderit in velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Excepteur <ins>insert</ins> occaecat <del>delete</del> non proident,
sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p>

Lorem “curly quoted”, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do citation incididunt ut labore et dolore mag
na aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis sample exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut code ex ea ke
yboard consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla p
ariatur. Excepteur insert occaecat delete non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit ani
m id est laborum.

<abbr> and <acronym>

The contents are shown with a dotted underline. By including an attribute title="fulltext" to the
<abbr> and <acronym> opening tag, the full text will be shown as tool tip, when you point your mouse
pointer to the element. HTML5 supports <abbr>, but does not support <acronym>.

For example,

<p>Lorem <abbr title="abbreviation">abbr</abbr> dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing

sed do eiusmod tempor <acronym title="Hypertext Markup Language">HTML</acronym> ut labo
et dolore magna aliqua.</p>

Lorem abbr dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor HTML ut labore et d
olore magna aliqua.

The title="tooltip-text" attribute is actually applicable to almost all of the HTML tags (e.g., <p>, <h1>
to <h6>, <img>).

Physical-Style Formatting Tags

All the physical-style character-level tags are deprecated in HTML 4, as they deals with presentation and
should be done via CSS. I list them here for completeness, in case you need to read some old HTML
codes.

However, theHTML5 restores the <b>, <i>, <small>, <sup>, <sub>, <u> tags. The <big>, <tt> remains
unsupported.

Physical-Style
Meaning
Tag
<b>...</b> bold

<i>...</i> italic

<u>...</u> underline (deprecated in HTML 4, but

reinstated in HTML 5)

<big>...</big> large font

<small>... small font

</small>

<sup>...</sup> superscript

<sub>...</sub> subscript

<tt>...</tt> teletype (typewriter, in monospace

font)

Span <span>...</span>
Similar to its block-level counterpart <div>, <span> elements are extensively used in the modern web
pages to mark out a run of texts, primarily for applying style.

4.8 HTML5's New Semantic Inline Elements

HTML5 puts back the <b>, <i> and <small> elements (that were deprecated in HTML4/XHTML1), but not
the <u> element. It also added more semantic character-level elements for text: <mark>, <time>, <wbr>.
These elements are hardly used due to poor browser support, but presented here for completeness.
DateTime <time>
For marking up date, time, or datetime.

Word Break <wbr>

[TODO]

Marked Text <mark>

Highlighting certain texts, such as keywords. By default, it is shown with bright yellow background, similar
to highlighter's marking.

4.9 Entity References for Reserved & Special Characters

HTML uses characters such as <, >, ", & as markup tags' delimiters. Hence, these characters are reversed
and cannot be used in the text directly. An escape sequence (called entity reference), in the form of &xxx;
(begins with & and ends with ; and contain the code xxx) is used for these reserved characters and other
special characters. The commonly used entity references are as follows (there are many many more, refer
to the HTML reference - I like the arrows, Greek symbols, and the mathematical notations). Entity
reference is case sensitive.

Character Entity Reference

" (NOT really needed!) "

< <

> >

& &

non-breaking space  

→ ⇒ ↔ ⇔ → ⇒ ↔ ⇔

° (degree) °

© ® € ¢ ¥ © ® € ¢ ¥

˜ &tilde;

× ± ∞ × ± ∞

π Π σ Σ ω Ω π Π σ Σ ω Ω

≥ ≤ ≡ ≈ ≥ ≤ &equiv; ≈

⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ∈ ⊂ ⊃ &sube; &supe; ∈

☎ &phone;

🔍 (search) 🔍

✓ ✗ &check; &cross;

You need to memorize the first five which are extensively used: " ("), < (<), > (>), & (&) and
( ).

Double Quote (" or ")

I used to replace double quote (") with entity reference " but there is actually no such need. Even if
you need to use double quote in an attribute value, you could write alt='say "hello"' with single quote
as delimiter. I recommend NOT using " for brevity.
Non-breaking Space ( )
As mentioned earlier, browsers ignore extra whitespaces (blanks, tabs, newlines). That is, multiple
whitespaces are treated as one single whitespace. You need to use the non-breaking spaces ( ) to
insert multiple whitespaces.

Example:

<p>This paragraph contains special character " <, > and &
and those    words    have   
more    spaces in between.</p>

This paragraph contains special character " <, > and & and those words have more spaces in
between.

4.10 Lists
List-related tags are meant for marking up a list of items. HTML supports three types of lists: ordered list,
unordered list and definition list.

Unordered List <ul>...</ul> and List Item <li>...</li>

Function: An unordered list is shown with a bullet in front of each item. The <ul>...</ul> contains an
unordered list. Each of items in the list is enclosed in <li>...</li>, as follow:

Example:

<p>An OMO web designer must master:</p>

<ul>
<li>Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)</li>
<li>Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)</li>
<li>HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)</li>
<li>Apache HTTP Server</li>
</ul>

Output of the example:

An OMO web designer must master:

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
Apache HTTP Server

You can use attribute type in <ul> tag to choose the style of the bullets:
type="disc": a black dot (default).
type="circle": an empty circle.
type="square": a filled square.

Ordered List <ol>...</ol> and List Item <li>...</li>

Items in an ordered list are numbered automatically by the browser. The container tag <ol>...</ol>
contains an ordered list. Each item of the list is contained inside a <li>...</li> container tag. The syntax
is similar to the unordered list.

You can use attribute start="number" in the <ol> tag to specify the starting number (which default to 1).

You can use the type attribute of the <ol> tag to choose the numbering style:
type="1": numbers 1, 2, 3, ... (default)
type="a": lowercase letters a, b, c, ...
type="A": uppercase letters A, B, C, ...
type="i": lowercase Roman numerals i, ii, iii, iv, ...
type="I": uppercase Roman numerals I, II, III, IV, ...

Definition List (or Description List) <dl>...</dl>, Definition Term <dt>...</dt> and
Definition Detail <dd>...</dd>
Function: <dl>...</dl> tag contains a Definition List. Each of <dt>...</dt> and <dd>...</dd> pair
contains a Definition Term and the Definition Detail. HTML 5 call it Description List.

<dl>
<dt>term-1</dt>
<dd>definition-for-term-1</dd>
<dt>term-2</dt>
<dd>definition-for-term-2</dd>
......
</dl>

Example:

<p>These are some of the commonly-encountered web protocols:</p>

<dl>
<dt>HTTP</dt><dd>HyperText Transfer Protocol</dd>
<dt>FTP</dt><dd>File Transfer Protocol</dd>
<dt>SMTP</dt><dd>Simple Mail Transfer Protocol</dd>
<dt>POP</dt><dd>Post Office Protocol</dd>
</dl>

These are some of the commonly-encountered web protocols:

HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol
FTP
File Transfer Protocol
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
POP
Post Office Protocol

The "unordered list" and "ordered list" are used in most of the HTML documents. But I don't find many
web pages using the "definition list".

Nested Lists
You can place a list inside another list (called nested lists), by writing a complete list definition under an
<li> item of the outer list. You can nest any types of lists (ordered list, unordered list).

Example 1:
<p>The topics covered are:</p>
<ul>
<li>HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
<ul>
<li>Based on SGML</li>
<li>Used to create web pages</li>
<li>Maintained by W3C</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
<ul>
<li>Used to define presentation style for web pages</li>
<li>Also maintained by W3C</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

Output of Example 1:

The topics covered are:

HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
A markup language based on SGML
Used to create web pages
Maintained by W3C
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
Used to define presentation style for web pages
Also maintained by W3C

Example 2:
<ol>
<li>XML: Extensible Markup Language
<ol>
<li>Based on SGML</li>
<li>Maintained by W3C</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>DOM: Document Object Model</li>
<li>SAX: Simple API for XML</li>
</ol>

Output of Example 2:

1. XML: Extensible Markup Language

a. Based on SGML
b. Maintained by W3C
2. DOM: Document Object Model
3. SAX: Simple API for XML

4.11 Tables
Table-related tags are meant for tabulating data. (Older HTML documents tend to use <table> for
formatting the document to divide the document into columns/sections, which should be avoided. Use
style sheet for formatting instead.)

The basic unit of a table is a cell. Cells are grouped into row. Rows are grouped to form the table. This
corresponds well to the "row-centric" approach in the display.

The essential tags used by table are:

<table>...</table>: contains the entire table.
<tr>...</tr>: contains a row.
<th>...</th> and <td>...</td>: contain a header cell and a data (detail) cell respectively.

Additional tags are:

<caption>...</caption>: specifies a caption.
<thead>...</thead>, <tbody>...</tbody>, and <tfoot>...</tfoot>: for marking out the
table header, body and footer.
<colgroup>...</colgroup> and <col>...</col>: for applying styles to column group and
column respectively.

For Example:

<table>
<caption>Price List</caption>
<tr>
<th>Fruit</th>
<th>Price</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Apple</td>
<td>$0.50</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Orange</td>
<td>$0.65</td>
</tr>
</table>

Price List

Fruit Price

Apple $0.50

Orange $0.65

Table <table>...</table>
Function: Set up a table, consisting of rows of cells.

Three optional presentation attributes, border="n" (specifies the width of borders, in pixels),
cellspacing="n" (specifies the spacing between cells, in pixels), and cellpadding="n" (define the
spacing between the content of the cell and its boundaries, in pixels), are often used in older HTML pages
but now deprecated. The now-preferred approach is to use CSS (again! but coming soon!).

Table Row <tr>...</tr>

Function: Set up a row inside a table, consisting of cells.

Table Header Cell <th>...</th>, Table Data Cell <td>...</td>

Function: Set up each individual cell of a row (of a table). <th>...</th> defines a header cell (usually
displayed in bold with center alignment) and <td>...</td> defines a body cell.

An empty cell is typically marked as <td> </td>.

Cell Span: Attributes "rowspan" and "colspan"

On a <td> or <th> cell, we can use the attribute rowspan="numOfRows" or colspan="numOfColumns" to
span the cell to occupy multiple rows or columns. The subsequent <td> or <th> cells will adjust their
positions accordingly.

Example 1:

11111 22222 33333

44444 66666
55555
77777 88888

Example 2:
<table>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" rowspan="2">11111</td>
<td>22222</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>33333</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>44444</td>
<td>55555</td>
<td>66666</td>
</tr>
</table>

22222
11111
33333
44444 55555 66666

Table Header <thead>...</thead>, Table Body <tbody>...</tbody> and Table Footer

<tfoot>...</tfoot>
Function: Used to define a header, body and footer sections for a table. Browser may duplicate the
header or footer when breaking the table across multiple pages (in print-out). They can also be used to
apply styles to each of the sections.

Column Group <colgroup>...</colgroup> and Column <col>

An HTML table is row-centric. It consists of rows of cells. Nonetheless, you can also identify the columns
via <colgroup> or <col>. But the features are really limited. Only a few properties could be applied on
columns: border, background, width, visibility and display.

Function: <colgroup>...</colgroup> can be used to group a set of columns, so that styles can be
applied to all the columns in the group. Similarly, <col> can be used to identify a column for applying
styles.

The attribute span="numOfColumns" specifies the number of columns belonging to this <colgroup> or
<col> declaration.

A <col> not nested under <colgroup> is automatically wrap under a <colgroup>.

Example 1:

<table>

<colgroup span="3" style="background-color:lightgrey"></colgroup>

<colgroup span="1"></colgroup>
<tr>
<td>Col 1 is in the group</td>
<td>Col 2 is in the group</td>
<td>Col 3 is in the group</td>
<td>Col 4 is NOT in the group</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Col 1 is in the group</td>
<td>Col 2 is in the group</td>
<td>Col 3 is in the group</td>
<td>Col 4 is NOT in the group</td>
</tr>
</table>

Col 1 is in the group Col 2 is in the group Col 3 is in the group Col 4 is NOT in the group

Example 2:

<table>

<colgroup>
<col style="background-color:lightyellow" />
<col style="background-color:white" />
</colgroup>

<colgroup style="background-color:lightgrey" >
<col span="2" />
</colgroup>
<tr>
<td>Col 1 in the group 1</td>
<td>Col 2 in the group 1</td>
<td>Col 3 in the group 2</td>
<td>Col 4 in the group 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Col 1 in the group 1</td>
<td>Col 2 in the group 1</td>
<td>Col 3 in the group 2</td>
<td>Col 4 in the group 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

Col 1 in the group 1 Col 2 in the group 1 Col 3 in the group 2 Col 4 in the group 2

Read "A Complete Guide to the Table Element" @ https://css-tricks.com/complete-guide-table-element/.

4.12 Anchors and Hyperlinks

A hypertext-link (or hyperlink, or link) allows users to:
1. navigate to a different document.
2. navigate to an "Anchor Point" (or bookmark) in the current document or another document, or
3. request other web resources (such as e-mail).

The anchor element <a>...</a> can perform one of these two functions:
1. It can be used to set up a hyperlink, where user can navigate to the target document by clicking the
link.
2. It can also be used to set up a "named anchor point" (or bookmark) within a document, to be
targeted by other hyperlinks. This function is hardly used, as we nowadays use the id attributes as
targets.

Setting up a Hyperlink <a href="url">...</a>

Function: to set up a hyperlink pointing to the url in "href" (hypertext reference) attribute.

Examples:

<a href="http://www.w3c.org">W3C Home Page</a>

<a href="ftp://ftp.faqs.org">FTP to FAQS.ORG</a>
Show <a href="../images/logo.gif">LOGO</a>Image
<a href="mailto:[email protected]">Email Help</a>
<a href="news:soc.culture.singapore">Singapore News</a>

Link's Target Window/Frame <a href="url" target="...">...</a>

Instead of displaying the targeted page pointed to by href in the current browser's window. You can use
the attribute target="targetName" to display the new page in another window.
target="_blank": opens the linked document in a new tab or window. Take note that some people
consider this as annoying and disruptive (hence, it was deprecated in HTML4.01, but supported in
HTML5).
target="_self" (default): opens the linked document in the same window/frame.
target="_parent": opens the linked document in the parent frame.
target="_top": opens the linked document in the full body of the window.
target="frame-name": opens the linked document in the named frame.

[Note: The target attribute has been deprecated in HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0. But it seems to be back in
HTML5.]

Setting up a Link Targeting a Specific HTML Element via the id Attribute

You can setup a link to target a specific HTML element (typically a heading <h1> to <h6>), similar to
bookmark, via:
1. Define an id="idName" attribute for the targeted element. The id attribute is applicable to ALL HTML
elements, including <h1> to <h6>. The id-value is supposed to be unique in the document (i.e., no two
elements shall have the same id-value). An anchor name (or bookmark) called idname will be set up
automatically on the element. You can refer to the anchor point via #idName, by prefixing with a #
sign.
2. Setup a link targeting the anchor point, i.e., <a href="#idName">...</a> for the same document, or
<a href="url#idName">...</a> for the anchor point in another document identified via url.

For example,

<h1 id="ch1">Chapter 1</h1>

......
......
<h1 id="ch2">Chapter 2</h1>
......
......
Jump to <a href="#ch1">Chapter 1</a>
......
Jump to <a href="#ch2">Chapter 2</a>

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators)

A URL uniquely identifies a piece of resource over the Internet. A URL is made up of 4 parts as follows:
protocol://hostname:port/path_and_filename

1. Protocol: e.g., http, ftp, mailto, file, telnet and others.

2. Server's domain name (e.g., www.w3c.org) or IP address (e.g., 127.0.0.1). The DNS (Domain Name
Service) translates a domain name to an IP address.
3. Port number (optional): the TCP port number on which the server application is running. The default
TCP port number is used if port number is omitted from the URL. For example, default TCP port
number 80 will be used for HTTP, 21 for FTP.
4. Directory path and file name: Unix-style forward-slash '/' is used as the path separator (instead of
Windows-style back-slash '\'). Directory path and filename of the URL are case sensitive.

Examples of URLs are:

http://www.w3c.org/css/index.html
http://www.mytest.com:8080/default.html
ftp://ftp.faqs.org
news:soc.culture.singapore
mailto:[email protected]
javascript:myFunction() //See example below

Absolute vs. Relative URLs

An absolute URL is fully qualified, e.g., http://www.mytest.com/abc/index.html. A relative URL is
relative to a base URL.

For example, suppose that the base URL is http://www.mytest.com/abc/index.html, the base path
(excluding the filename) is http://www.mytest.com/abc/.
The relative URL "test.html" refers to http://www.mytest.com/abc/test.html.".
The relative URL "../home.html" refers to http://www.mytest.com/home.html, where the double
dot ".." denotes the parent directory, and single dot "." refers to the current directory.

Rule of Thumb: Always use relative URLs for referencing documents in the same server for portability
(i.e., when you move from a test server to a production server). Use absolute URLs only for referencing
resources from a different server.

Internal Links vs. External Links

Internal links points to resources in the same website (including anchor point in the current page).
External links point to another website.

It is important to use relative URL for all the internal links.

Link Checker
You can use the W3C Online Link Checker (@ http://validator.w3.org/checklink) to check all the links in
your document.

Authoring tools like DreamWeaver also provide built-in Link Checker.

Defining a Named Anchor <a name="anchorName">...</a> (Not Supported in HTML5)

In HTML 4.01, you can use the name="anchorName" attribute of the <a> tag to define a named anchor,
which can then be targeted via #anchorName. This is similar to the implicit anchor name setup via the id
attribute described earlier. The <a>'s name attribute is not supported in HTML5, preferring the simpler id
attribute.

For example,
<h2><a name="eg_1">Example 1</a></h2>
......
......
<h2><a name="eg_2">Example 2</a></h2>
......
......
Jump to <a href="#eg_1">Example 1</a>
......
Jump to <a href="#eg_2">Example 2</a>

Links that Invoke JavaScript

You can use protocol javascript: to invoke JavaScript, e.g.,

1 <!DOCTYPE html>
2 <html lang="en">
3 <head>
4 <meta charset="utf-8" />
5 <title>HTML Testing</title>
6 <script>
7 function myFunction() {
8 alert("hello, world")
9 }
10 </script>
11 </head>
12 <body>
13 <a href="javascript:myFunction()">Run JavaScript</a>
14 </body>
15 </html>

The is the same as:

<a href="#" onclick="myFunction(); return false">Run JavaScript</a>

The "return false" is needed to prevent the page from scrolling to the top following href="#".

The inline JavaScript is hard to maintain, and hence, not recommended.

4.13 Images

<img> Image Tag (Void Element)

Function: Embed an image inside an HTML document. The syntax is:

Example:

<img src="logo.gif" alt="Logo" title="Logo" width="200" height="100">

Attributes:
src="imageUrl" (required): gives the URL of the image.
alt="text" (required): alternative text to be displayed if the image cannot be displayed.
width="n|n%", height="n|n%": specify the width and height of the image display area (in pixels or
percentage). Browsers use these values to reserve space for the image (before the image is
downloaded) and continue rendering the rest of the contents. You can also use the width and height
to scale an image. This is not recommended because scaling-up results in a blur image and scaling-
down is a waste of bandwidth.
I recommend that you use the width and height tags for images, so that the browser can reserve
spaces for the images. This is more efficient and could avoid a jerky display if you page contains many
images. You can find out the width and height of an image easily by checking the "Properties" of the
image.
title="tooltip-text": the attribute title is applicable to most of the HTML elements for you to
provide the tool-tip text.

The following attributes were deprecated in HTML5: align="top|middle|bottom|left|right", border,

hspace|vspace, longdesc, name.

Using Image as Hyperlink

To use an image as a hyperlink, put the image tag <img> between <a href="url"> and </a>. For
example:

<a href="http://abc.com/">
<img src="logo.gif" alt="logo" width="30" height="20">
</a>
<p>click the above image to visit us</p>

Image used as hyperlink anchor automatically gets a border. The color of the border is given in the link
(unvisited), vlink (visited), alink (active) attributes of the <body> tag (or the a:link, a:visited, a:hover,
and a:active CSS properties - to be discussed later).

5. Introduction to CSS

Why Style Sheet?

The original aim of HTML is to let the content providers concentrate on the contents of the document and
leave the appearance to be handled by the browsers. Authors markup the document contents using
markup tags (such as <p>, <h1>, <ul>, <table>, <img>) to indicate its semantic meaning ("This is a
paragraph", "This is heading Level 1", "This is an unordered list", "This is a table", "This is an image"). The
browsers then decide on how to display or present the contents in the browser's window for the web
surfers.

However, HTML has gone out-of-control in the early years. Many markup tags and attributes were created
for marking the appearance and the display styles (e.g., <font>, <center>, align, color, bgcolor, link,
alink, vlink are concerned about the appearance in font, color and alignment) rather than the meaning
of the contents. These tags flood the document and make creation and maintenance of the contents
extremely difficult. Furthermore, over the years, we have engaged graphic designers to work on the
appearance and leave the content providers to focus on the contents. Hence, there is a need to separate
the contents and presentation of the HTML document.

The W3C (World-Wide Web Consortium @ www.w3c.org) responded to the need of separating document's
contents and presentation by introducing a Style Sheet Language called CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) for
presentation, and removing the presentation tags and attributes from HTML. CSS can be viewed as a
companion of HTML. It allows web graphic designers to spice up the web pages, so that the content
providers can focus on the document contents with HTML.

CSS Specifications
W3C defines three CSS levels:
1. CSS Level 1 (December 1996): CSS1 laid the ground work and introduced the selectors and most of
the properties.
2. CSS Level 2 (May 1998) and CSS Level 2.1 (Last revised on June 2011): CSS2 added new features such
as targeting devices and printers, and absolute positioning. CSS2.1 (@ http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/)
touches up CSS2.
3. CSS Level 3: CSS3 is not a single piece of specification. As CSS grows, W3C decided to break it into
modules, such as the Selectors module, the Values and Units Modules, the Box Alignment module,
and so on. Each module is then developed independently. The CSS3 Selectors module (@
http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors/) and CSS3 Colors module (@ http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/)
were completed in 2011. Other modules are still work-in-progress.

It is important to take note that:

CSS is humongous!!! Most of the browsers today have yet to fully support CSS2/CSS2.1.
CSS is a language with its own syntax, which is different from HTML and JavaScript.

What is a Style Sheet?

A Style Sheet is a collection of style rules that can be applied to a selected set of HTML elements. A style
rule is used to control the appearance of HTML elements such as their font properties (e.g., type face, size
and weight), color properties (e.g., background and foreground colors), alignment, margin, border,
padding, and positioning. This is the same as the styles in any publishing software like WinWord or LaTex.

The word cascading means that multiple style rules can be applied to the same HTML element. The
browser follows a certain cascading order in finalizing a style to format the HTML element in a predictable
fashion.

6. CSS By Examples

6.1 CSS Example 1: CSS Syntax and Tag-Selectors

Create the following file (using a source-code editor such as VS Code, Sublime Text, Atom, NotePad++),
and save as "CSSEg1.css".

1 /* CSS Example 1 ("CSSEg1.css"): CSS Tag Selectors */

2 /* Rule 1: Apply to the <body> element and possibly its descendants */
3 body {
4 font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
5 font-size: 16px; /* 16px = 12pt */
6 margin: 5px 15px 5px 15px; /* top right bottom left - no commas in between */
7 padding: 0;
8 background-color: #eee; /* light gray, same as #eeeeee */
9 }
10
11 /* Rule 2: Apply to <h1> to <h6> elements */
12 h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
13 font-family: Quicksand, "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
14 color: red;
15 font-weight: bold;
16 text-align: center;
17 }
18
19 /* Rule 3: Specifically for <h2>. Override the previous rule */
20 h2 {
21 color: blue;
22 font-style: italic;
23 }
24
25 /* Rule 4: Apply to all the <p> elements */
26
26
p {
27
text-align: justify;
28
color: black;
29
}

A CSS style sheet provides style rules to HTML documents. You test out the above styles, by creating an
HTML document, which references the CSS via the <link> element, as follows:

1 <!DOCTYPE html>
2 
3 <html lang="en">
4 <head>
5 <meta charset="utf-8">
6 <title>Testing CSS Style Sheet</title>
7 <link href="CSSEg1.css" rel="stylesheet">
8 </head>
9 <body>
10 <h1>Test CSS Style Sheet</h1>
11 <h2>This is heading level 2</h2>
12 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod
13 tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
14 veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
15 commodo consequat.</p>
16 </body>
17 </html>

How it Works?
1. /* ... */ is a CSS comment. Comments are ignored by the Test CSS
browsers but provide important information to the readers, as well
as the author.
Style Sheet
2. A CSS style sheet contains style rules.
This is heading
3. A style rule begins with a selector, followed by the list or
presentation properties enclosed within {...}.
level 2
4. A property is identified by its name, followed by its value, separated
Lorem ipsum dolor sit
by colon ":". The name:value pairs are separated by semicolon ";". amet, consectetur
A name could have multiple values, separated by commas "," (e.g., adipiscing elit, sed do
eiusmod tempor
the font-family property).
incididunt ut labore et
5. A selector selects a set of HTML elements to apply the styles. This dolore magna aliqua. Ut
example uses the so-called Tag-Selector, which select all elements having the tagname. For
example, the first rule is applicable to the <body>; the 3rd to <h2>, and the 4th rule to all the <p>
elements.
6. Selectors having the same rules can be grouped together and separated by commas ",". For
example, the 2nd rule is applicable to <h1> to <h6>.
7. Some of the properties are inherited by the nested elements. For example, the <p> nested under
<body> inherits the font-family from the <body>. Some properties are not inherited.
8. If more than one rules are applicable, the properties are accumulated. But, the last rule will take
effect if there is conflict. For example, both Rule 3 and 4 are applicable to <h2>. The <h2> accumulates
the properties from both rules. It takes the font-weight:bold from Rule 3 (which is not specified in
Rule 4); but uses the color:blue from the Rule 4 (instead of Rule 3).
9. Style properties:
The font-family list the font faces, in the order of preferences. Browsers search through the list
(from the beginning) to an available font face.
color and background-color: specify the foreground and background colors, respectively. Color
can be expressed in #rrggbb (hex value), rgb(r, g, b) (decimal value between 0 and 255), or
with the pre-defined color names (such as red, blue).
text-align: text alignment of either left, right, justify, center.
font-weight: normal, bold, and others.
font-style: normal, italic, and others.

Take note that CSS is a language with its own syntaxes. CSS syntax is totally different from HTML!

6.2 CSS Example 2: CSS Class-Selector, ID-Selector with <div> and <span>

1 /* CSS Example 2 ("CSSEg2.css"): CSS Class and ID Selectors */

2 /* Rule 1: Apply to the <body> element and possibly its descendants */
3 body {
4 font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
5 font-size: 16px; /* 16px = 12pt */
6 margin: 5px 15px 5px 15px; /* top right bottom left - no commas in between */
7 padding: 0;
8 }
9
10 /* Rule 2: Apply to <h1> to <h6> elements */
11 h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
12 color: red;
13 font-weight: bold;
14 text-align: center;
15 }
16
17 /* Rule 3: Apply to the element with id="header" or id="footer" */
18 #header, #footer {
19 background-color: #eee; /* light gray, same as #eeeeee */
20 }
21
22 /* Rule 4: Apply to one unique element with id="footer" */
23 #footer {
24 text-align: right;
25 }
26
27 /* Rule 5: Apply to all elements having class="new" */
28 .new {
29 color: red;
30 }
31
32 /* Rule 6: Apply to all elements having class="new" */
33 .highlight {
34 background-color: yellow;
35 }

We shall use the following HTML document to test the CSS:

1 <!DOCTYPE html>
2 
3 <html lang="en">
4 <head>
5 <meta charset="utf-8">
6 <title>Testing CSS Style Sheet</title>
7 <link href="CSSEg2.css" rel="stylesheet">
8 </head>
9 <body>
10 <div id="header">
11 <h1>Test CSS Style Sheet</h1>
12 </div>
13
14 <div id="content">
15 <h2>This is heading level 2</h2>
16 <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, <span class="new">consectetur adipiscing elit</
17 tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore <span class="highlight">magna aliqua</spa
18 veniam, <span class="new highlight">quis nostrud exercitation</span> ullamco la
19 commodo consequat.</p>
20 </div>
21
22 <div id="footer">
23 <p>This page is created with <span class="new">HTML5/CSS3</span></p>
24 </div>
25 </body>
26 </html>

How it Works?
1. In the earlier example, we use Tag-Selectors which select Test CSS Style
elements based on tagname. Besides the Tag-Selector,
there are Class-Selector which selects elements based on Sheet
class attribute; and ID-selector which selects an
element based on the id attribute. This is heading level 2
2. An ID-Selector begins with a # sign, followed by an id-
name, e.g., #header and #footer, which select element Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do
with id="header" and id="footer", respectively. Since
eiusmod tempor incididunt ut
id-value is meant to be unique within an HTML labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut
document, ID-selector select at most one element. enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud
3. A Class-Selector begins with a dot "." followed by a exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut
aliquip ex ea commodo consequat
class-name, e.g., .new and .highlight, which select all
elements with class="new" and class="highlight", respectively. Unlike id-value that is unique,
many elements can have the same class-name.
4. In the test HTML document, we partition the body into three sections, via <div>. We assign a unique
id to each <div>, i.e., <div id="header">, <div id="content"> and <div id="footer"> to
semantically identify their contents, and use the ID-Selectors #header and #footer to apply styles to
the <div>'s.
5. Similarly, we mark texts with <span class="new"> and <span class="highlight">, and use the
Class-Selectors .new and .highlight to apply styles to these texts.
6. Take note that:
<div> is a block element, while <span> is a inline element.
The class attribute can take multiple values, as in class="new highlight" (Line 18). Both styles
are applied.

HTML id vs class Attributes

id and class are used to reference HTML elements by JavaScript and CSS. ID can also be used as the
target of HTML anchors.
id must be unique in an HTML document, but class needs not.
An element can have one id, but many classes.
CSS's ID-selector begins with # (e.g., #header), Class-selector begins with dot (.) (e.g., .header).

For example,

<div id="header" class="highlight new big class99">......</div>

<a href="#header">Go To Header</a>

Recommendation: Use ID for JavaScript and internal <a> link (which refers to one single element in the
HTML document); and class for CSS (which refers to a group of elements with the same style).

6.3 Validating CSS

You can use Online CSS Validation Services such as W3C Jigsaw (@ http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator) to
validate your CSS file.

Try validating the above example using W3C CSS Validator.

6.4 Inspecting Element's Styles via F12 Web Developer Tools

The Web Developer Tools supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript and DOM. You could select (inspect) an HTML
element, and it will show you all the CSS rules that are applied to that elements from all the sources
(inline, embedded, external), and how the rules were merged (calculated) and conflicts were resolved. You
can temporarily disable a rule, and edit a rule to check the effect instantly.

To debug CSS:
1. F12 to launch Web Developer Tools.
2. To inspect the style of an HTML element ⇒ Choose the "HTML" panel ⇒ Click on the "Inspect" button
and then select the HTML element of interest from the browser window ⇒ You can check/modify the
"Style", "Layout", "DOM" and "Events" (on the right panel) associated with the selected element.
3. To check/modify the CSS Style rules ⇒ Choose the "CSS" panel.
7. CSS Basics

7.1 CSS Syntax

CSS is a language by itself. It has its own syntax, which is totally different from HTML and JavaScript!!!
(How many syntaxes you have to know to program the web?!).

The syntactic rules are:

1. A style rule consists of a selector which selects the HTML elements it operates upon, and a list of style
property name:value pairs enclosed in braces {...}, as follows:
selector {
property-name-1: property-value-1a, property-value-1b, ... ;
property-name-2: property-value-2a, property-value-2b, ... ;
......;
}

For example,
body { /* Apply to <body> and possibly its descendants */
font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
font-size: 16px;
margin: 10px auto; /* top-down right-left */
padding: 0;
}

This selector selects the <body> tag. Hence, the defined style is applied to the <body>...</body>
element. Many (but not all) of the CSS properties (such as color, font) are inherited by its
descendants, unless they are overridden by other style rules.
2. The name:value pairs are separated by semicolon ";". You can omit the last semi-colon before the
closing brace "}". But I recommend that you keep it, so that it is easier to include new entries without
a missing ";".
3. The name and value are separated by a colon ":" in the form of name:value.
4. Multiple values for the same property name are separated by commas "," (as in the font-family).
However, multiple parts of the same property value are separated by space " " (as in the margin,
which has a value with 4 parts).
5. Values containing space must be quoted, e.g., "Times New Roman" or 'Times New Roman'.
6. Extra whitespaces (blank, tab and newline) are ignored.
7. If the same set of styles is applicable to more than one elements, the selectors can be grouped
together in one single rule (called Group-Selector). The tagnames are separated by commas ",". For
example, the following rule apply to elements <h1> to <h6>:

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {

text-align: center;
font-family: Quicksand, "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
}

8. Comments can be inserted inside the style sheet enclosed between /* and */. The end-of-line
comment // is not applicable in CSS?!

CSS Syntax vs. HTML Syntax

CSS and HTML have different syntaxes!!! For example, HTML's attributes uses "=" to separate the name
and value, in the form of name="value"; the name-value pairs are separated by spaces, as follows:

<img src="logo.gif" alt="Logo" height="10" width="20">

7.2 Inline, Internal and External Styles
There are three places where you can define style rules:
1. Inline Style: Included inside a particular HTML opening tag's via attribute style="style-rules". The
rules are applicable to that particular HTML element only.
2. Internal (Embedded) Style Sheet: Embedded inside the <style>...</style> tags in the HEAD
section of the HTML document. The styles are applicable to that entire document.
3. External Style Sheet (Recommended): Stored in an external file, which is then linked to HTML
documents via a <link> element in the HEAD section. The same external style sheet can be applied to
all HTML pages in your website to ensure uniformity in appearance.

Inline Styles
To apply inline style to an HTML element, include the list of style properties in the style attribute of the
opening tag. For example,

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<p style="font-size:16px; font-family:monospace">This paragraph uses 16px monospace f
<p>This paragraph uses default font.</p>
<p>This paragraph uses <span style="font-size:12px">12px inside this span</span>
but default font size here.</p>
</body>
</html>

This paragraph uses 16px monospace font.

This paragraph uses default font.

This paragraph uses 12px inside this span but default font size here.

Take note that the name and value are separated by colon ':', and the name:value pair are separated by
semicolon ';', as specified in the CSS syntax.

The scope of an inline style is limited to that particular element. Inline style defeats the stated goal of style
sheets, which is to separate the document’s content and presentation. Hence, inline style should be
avoided and only be used sparsely for touching up a document, e.g., setting the column width of a
particular table.

Internal (Embedded) Styles

Embedded styles are defined within the <style>...</style> tags in the HEAD section. For example,

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body {
background-color:cyan;
}
h2 {
color:white;
background-color:black;
}
p.monospace {
font-size:16px;
font-family:monospace;
}
p.f20px {
font-size:20px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h2>H2 is white on black</h2>
<p>This paragraph is normal.</p>
<p class="monospace">This paragraph uses 16-px monospace font.</p>
<p class="f20px">This paragraph uses 20-px font.</p>
</body>
</html>

The scope of the embedded styles is the current HTML document.

Embedded styles separate the presentation and content (in the HEAD and BODY sections) and can be
used if page-to-page uniformity is not required. That is, this set of styles is used for only one single
page!?

NOTE: HTML4/XHTML1 require an additional attribute type="text/css" in <style> opening tag.

External Styles
The style rules are defined in an external file, and referenced in an HTML document via the <link>
element in the HEAD section.

For example, we define these style rules in a file called "TestExternal.css":

/* TestExternal.css */
body {
background-color:cyan; color:red;
}
h2 {
background-color:black;
color:white;
text-align:center;
}
p {
font-size:12pt;
font-variant:small-caps;
}
p.f24pt {
font-style:italic;
font-size:24pt;
text-indent:1cm;
}
#green {
color:green;
}

This HTML document references the external style sheet via the <link> element in the HEAD section:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<link href="TestExternal.css" rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body>
<h2>H2 is white on black</h2>
<h2 id="green">This H2 is green on black</h2>
<p>The default paragraph uses 12-pt small-cap font.</p>
<p class="f24pt">This paragraph uses 24-pt, italics font with text-indent of 1cm.
It inherits the small-cap property from the default paragraph selector.</p>
</body>
</html>

You can use multiple <link> elements to include multiple CSS files.

The main advantage of external style sheets is that the same set of styles can be applied to all HTML
pages in your website to ensure uniformity in presentation. External style sheet is the now-preferred
approach.

NOTE: HTML4/XHTML1 require an additional attribute type="text/css" in <link> element.

Linking to External Style Sheet using CSS @import Directive

Besides the HTML <link> element, you can also use CSS's @import directive to link to an external style
sheet under the HTML <style> tags, as follows:

@import is a CSS directive (part of CSS language). It can also be used in one CSS file to include rules from
another CSS file, for example,

/* in CSS fie */
@import '/css/more-styles.css';

/* Import an external Google font */

@import 'https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans';

/* Second argument is media queries on device and feature */

@import '/css/print-styles.css' print;
@import '/css/landscape.css' screen and (orientation:landscape);

Priority
Inline styles have the highest priority, followed by internal styles, and followed by external styles.

7.3 Inheritance
Many (but not all) CSS properties, such as color and font-family, affect not only the elements selected
by the selector, but also inherited by their descendants.

Inheritance is a big time-saver for designing styles. For example, you set the default color and font-
family in the <body> element, which will then be inherited by all the elements. You then override the
default properties for specific elements, if needed.
Some properties (such as border, margin, padding, width, height, background-color) are not inherited.
This is for good reason. For example, if border is defined for <ul> and is inherited, then all descendants
(<li>) will be drawn with border!

Special Property Value: inherit

You can use a special property-value called "inherit" to inherit the property from its ancestor. For
example,

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
p {
border: 5px solid red;
}
.inherit-border {
border: inherit;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>The <em>border</em> property is not inherited.</p>
<p>The <em class="inherit-border">border</em> property is inherited.</p>
</body>
</html>

Although the first <em> is nested under the <p> tag, the border property is not inherited from the
ancestor. That is, you will not see a border around the <em>'s content. We can force the inheritance by
assigning a special value "inherit" as shown in the Class Selector .inherit-border.

7.4 Resolving Conflicting Rules

Style Conflict
Style conflict on an element arises:
1. A property is inherited from multiple ancestors.
2. More than one rules are applicable to the element. For example, Tag-selector p, Class-selector .red
and ID-selector #comment are all applicable to element <p id="comment" class="red">.

Nearest Ancestor Wins

If a property is not defined for an element and is inheritable, it will be inherited from the nearest
ancestor.

Specificity
Specificity means that "the more specific the selector, the stronger the rule". For example,
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
p { color:black; background-color:white; }
/* Override the color properties */
p.red { color:red; }
p#id1 { color:yellow; background-color:lightblue; }
p#id2 { color:blue; }
p#id1 { color:green; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p id="id1">Paragraph with id of "id1" (green)</p>
<p id="id2">Paragraph with id of "id2" (blue)</p>
<p class="red">Paragraph of class of "red" (red)</p>
<p id="id1" class="red">Paragraph with id of "id1" and class of "red" (green)</p>
<p>Paragraph without id and class with default colors (black)</p>
</body>
</html>

The p Tag-selector is the most general, which selects all the <p> elements; the p.red Class-selector selects
a class of <p> elements with attribute class="red"; the p#id1 and p#id2 ID-selectors select only one
element each with a unique id value. The ID-selector is the most specific (and takes precedence); followed
by Class-selector; and followed by the general Tag-selector.

Locality
If the "Law of Specificity" cannot resolve the conflict, apply the "Law of Locality". The style-rule that read in
last by the browser takes effect. In the above example, there are two ID-selector for id1, the latter takes
effect.

The inline style (applied to a specific tag via style attribute) overrides the internal style (defined in
<style>) and external style sheet (defined via <link>). For internal and external styles, the order of
<link> and <style> elements determine the precedence. It is recommended to place the <link> before
<style> so that the internal styles can override the external styles.

Preventing Override: !important

You can override all the cascading rules by appending a special property-value !important, e.g.,

p { color:blue !important; background-color:grey; } /* color cannot be overridden */

p { color:red; background-color:lightblue; } /* override background-color only

<p>color is blue but background is lightblue</p>

7.5 How to Use CSS for Styling HTML Document?

To use CSS to style your website for good and consistent look and feel, you need to properly structure
and partition your web pages.

HTML Division <div> and Span <span> Elements

Prior to HTML5, two HTML elements, division <div>...</div> and span <span>...</span> are primarily
designed for applying CSS styles. They can be used to create partitions in an HTML document to
represent logical sections (such as header, content, footer, highlight text, and so on). <div> is a block
element which is rectangular in shape; while <span> is an inline element which spans a sequence of
characters.

The <div> and <span> are generic tags for identifying contents. They do not possess any inherent visual
properties (unlike <h1>, <p>, <em> which are expected to be presented in a certain way). They shall be
further qualified with id or class attribute, and attached with CSS styles selected via the ID-selector or
Class-selector.

Modern-day HTML pages use <div> and <span> extensively to structure the document for applying CSS
styles. Old HTML pages uses tables and frames, which should be avoided. HTML5 introduces new
semantic elements such as <header>, <footer>, <section>, <nav>, <article> to help you better
structure your page.

HTML Attributes id and class

All the HTML elements supports two optional attributes: id="id-value" and class="class-value".
You can assign an id="id-value" attribute to an HTML element to uniquely identify that element.
The id-value must be unique within the HTML document. In other words, no two elements can have
the same id-value. The id attribute can be used by CSS (as well as JavaScript) to select that particular
element. For example,
<div id="header"><h1>Header Section</h1> ...... </div>
<div id="content"><h1>Content Section</h1> ...... </div>
<div id="footer"><h1>Footer Section</h1> ....... </div>

Similarly, you can assign class="class-value" attribute to a class of elements having the same
presentation properties and appearance. The class-value needs not be unique. That is, the same
class-value can be assigned to many HTML elements. In other words, these HTML elements form a
sub-class (hence, the keyword class). The class attribute is primarily used by CSS to apply a common
set of styles to all the elements of the same class. For example,

<p class="highlight">A highlighted paragraph</p>

<p class="highlight">Another highlighted paragraph</p>

A class attribute may contain multiple values, separated by space, e.g.,

<p class="highlight underline">This paragraph element has two class values</p>

CSS Tag-Selector (T)

A CSS Tag-selector selects HTML elements based on the tag-name, e.g.,

/* tag selector */
h2 { background-color:black; color:white; text-align:center; }

CSS ID-Selector (#D)

A CSS ID-selector, which begins with a '#' followed by an id value, selects a unique element (because id
value is supposed to be unique) in the document. For example,
/* ID-selector (id-value is unique in a document) */
#header { font-size:18px; color:cyan; }
#content { font-size:14px; color:black; }
#footer { font-size:12px; color:orange; }

CSS Class-Selector (.C)

A CSS Class-selector, which begins with a '.' followed by a classname, selects ALL elements having that
class value. For example,

/* Class-selector (class value needs not be unique) */

.highlight { background-color: #ff0; }
.underline { text-decoration: underline; }
.green { color:green; text-decoration:underline; }
.blue { color:blue; }

Applying CSS
1. Firstly, partition your web page in semantic partitions using the <div> and <span> elements, or the
newer HTML5's <header>, <footer>, <section>, <article>, <nav> elements.
2. Assign id or class to each of the partitions. Use id if it is unique (in formatting); otherwise, use class
(more than one partitions have the same formatting).
3. Write the CSS style rules for tag, id and class.

Example: The following HTML page is divided into three sections. Selected texts are marked with the
<span> tags, with class of "green" and "blue".

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Structure Web Page and apply style</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<link href="MyStyle.css" rel="stylesheet">
</head>

<body>
<header>
<h1>Heading</h1>
</header>

<section id="content">
<h2>Hello</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, <span class="green">consectetur adipisicing</span> elit,
eiusmod <span class="green">tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim
minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo c
Duis aute irure dolor in</span> reprehenderit in voluptate <span class="blue">velit ess
cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.</p>
</section>

<footer>
<p>Footer</p>
</footer>
</body>
</html>

The CSS file "MyStyle.css":

[TODO]

7.6 Types of CSS Selectors

As illustrated in the previous example, a CSS selector can select a set of HTML elements based on (a) tag
name, (b) id attribute, (c) class attribute. In addition, you can write a CSS selector to select elements
based on combination of tag, id and class, and much more.

CSS is humongous! E.g., Read "The 30 CSS Selectors you Must Memorize". I shall list the frequently-used
types of CSS selectors here.

The following table summarises the frequently-used CSS selectors:

Selector Examples Description
* * { } Universal Selector: select ALL elements in the
document

tag-name h1 { } Tag Selector: select all <h1> elements

#id-name #header { } ID Selector: select the unique element with

id="header"

.class-name .new { } Class Selector: select elements with

class="new"

:pseudo-class :first-child { Pseudo-Class Selector: select a special state

} such as focus and hover.
:focus { }
a:active { }

::pseudo- ::first-line { Pseudo-Element Selector: select a part of an

element } element and
::first-letter may modify the selected element.
{ }
::before { }
::after { }
::selection { }

The following are the combinators:

Selector Examples Description

S1,S2,S3 h1, h2 { } Group Selector: Apply the style to S1, S2 and S3

S1 S2 div p { } Descendant Selector (separated by a space):

select if S2 is a descendant (child, grandchild, etc.) of S1

S1>S2 tr > td { } Child (Direct Descendant) Selector: only if S1 is an

immediate child of S1

S1:S2 ul:li { } First-Child Selector: only if S2 is the first child of S1

S1+S2 a + span { } Adjacent Sibling Selector: the (one) S2 that is

immediately after S1

S1~S2 a ~ span { } General Sibling Selector: All S2(s) that are siblings after
S1

T.C div.example { Tag cum Class Selector: <div class="example">

}

T#C div#header { } Tag cum ID Selector: <div id="header">

.C1.C2 .new.example { Multiple Class Selector (no space in between):

} <div class="new example">

The following table summarises the Attribute Selectors.

Selector Example Description

T[att] Select tags with the attribute, regardless of its value

T[att='value'] Select tags with the attribute and value

T[att^='value'] Select tags with the attribute, beginning with value

T[att$='value'] Select tags with the attribute, ending with value

T[att*='value'] Select tags with attribute, containing the value

T[att~='value'] Select tags with attribute having value in the list

space-separated values.

T[att|='value'] Select tags with attribute, beginning with value

followed by dash (-)

T[att='value' Select tags with attribute and value, where value is

i] case-insensitive

Tag Selector: T
A Tag-selector selects all elements of the given tag-name. The syntax is:
tag-name { style-declaration }

Example:

h2 { background-color:black; color:white; }

Group Selector: S1, S2

You can apply the same style definitions to multiple selectors, by separating the selectors with a commas
','. The syntax is,

selector-1, selector-2, ... { style-declaration }

The selector-x could be any kind of selectors, such as Tag-selector, Class-selector, or ID-selector.

Example:

h1, h2, h3 { background-color:black; color:white; }

Descendant Selector: T1 T2
You can define a style rule that takes effect only when a tag occurs within a certain contextual structure,
e.g., descendant, immediate-child, first-child, sibling, etc.

To create a descendant selector, list the tags in their hierarchical order, with no commas separating them
(commas are meant for grouping selectors).

Example:
ul li { color:red; }
ul ul li { color:blue; }
ul ul ul li { color:green; }

The first-level list items are in red; second-level in blue; and third-level in green.

Note: In T1 T2 { ... }, T2 is a descendant of T1 regardless of the generation.

Child Selector: T1 > T2

A contextual selector where T2 is an immediate child of T1.

First-Child Selector: T1:T2

A contextual selector where T2 is the first child of T1.
Adjacent Selector (or Sibling Selector): T1 + T2
The style is applied to tag T2, only if it follows immediately after T1. T1 and T2 are siblings in the same
hierarchical level.

Generic-Class Selector: .C
The Generic-Class Selector, which begins with a dot '.' followed by the classname, selects all elements
with the given classname, regardless of the tag name.

Example:

.f14px_i { font-size:14px; font-style:italic; }

.f16px_b { font-size:16px; font-weight:bold; }
.red { color:red; }
.underline { text-decoration:underline; }

<p class="f14px_i">Text is 14px and italic.</p>

Take note that the class attribute may contain multiple values. This means that you can apply multiple
class style rules to an HTML element. For example,
<p class="f14px_i underline">Text is 14px and italic, and underlined.</p>
<p class="f16px_b red underline">Text is 16px and bold, in red and underlined.</p>

Tag-cum-Class Selector: T.C

The selector T.C selects all tag-name T with classname of C. This is a restricted form of the Generic-Class
selector, which applies to the specific tag-name only.

An HTML element (such as <p>) can be sub-divided into different style sub-classes via the class attribute.
This subclass mechanism allows us to apply different styles to different subclass of a particular element.

For example,
p { color:black; } /* default style for all <p> tags */
p.red { color:red; } /* applicable to <p class="red"> tags (override default)
p.blue { color:blue; } /* applicable to <p class="blue"> tags (override default)
h1, h2, h3 { color:green; } /* default style for <h1>, <h2> and <h3> tags */
h3.white { color:white; } /* applicable to <h3 class="white"> tags (override defaul
h3.upper { text-transform:uppercase; }

<p>This paragraph is in black (default style)</p>

<p class="red">This paragraph, of class="red", is in red.</p>
<p class="blue">This paragraph, of class="blue", is in blue.</p>
<h2>H2 in green (default style)</h2>
<h3>H3 in green (default style)</h3>
<h3 class="white upper">This H3, of class="white", is in white</h3>

Note: Do NOT start a class-name with a number! (This is the same restriction for identifiers in most of the
programming languages.)

ID Selector: #D
The ID-selector, begins with a '#' followed by the id value, selects a specific element with the given
unique id value. Recall that the id value must be unique in an HTML document.
You can use <div>'s with unique id to divide the document into partitions of different styles. For
example,
/* ID selector for the 3 major division of the document */
#header { font-size:16px; align:center; font-style:bold; }
#header h1 { text-transform:uppercase; } /* contextual selector */
#content { font-size:14px; align:justify; }
#content h3 { color:#FF0000; text-decoration:underline; } /* red, underline */
#footer { font-size:12px; align:right; }
#footer p { color:#00FF00; text-decoration:none; } /* green, not underline */

<body>
<div id="header">
<h1>H1 in the "header" division</h1>
<h3>H3 in the "header" division</h3>
<p>Paragraph in "header" division</p>
</div>
<div id="content">
<h1>H1 in the "content" division</h1>
<h3>H3 in the "content" division</h3>
<p>Paragraph in "content" division</p>
</div>
<div id="footer">
<p>Paragraph in "footer" division</p>
</div>
</body>

Tag-cum-ID Selector: T#D

Same as above but only if the id is defined under the tag. Since id value is supposed to be unique, this
serves more as proper documentation.

Universal Selector: *
The universal selector * selects ALL the elements in the document.

Example:

* { margin:0; padding:0; } /* all tags have margin and padding of 0 */

Pseudo-Class Selector a:link|a:visited|:focus|:hover|:active

Pseudo-class describes a special state for an element, e.g. hover and focus. CSS defines a number of
pseudo-classes for anchor elements <a>, namely, a:link (unvisited link), a:visited (visited link), a:focus
(on focus), a:hover (mouse pointer hovers over), a:active (clicked or active link). Take note that colon ":"
is used to identify pseudo classes instead of "." for ordinary classname.

These pseudo classes is commonly-used with the <a> element. But :hover, :focus, and :active can also
be applied to other elements, such as <p>, <li>, and etc.

Example:

a { font-size:14px; } /* all <a> tags */

a:link { color:red; } /* unvisited link */
a:visited { color:green; } /* visited link */
a:focus { color:lightblue; } /* on focus via tab key */
a:hover { color:blue; } /* mouse over link */
a:active { color:black; } /* currently selected link */
Notes:
The order is important for anchor pseudo-classes in applying styles. It shall be link-visited-focus-
hover-active (LVFHA).
It is called pseudo-class, as it sub-divide the <a> tag into four sub-classes that cannot be marked out
manually.
You can further restrict the selections via a.classname:pseudo-classname.

Another Example,

a {
font-size:10pt;
font-decoration:underline;
color:red;
}
a.blue:link { color:blue; }
a.green:link { color:green; }
a:hover {
font-decoration:none;
color:yellow;
}

<a class="green" href="http://www.aaa.com">www.aaa.com</a>

The anchor pseudo-classes can be combined with ID-selectors as a Descendant-selector, so that the
appearance of the links is different for the different divisions of the document, e.g.,

a { color:black } /* default for a:link, a:visited, a:active */

#header a:hover { color:blue }
#footer a:hover { color:green }

Pseudo-Elements Selector ::pseudo-element

Pseudo-class describe a special state, e.g., hover or focus. Pseudo-Element is a part of an element, e.g.,
first-letter, first-line (of a <p>). Pseudo-class selector begins with colon (:), whereas pesudo-element
selector begins with double colons (::) in CSS3 to differentiate wih the pesudo-class selector.

Pseudo-element selectors are:

::first-line, ::first-letter (CSS3): For example, the selector p::first-line and p::first-
letter select the first line and the first letter of all the <p> elements. You can restrict the selection by
applying id or class. For example, p.intro::first-line, em.special::first-letter.
::before, ::after (CSS3): let you select elements and add content before or after the elements.
For example,
.title::before {
content: "\0022"; /* Add a double quote before */
color: "red";
}
.title::after {
content: "\0022"; /* Add a double quote after */
color: "red";
}

The above rules will add a double-quote (Unicode 0022H) in before and after all elements having
class="title". Take note that these selectors generate contents!
Another Example: To change the bullet of an unordered list. Try it out.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Test ::before</title>
<style>
ul {
list-style-type: none;
}
ul > li::before {
content: "";
display: inline-block;
margin-right: 10px;
height: 9px;
width: 9px;
background: linear-gradient(blue, lightblue);
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
<li>A for Apple</li>
<li>B for Boy</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

::selection (CSS3): Select the user-selected-text on the screen. You are only allow to set the color
and background-color properties in the selector. For example,
p::selection { /* selected text in any paragraph */
color: red;
background-color: black;
}

Attribute Selectors
T[att]: selects elements that possess the given attribute, regardless of value.
T[att="value"]: selects elements that possess the given attribute, with the given value.
T[att^="value"]: selects elements that possess the given attribute, beginning with the given value.
(Symbol ^ represent beginning in regex.)
T[att$="value"]: selects elements that possess the given attribute, ending with the given value.
(Symbol $ represent ending in regex.)
T[att*="value"]: selects elements that possess the given attribute, containing with the given
value.

Child Pseudo-Class Selectors (CSS3)

CSS3 introduces these pseudo-class child selectors:
:first-child, :last-child: E.g., In td:first-child, td is the first child of the parent.
:nth-child(odd), :nth-child(even): E.g., table > tr:nth-child(even)
:nth-child(3), :nth-child(n+3) (3, 4, 5,...), :nth-child(3n) (3, 6, 9,...), :nth-child(3n+1) (4,
7, 10,...), etc.
:nth-last-child(3): last 3rd child
Type Pseudo-class Selector (CSS3)
T:first-of-type, T:last-of-type: For example p:first-of-type select the first <p>.
T:nth-of-type(odd), T:nth-of-type(even): E.g., table > tr:nth-of-type(odd)
T:nth-of-type(3), T:nth-of-type(n+3) (3, 4, 5,...), T:nth-of-type(3n) (3, 6, 9,...), T:nth-of-
type(3n+1) (4, 7, 10,...), etc.

:in-range Pseudo-class Selector

Select elements whose value is in the permitted range, for giving positive feedback, e.g.,

<input type='number' value='5' min='1' max='10'>

:not(...) Pseudo-class Selector

The :not(S) selector lets you select elements not meeting the criterion in selector S. For example,
:not(.highlight) select elements not belonging to class highlight. See above example.

There are many more pseudo-class selector!

8. CSS Style Properties

For a complete list of the style properties, you may refer to the CSS specification (@ W3C), or online
reference. I shall present the commonly-used properties such as color, font, text, margin, border,
padding.

8.1 CSS color and background-color Properties

Specifying Color
Color can be expressed as:
1. RGB hexadecimal triplets in the form of #rrggbb, where rr, gg, bb are values of red, green and blue.
The values are between 00 and FF, in hexadecimal. For example, #12ABFF. The color value #112233
can be shorthand as #123.
2. RGB in the form of rgb(r, g, b). The r, g, b can be expressed in a decimal value between 0 and 255;
or in percentage between 0% and 100%. I prefer the decimal form over the hex triplets as it is easier to
visualize the values.
3. RGBA in the form of rgba(r, g, b, a): RGB with an additional A (alpha channel). The A is used to
control the transparency/opacity, with a=1 for opaque; and a=0 for totally transparent.
4. HSL in the form hsl(hue, saturation, lightness): Hue is the color on the color wheel in degrees
between 0 to 360. Saturation (purity of color) is expressed in percentage between 0% and 100% (pure
color). Lightness (brightness or intensity) is also expressed in percentage between 0% (darkest) and
100% (brightest).
5. HSLA in the form of hsla(hue, saturation, lightness, alpha).
6. The 16 pre-defined English color names as follows. These 16 colors are numerically generated and
are really really ugly. You should avoid using them!! Many browsers also support other color names
such as lightblue, lightgreen, etc.

red lime blue yellow aqua fuchsia maroon green

#FF0000 #00FF00 #0000FF #FFFF00 #00FFFF #FF00FF #800000 #008000

navy olive teal purple black white gray silver

#000080 #808000 #008080 #800080 #000000 #FFFFFF #808080 #C0C0C0

CSS Color Properties

The most important color properties are color and background-color:
color: #rrggbb|rgb(r,g,b)|rgba(r,g,b,a)|color-name: Set the color of the text (or
foreground). Color values are inherited by descendants.
background-color: #rrggbb|rgb(rrr,ggg,bbb)|rgba(r,g,b,a)|color-
name|transparent|inherit|initial: Set the background color of an element. The default is
transparent and NOT inherited, so as to create a see-through effect. The initial sets to its default
value.

8.2 CSS Length Measurements

Many CSS properties, such as width, height, margin, border, padding, font-size and line-height,
require a length measurement. For example,

html {
font-size: 16px; /* base measurement for rem (CSS3) */
}
p {
font-size: 1rem; /* relative to root html element */
width: 80%; /* 80% of the parent's width */
margin: 0.5em 2em; /* relative to current font-size */
border: 5mm; /* absolute millimeters */
padding: 0;
line-height: 140%; /* 1.4 times of the current font-size */
}

There are two types of length measurements: relative (to another length property) and absolute (e.g.,
inches, centimeters, millimeters).

The absolute units are:

in (inch)
cm (centimeter)
mm (millimeter)
pt (point): 1 inch has 72 points. 1pt is 1/72 in ≈ 0.014in ≈ 0.35mm.
pc (pica): 1 pica is 12 points. 1 inch has 6 picas. 1pc ≈ 1/6 in ≈ 0.17in ≈ 4.2mm. pc is not commonly
used.
px: px is a measurement unit created for the CSS, where the thinest line shall have width of 1px.
Today, it is defined as 1px=1/96 inch. Since 1pt is 1/72 inch; 12pt = 16px = 1/6 inch = 0.42cm.

The relative units are:

% (percent): in term of the percentage of a property of a referenced element, generally, the same
property of the parent element.
For example, table {width:80%} set the table's width to 80% of the width of the parent (probably a
<div> or <body>).
em: the width of the letter 'm' of a referenced font, generally, the current font.
For example, margin:2em means that the margins are twice the current (referenced) font-size.
However, if em is used to set the font-size property, it needs to find a reference. In this case, it is
referenced to the parent's font-size. For example, p {font-size:1.2em} sets the font-size of <p>
to 1.2 times of the parent (possibly a <div> or <body>).
rem (CSS3): relative to the font-size of the root or <html> element.
vw, vh (CSS3): one percent of viewport width and height respectively.
vmin, vmax (CSS3): one percent of the viewport smaller dimension or larger dimension respectively,
i.e., 1vmin is equal to the smaller of 1vh or 1vw; 1vmin is the larger of 1vh or 1vw.
ex (not commonly-used): the height of letter 'x' of the parent's font. ex is not commonly used.

There shall be no space between the number and the unit, as space is used to separate multiple values.

Take note that % and em measurement are relative to another element (percentage values are always
relative, e.g., 50% of something). For example,

h6 {
font-size: 1.2rem; /* 1.2 times of the <html> font-size */
width: 80%; /* 80% of the parent's width */
margin: 0.5em 1.2em; /* relative to the current font's letter 'm' */
padding: 10px; /* 10 logical pixels */
border: 0; /* zero does not need a unit */
}

To add to the confusion, some properties, such as line-height, can also accept a bare number, without
a unit. This bare number is treated as a factor to be multiplied by a reference. For example,

line-height: 20px; /* 20 pixels */

line-height: 150%; /* 150% of the parent's line-height */
line-height: 1.2em; /* 1.2 times of the current font's letter 'm' */
line-height: 1.5; /* 1.5 times of the current font */

NOTE: In HTML tag attributes, such as width="400", the bare number is measured in pixels.

Recommendation
Define a font-size for <html>.
Use rem for font-size of other elements - relative to <html>.
Use em for other properties such as margin and padding, which is relative to the current font-size.
Use other relative measurement such as % if appropriate. Avoid absolute measurements.
For example,

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Measurement Test</title>
<style>
html {
font-size: 16px;
}
input[type="button"] {
font-size: 1rem;
padding: 0.4em 2.5em;
}
input[type="text"] {
font-size: 1rem;
padding: 0.4em; /* same top/bottom as other input elements for proper alignment */
}
input[type="number"] {
font-size: 1rem;
padding: 0.4em; /* same top/bottom as other input elements for proper alignment */
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<input type="button" value="Button">
<input type="text" value="This is a Text Box">
<input type="number" value="5" min="0" max="10" size="2">
</body>
</html>

8.3 CSS Box Model and Properties margin, border, padding and Content
Area
Recall that HTML defines two kinds of elements: block element and inline element.

A block element (such as <p>, <div>, <h1> to <h6>) is always rectangular in shape and exhibits the so-
called box model, with four virtual rectangles wrap around its "content area", representing the content
area, padding, border, margin, as illustrated below.
1. The content area contains the texts, image, or child elements.
2. The padding is the space between the content area and the border. It clears an area outside the
content area. It has the same background as the content area.
3. The border goes between padding and margin. You can set a color and a style (such as solid, dash,
dotted) to the border.
4. The margin is the space outside the border (to another element). It clears an area outside the border.
The margin does not have a background, and is totally transparent.

As illustrated in the box model diagram, margin pushes its border (and content) away with a transparent
background showing the parent (having the effect of pushing itself away from the parent); while padding
pushes its content inwards with the same background. Margin and padding serve the same purpose if
there is no border and background applied.

Take note that the width and height that you set for the element specify its content area, exclude the
margin, border and padding. To get the actual size of the element, you need to add the margin, border
and padding to the width/height. For example, suppose that:
#elm {
width: 300px;
margin: 10px;
border: 5px solid black;
padding: 20px;
}

The actual width of the element is 300+(10+5+20)x2 = 370px.

Each of the rectangular bounds has four sides, and can be individually referred to as xxx-top, xxx-right,
xxx-bottom, and xxx-left in a clockwise manner, where xxx could be margin, border or padding. The
four sides can be controlled individually or as a group.

Inspecting the Box Model via Web Developer Tools

[TODO]

CSS width and height Dimension Properties

As mentioned earlier, CSS length measurement requires a proper unit, e.g., width:400px or width:80%.
Take note that width:400 is meaningless in CSS (this is a very common error!) However, in HTML,
width="400" means 400 pixels.

The width and height properties are NOT inherited by its descendants. The default value is "auto", which
lets the browser to compute a suitable value. We shall discuss "width:auto" value later.

CSS margin, border and padding Properties

The margin, border and padding related properties are:
margin-top|margin-right|margin-bottom|margin-Left: auto|n|n%: Set the four margins
individually. The "n" shall be expressed in a proper unit (e.g. 10px and 1.2em). You could use a
negative value to overlap two elements (e.g., margin-left:-100px). The value of "auto" lets the
browser to compute an appropriate number. "n%" is relative to the same property (i.e. margin-xxx) of
the parent.
(Shorthand) margin: top right bottom left
(Shorthand) margin: top right-left bottom
(Shorthand) margin: top-bottom right-left
(Shorthand) margin: all
These are one-line shorthand notations to set all the four margins. If four values are given, they are
applied to top, right, bottom, left (in the clockwise manner). If two values are given, they are applied
to top-and-bottom, left-and-right. If one value is given, it is applied to all the four borders.
Take note that there is no commas between the items, as all items are considered to be one property
value.
padding-top|padding-right|padding-bottom|padding-left: n|n%: Set the four paddings
individually, similar to margin-xxx.
(Shorthand) padding: top right bottom left
(Shorthand) padding: top left-right bottom
(Shorthand) padding: top-bottom left-right
(Shorthand) padding: all
A one-line shorthand notation to set all the four paddings, similar to margin.
border-width: thin|medium|thick|n
Set the width of the four borders. "n" can be used to set an absolute thickness. border-width is a
shorthand notation, you can use border-width-top, border-width-right, border-width-bottom,
and border-width-right to set the four borders individually.
border-style: none|hidden|dotted|dashed|solid|double|groove|ridge|inset|outset
Set the style of the 4 borders. Similarly, you can use border-style-top, border-style-right,
border-style-bottom, and border-style-right to set the four borders individually.
border-color: #rrggbb|rgb(r,g,b)|rgba(r,g,b,a)|color-name
Set the color of the 4 borders. Similarly, you can use border-color-top, border-color-right,
border-color-bottom, border-color-right to set the four borders individually..
(Shorthand) border: width style color
Shorthand notation to set all the properties of the borders, in the order shown. You can also use
shorthands border-top, border-right, border-bottom, and border-left to set the four borders
individually.

Margin, border, padding, width are NOT inherited by its descendants.

Example: [TODO]

More Margin Properties

margin: 0 auto: set top and bottom margins to 0. Setting left and right margins to auto equally
distribute the extra horizontal space, and hence, center the element horizontally.
Collapsed Margins: When margin of two elements touching each other vertically, they collapsed
(with the larger margin). But when two margins touches horizontally, they do not collapse.
Negative Margin: margin is one of a few CSS properties that can be set to negative. This is used to
overlap elements (without using absolute positioning). Padding and border cannot be negative.

More Border Properties

border-radius: can be used to create a rounded border. You can also use it to convert a box to a
circle (with border-radius: 50%).
border-image: can be used to create a multi-color border.

Example [TODO]

CSS outline Properties

width:auto
For most of the block elements (e.g., <div>, <p>), the default of width:auto sets the width to the width of
the parent minus its own margin, border and padding. Images <img> have an auto width equals to its
actual width. Float elements have auto width of 0.

Example: [TODO]

Filling the Width of the Containing Element

Browser would automatically adjust the margin-right to fill the container's width if the sum of its width,
left and right margin/border/padding does not add up to the full width of the containing element. Take
note that browser will not adjust the width, padding-right, border-right and the left
margin/border/padding.

Example: [TODO]

Center a Block Element

To center a block element, you set the margin-left and margin-right to auto (browser divides the
remaining width to left and right margins equally).

For example, all the selected <div> are centered:

div#header {
margin: 10px auto; /* 20px for top and bottom, auto for left and right */
}
div#footer {
margin: 10px auto 5px auto /* top right, bottom, left */
}
div#content {
margin-top: 10px;
margin-right: auto;
margin-bottom: 5px;
margin-left: auto;
}

Example
The above box-model diagram was produced using these codes.

<div style="border:thin dotted black; background-color:#ffffdd">

<p style="margin:30px; border:20px solid black; padding:10px; background-color:#ddffff"
This block-level tag <p> has a 10-px <em>padding</em> (in light-blue,
from the edge of the content to the border), 20-px <em>border</em>
(in solid black) and 30-px <em>margin</em> (in yellow, from the border up to
the dotted lines). Observed the 3 virtual rectangular boxes around the texts.</p>
</div>

8.4 CSS font Properties

The frequently-used font properties are:
font-family: font-name|generic-family-name
A prioritized list of fonts to be used. The browser will try to use the first font if the it is available, and
goes down the list.
The generic font family names include: serif (with small tails), sans-serif (without small tails),
monospace, cursive, fantasy. Use monospace for program listing. Use sans-serif for computer
display. serif are mainly used in prints (such as "Times" for newspapers and books).
font-size: n|n%|xx-small|x-small|small|medium|large|x-large|xx-
large|smaller|larger
font-weight: normal|bold|bolder|lighter|100|200|...|800|900
You can use a number between 100 to 900, in multiple of 100. The value of 400 is the normal weight;
while 700 is bold.
font-style: normal|italic|oblique
The italic uses italic font installed (some font families include the italic version); while the oblique
is done by tilting the normal font.
font-variant: normal|small-caps
The small-caps is smaller than the uppercase.
(Shorthand) font: style variant weight size/line-height family
Set all the font properties using a one-line shorthand notation. The properties must follow the order
shown above. However, the leading and trailing items can be omitted. For example,
p {
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: bold;
line-height: 140%;
font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
}

is the same as:

p { font: bold 14px/140% Arial, sans-serif; }

Font properties are inherited by its descendants.

Example: [TODO]

Google Fonts
"Google Fonts" @ https://fonts.google.com/ is a huge set of high-quality, free and open-source fonts. It is
certainly the choice of the fonts today.

To use particular fonts, e.g., "Roboto" and "Roboto Mono", you can either:
1. Add a <link> to CSS (in your HTML's HEAD section, e.g.,
<link rel="stylesheet" href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Open+Sans&fami

2. Use a @import in your CSS (you need not update all your HTML pages):
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Open+Sans&family=Roboto+Mono&d

8.5 CSS text Properties

The frequently used text properties are:
text-align: left|right|center|justify
line-height: normal|n|n%|factor
Set the height of the line. The factor gives the factor to be multiplied by the current font-size. E.g.,
factor of 1.5 means 1.5 times of the current font.
text-decoration: none|underline|overline|line-through|blink
Graphic designer dislikes "underline" and considers it as a legacy of typewriter. "blink" is even
worse!
text-transform: none|uppercase|lowercase|capitalize
The capitalize transforms the first letter to uppercase.
text-indent: n|n%
Indent the first-line of the paragraph. To indent all the lines of a paragraph (i.e., the whole block), use
padding or margin.
letter-spacing: normal|n
word-spacing: normal|n
Additional spacing to be applied to letters or words.
white-space: normal|pre|nowrap
Specify how white spaces inside the element is to be handled. For "pre" (pre-formatted), preserve the
white-spaces.

8.6 CSS background Properties

The background related properties are:
background-color: #rrggbb|rgb(r,g,b)|rgba(r,g,b,a)|color-name|transparent
Set the background color of an element. The default is transparent.
background-image: url(imageURL)|none
Use an image as the background.
background-repeat: repeat|repeat-x|repeat-y|no-repeat
Define how the background image shall be repeated in x and y direction or both.
background-attachment: scroll|fixed
Define whether background image shall scroll with the page or fixed.
background-position: x y|x% y%|top left|top center|top right|center
left|center center|center right|bottom left|bottom center|bottom right
Set the initial position of the background image. Note that there are two values, specifying the x and y
position respectively.
(Shorthand) background: color image repeat attachment position: one-line shorthand
notation.

In all the above, the term background refers to the background of the elements selected (not necessary
the entire window). In other words, you can set an image as the background of an element.

8.7 CSS list-style Properties

The properties are:
list-style-type: none|disc|circle|square
list-style-type: decimal|decimal-leading-zero
list-style-type: lower-alpha|upper-alpha|lower-roman|upper-roman|lower-
greek|lower-latin|upper-latin
Set the style of the list item <li> marker (bullet) for <ul>, <ol> respectively.
list-style-position: inside|outside: Define whether the list item marker shall be inside or
outside the item element.
list-style-image: none|url(imageURL): Use an image as the list item marker.
(Shorthand) list-style: type position image: Shorthand notation to specify all the
properties of the list.

Example: [TODO]

8.8 CSS Table Properties

border-collapse: collapse|separate
Collapse or separate the adjacent cells shared border into one.
border-spacing: n
For separate border, specify the distance between border (i.e., the deprecated cellspacing
attribute)
caption-side: top|bottom|left|right
Specify which side to show the caption.
empty-cells: show|hide
table-layout: auto|fixed

[TODO: More]

9. More HTML

9.1 Image Maps

Image maps are "clickable" image that loads different pages depending on where (or which hot-regions)
you click on the image. Each hot region of the image map can be associated with a different link. There
are two type of image maps:
1. Client-side image map: browser at the client-side handles the mapping of hot-regions to links.
2. Server-side image map: server handles the mapping of hot-regions to links. The co-ordinates of the
location clicked are sent to the server to be processed by a program (such as a CGI/ASP/JSP/PHP
script). The mapping information is held on the server.
Client-Side Image Map
To create a client-side image map:
1. Define a image map using <map>...</map> and define the hot-regions in the map using the <area>
tags. Decide what link maps to which hot-region. Hot regions can take circle, rectangle, or polygon in
shape.
2. In the <img> tag, add the attribute usemap="#mapName" to indicate this image is used as a client-side
image map.
<map id="myMap">
<area shape="circle" href="url1" coords="xc, yc, r">
<area shape="rect" href="url2" coords="topLeftX, topLeftY, bottomRightX, bottomR
<area shape="poly" href="url3" coords="x1, y1, x2, y2, ..., x1, y1">
</map>
<img usemap="#myMap" src="client_map.gif">

Example:

Client-side Image Map Tags - <map> and <area>

Function: To set up a client-side image map with hot regions.

<map>'s attributes:
id|name="map-name": declares a unique name for the map, to be targeted in attribute
usemap="#map-name" of the <img>.
(The attribute name is used the older browsers. XHTML specifies using id instead, which automatically
create a named anchor.)

<area>'s attributes:
shape="rect|circle|poly|default": define the shape of the hot region. The "default" value for any
point not part of another hot region.
coords: list of coordinates that made up the hot region.
For shape="rect", coords="topLeftX, topLeftY, bottomRightX, bottomRightY" to specify
the upper-left and lower-right corners.
For shape="circle", coords="xc, yc, r", where (xc, yc) is the center and r is the radius.
For shape="poly", coords="x1, y1, x2, y2, ..., x1, y1", where (xi, yi) are coordinates
that made up the polygon. You should close the polygon by putting (x1, y1) as the last
coordinates.
href="url": gives the target URL of the hyperlink.
nohref: deactivate the hot region, pointing to nowhere.
If two hot regions overlap, the first takes effect.

A client-side image map can be used as a navigation bar on top of the page, instead of using individual
images. This may save some transmission overhead, as each individual image triggers its own HTTP
request.

Server-Side Image Map

On the <img> tag, include the "ismap" (is server map?) attribute, and wrap the <img> within an anchor
<a>...</a>. For example,

<a href="http://www.zzz.com/search.jsp"><img ismap src="logo.jpg"></a>

Click on the image and observe the URL

When the image is clicked, the (x, y) position of the click is send to the server as query parameters. For
example,

http://www.zzz.com/search.jsp?39,22

It is up to the server to decide on how to process the (x, y) position received via a server-side program
(such as CGI/ASP/JSP/PHP/Servlet).

Client-Side vs. Server-Side Image Map

Client-side image map is much more popular (and recommended) than server-side image map because:
1. Mapping for client-side image map is processed by the browser locally with immediate response,
without connecting to the server and waiting for server to response.
2. No special server-side programs needed, relies solely on the browser to process the mapping of the
hot regions.

9.2 Frames
You can divide the browser's window into multiple regions called frames. Each of the frames can contain
a distinct and complete HTML document. Framed layout enables you to display several HTML document
at once. Framed layout is popular for:
Dividing the window into a navigation frame (on the top or left-side of the window) and an actual
content frame.
Dividing the window into a small summary frame and a detail frame. Java API documentation is a
good example.

However, use frames with extreme care! Frame (especially the "header" frame) occupied precious screen
asset, as it does not scroll away! Framed layout have fallen out of favor over the years. Use <div> and CSS
to organize your web page instead.

The tags involved are:

<frameset>...</frameset>: to sub-divide the window.
<frame>: defines each of the frames in a frameset.
<iframe>...</iframe>: for floating or inline or internal frame.
<noframe>...</noframe>: alternative text if frame is not supported by browser.

Frame Set <frameset>...</frameset>

Function: To divide the window into multiple frames, row-wise or column-wise. <frameset>...
<frameset> can be nested for complex layout. <frameset>...<frameset> is to be used in place of
<body>...<body> tag. i.e., there should not have an <body> tag in the document with <frameset>.

Syntax:

<frameset rows="list-of-row-sizes">
...frame-declarations...
</frameset>

<frameset cols="list-of-column-sizes">
...frame-declarations...
</frameset>

Attributes:
rows|cols="n|n%|*, n|n%|*, ...": a list of frame sizes in pixels or percentage separated by
commas. Wildcard "*" can be used to indicate the remaining space.

Example:

<frameset rows="100, 20%, 150, *">

...frame-declarations...
</frameset>

Divide the window into four rows of sizes: 100 pixels, 20% of the screen, 150 pixels, and the remaining
space.

Individual Frame <frame />

Function: Declare each individual frame, and place the HTML document.

Syntax:

Attributes:
src:="url": provides the URL of the document to be displayed inside this frame.
name: specifies an unique identifier, to be used as the target of other tags, such as <a>, <form>.
noresize: suppresses resizing by dragging of border.
frameborder: sets to 1 to show the border, 0 to suppress.
scrolling: "yes" to show scrollbars and allow scrolling; "no" to suppress scrolling; and "auto" to let
the browser to decide (e.g., auto-hide).

Example: Divide the screen into 3 frames, top, left and right.

<frameset rows="50, *">

<frame src="navigation.html" name="navigation" noresize>
<frameset cols="100, *">
<frame src="summary.html" name="summary">
<frame src="detail.html" name="detail">
</frameset>
</frameset>
Targeting Named Frame
To control which frame to receive the content of a hyperlink, you could include the target attribute in the
<a> tag. Using the previous example, a hyperlink in the "navigation" frame targeting the "detail" frame
is:

<a href="chapter5.html" target="detail">Chapter 5</a>

If all the links in the "navigation" frame are targeting the "detail" frame, you can use the <base> tag (in
the HEAD section) to set up a global target reference:

<head>
<title>navigation bar</title>
<base target="detail">
</head>

As mentioned, frames has gone out of favor these day. The HTML5 introduced new elements such as
<header>, <footer>, <section>, <nav>, <article> to help you in organizing your web page, instead of
using frame, division, or table.

No Frame <noframe>...</noframe>
Function: Provides an alternative text if the browser does not support framed layout. <noframe> must be
placed within a <frameset>.

Syntax (Container tag):

<noframe>...alternative-text...</noframe>

Iframe (Inline Frame or Internal Frame) <iframe>...</iframe>

Function: Place an inline frame on the browser window. An iframe is a frame that can be embedded
within a regular HTML page, which contains a separate and complete HTML document, set via its src
attribute.

Syntax (Container tag):

You could use CSS to position and style the iframe. Iframe is used extensively by JavaScript and Ajax.

Example: [TODO]

9.3 Embedding Programs

Client-side programs such as Java Applets, MS ActiveX controls, JavaScript, VBScript, Flash, can be
embedded inside an HTML document. These programs will be downloaded from the server and executed
inside the browser. The browser supports the execution of client-side programs via a built-in processor or
plug-in (e.g., the Java JRE Plug-in, Flash player plug-in).

The markup tags involved here are:

<applet>...</applet>: for embedded Java Applets (deprecated in HTML 4 in favor of <object> tag).
<object>...</object>: for embedded an executable programs.
<param>: providing runtime parameters to <applet> and <object>.

Java Applet <applet>...</applet>

Function: Embedding a Java Applet. Deprecated in HTML 4 in favor of <object>.

Program Object <object>...</object> and Parameter <param>

Function: Embed an executable program and provide the program parameters. <param> must be nested
inside an <object> or <applet>.

9.4 HTML Global Attributes

The global attributes are applicable to ALL the HTML elements.
class="classname": specifies the subclass this tag belongs to. The class attribute can have more
than one values. The class value needs not be unique. Classes are primarily used by CSS for applying
style rule, selected via the class-selector (in the form of .classname or tagname.classname). See the
"CSS Section" above.
id="idValue": for declaring an unique, document-wide identifier to a particular tag. No two tags
can have the same id value, while many tags can belong to the same class. The id attribute is used
by CSS for applying styles (via the id-selector in the form of #idName), and JavaScript for manipulating
the element (via document.getElementById() function).
style="rule": for applying inline style to a tag, applicable to this tag only. See the "CSS Section".
title="tooltip-text": gives an advisory text description for this tag, and display as tool tip when
you point your mouse pointer over the element.
lang="value": specifies the language used by this particular tag.
dir="LTR|RTL": specifies the direction of the text for this tag. It takes values of LTR (left-to-right) or
RTL (right-to-left).

9.5 HEAD Section's Tags

The following tags can be used in the HEAD section:
<title>...</title>: provides a title to this document.
<meta>: provides meta information of this document.
<link>: establishes the linked resources and their relationship, in particular, the external CSS style
sheet.
<base>: declares a base URL for all the links in this document, and the name of the target frame.
<style>...</style>: embedded style rules applicable to this document.
<script>...</script>: program scripting codes.

Base-URL and Default Target Name <base>

Function: Declare the base URL for all the links in this document via attribute "href", and specify the
target name via attribute "target".

Syntax:

<base href="base-URL" />

Attributes:
href="baseUrl": All relative URLs in this document are relative to this base-URL. For example, if
<base>’s href is set to:
<base href="http://www.aaa.com/bbb/index.html" />

then, the relative URL of "ccc/test.html" is resolved to "http://www.aaa.com/bbb/ccc/test.html".

target="target-frame-name|_blank|_parent|_self|_top": specifies the target frame into
which all linked document should be loaded: "_blank" in new window, "_self" in this frame,
"_parent" in the parent frame, "_top" in the full body of the window.

Link Resources and Relationship <link>

Function: Link to another resource and indicate its relationship. There could be more than one <link>
tags in the HEAD section.

Syntax:

Attributes:
rel, rev: indicates the forward or reverse relationship to the current document. Take value of home,
stylesheet, help, index, toc, up, next, previous, glossary, copyright, and made (i.e., author).

[TODO] other attributes.

Example:

The above <link> tags indicate that "master.css" is the stylesheet of MIME type "text/css";
"index.html" is the home page; "help.html" is the help page; this page ("chapter4.html") is the previous
page of "chapter5.html" (in a reverse relationship), and this page is the next page of "chapter3.html".

The most-commonly used <link> is to specify the external CSS style sheet. The rests are hardly used.

Including an Icon
A favicon (aka favorite icon, shortcut icon, URL icon) is a file containing a small 16x16 icon. Browser can
display the icon besides the URL bar or bookmark. The favicon file is usually called "favicon.ico".

To include an icon, provide a <link> tag in the <head> section, as follows:

<link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />

You can use PhotoShop/Element to create a favicon file; or use a simple imaging tool (such as MS Paint) to
create a small image and then submit to an online converter to generate a favicon file.

Meta Information <meta>

You can use <meta> tag to include meta information about the document, such as keywords, author,
expiration date, and page generator. The syntax is:

<meta name="name" content="value" />

Examples:

<meta name="keywords" content="Java, HTML, CSS" />

The <meta> tag can also be used to ask the server to insert an HTTP response header (read "HTTP
Basics"). The syntax is as follow:

<meta http-equiv="http-response-header" content="value" />

EXAMPLE 1: Auto-Redirect after x seconds

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="3; Url=http://www.google.com/" />
</head>
<body>
<p>You will be redirected to ... in 3 seconds unless you push the STOP button</p>
One thousand...<br>
Two thousand...<br>
Three thousand...
</body>
</html>

The above <meta> tag triggers the server to include the following "Response Header" in the HTTP
response message, when the page is downloaded:
Refresh: 3; Url=http://www.google.com/

The browser, in response to this response header, redirect to the given URL after 3 sec.

EXAMPLE 2: Auto-Refresh every x seconds

EXAMPLE 3: Specify the character set used in the HTML document.

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

// HTML5
<meta charset="utf-8" />

The server will include this response header in the response message, when the page is downloaded:

Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8

Embedded Style Definition <style>...</style>

Function: For embedded style declarations, covered earlier.

Scripting Codes <script>...</script>

Function: For embedding scripting codes. See my "Introduction to JavaScript" on usage and examples.

10. More CSS

10.1 CSS Variables (Custom Properties)

CSS Variables (aka Custom Properties or Cascading Variables) allows you to define variables and using
that variables in multiple properties, in a style sheet. This is really useful in setting themes (without using
a preprocessor such as LESS or SASS).

Rules:
1. The name of the variables shall begin with two dashes (--), e.g., --main-bg-color.
2. To reference the variable, use var(--varname).
3. To define global-scope CSS variables, place them in the :root pseudo-class.

For examples,
:root {
--dark-theme-bg-color: black;
--dark-theme-color: white;
}
......

body {
background-color: var(--dark-theme-bg-color);
color: var(--dark-theme-color);
......
}

10.2 Modifying CSS Properties from JavaScript and jQuery

To modify the styles of an HTML element from JavaScript, set its style property, e.g.,

let header = document.getElementById("header")

header.style.fontFamily = 'sans-serif'
header.style.fontSize = '24px'

To modify the style of an HTML element from jQuery:

/* Modifying one CSS property */

$('#footer).css('margin-top', '8px')
/* more than one CSS properties */
$('#footer').css({
'margin-top': '10px', /* need to quote for special character */
padding: '10px',
})

10.3 CSS position Property - Positioning the HTML Block Elements

You can use the property position to alter the position of block elements.

Each element has a natural location inside a page's flow, in the order read in by the browser. By default
(position:static), elements are displayed from top to bottom in the normal flow. For block elements,
line breaks are inserted at the beginning and the end to form a rectangular box.

You can remove the box from the normal flow and specify its location with respect to either its parent
element (position:absolute) or the browser window (position:fixed); you can also move the box with
respect to its normal-flow position (position:relative).

For non-static positioned elements, the new position is specified via top, left, bottom, right, width,
height properties:
top|left|bottom|right: n|n%|auto: Set the distance from the edge of this element to the
corresponding edge of the containing block.
width|height: n|n%|auto: Set the width and height of this block element.
z-index: number|auto: When two blocks overlap due to re-positioning, the one with larger z-
index number is on top (i.e., z-axis is pointing out of the screen as in the standard 3D graphics
coordinates system). Negative number is allowed. The default auto stacks the element at the same
level as its parent. If the z-index of two elements are the same or no z-index are defined, the last
element rendered is placed on top. z-index with alpha can create see-thru effect.
overflow|overflow-x|overflow-y: auto|hidden|scroll|visible|inherit: Specify how to
handle content overflowing the block's width/height.
overflow-wrap: normal|break-word|inherit: specify whether or not the browser can break
lines with long words, if they overflow the container.

position:static (default)
The default position:static positions the element according to the normal flow of the page, in the
order that is read by the browser. Properties top, right, bottom, left has no effect for static.

position:relative
Move the element relative to its normal-flow position. The original space occupied by this element is
preserved. The surrounding elements are not affected. For example,
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Test CSS "position" Property</title>
<style>
div.up {
position: relative; /* relative to normmal-flow position */
top: -20px; /* from the top of normal-flow */
left: 30px; /* from the left of normal-flow */
}
div {
height: 80px;
width: 200px;
background-color: lightgray;
margin: 5px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>Division 1</div>
<div class="up">Division 2</div>
<div>Division 3 (Division 2 preserves its space)</div>
</body>
</html>

position:absolute
Position the element relative to the first non-static ancestor element; or <body> if no such element is
found. Absolute-positioned element is taken out from the normal flow, as if it does not present.

To absolutely position an element in a containing element (other than <body>), declare the containing
element relative without any movement, e.g., container { position:relative }.

Absolute positioning is interesting. You can create animation (such as bouncing ball and falling snow) by
absolutely position (and repeatedly re-position) images on the browser's screen. See my "JavaScript
Examples".

For example,

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Test CSS "position" Property</title>
<style>
#left-panel {
position: absolute;
top: 10px; /* from top edge */
left: 10px; /* from left edge */
width: 200px;
height: 600px;
background-color: lightblue;
}
#main-panel {
position: absolute;
top: 10px; /* from top edge, same as left-panel */
left: 220px; /* from left edge 10+200+10 */
width: 560px;
height: 600px;
background-color: lightgray;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="left-panel">Left Panel</div>
<div id="main-panel">Main Panel</div>
</body>
</html>

position:fixed
The element is fixed at the position relative to the browser's window, and it does not scroll away. The
position is defined in top, left, bottom, right (or width and height) properties. Fixed-positioned
element is taken out of the normal flow, as if it is not present.

For example, a fixed <div> is added to the above example in absolute positioning. Take note that z-index
is used to ensure that the fixed <div> is always on top of the other <div>'s, regardless of the order of
writing the <div>'s.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Test CSS "position" Property</title>
<style>
#left-panel {
position: absolute;
top: 10px; /* from top edge */
left: 10px; /* from left edge */
width: 200px;
height: 600px;
background-color: lightblue;
}
#main-panel {
position: absolute;
top: 10px; /* from top edge, same as left-panel */
left: 220px; /* from left edge 10+200+10 */
width: 560px;
height: 600px;
background-color: lightgray;
}
#fixed-panel {
position: fixed;
top: 50px;
left: 100px;
width: 200px;
height: 200px;
background: lightgreen;
z-index: 200; /* larger z-index is on top */
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="left-panel">Left Panel</div>
<div id="main-panel">Main Panel</div>
<div id="fixed-panel">Fixed Panel (does not scroll away)</div>
</body>
</html>

10.4 CSS float and clear Property - Floating an Element Left or Right
float: left|right|none

You can push an element to the left or right edge of the containing element via property float. Float is
often used for images, with texts surrounding the floated element. The elements preceding the floated
element are not affected. The element after the floated element flows around it.

You can float horizontally (i.e., left and right), not up and down. Other than images, a float element shall
have the width and height explicitly specified. Float elements are actually taken out of the normal flow.
The following element acts as if the floated element is not there, but the enclosing texts would wrap
around the floated element.

If many images are floated together (says to the left), the second image will be pushed to the left edge of
the first image, and so on if there is available horizontal space; and shifted down otherwise. For example,
we can float many thumbnail images to the left as follows:
img.thumbnail {
float: left;
margin-right: 10px; /* add margin-right for float:left */
width: 120px;
height: 100px;
}

To turn off the float, use property clear, and specify which side (left, right or both) does not allow a
floating element.

clear: left|right|both|none

clear:left means that the left side of this element cannot be a floating element. That is, the left shall
begin with left margin of the containing element. clear:left is similar to <br>.

Using float to create columns

Block elements, by default, begins at the left edge and occupies the full-width of the containing element.
Hence, it will not line up one besides another in a column format. You can use float property to create
columns or grid.

[TODO] more

Example: Positioning an Iframe

"iframeTest.html"

1 <!DOCTYPE html>
2 <html>
3
3
<head>
4
<title>iframe Test</title>
5
<link rel="stylesheet" href="iframeTest.css">
6
</head>
7
<body>
8
<iframe src="iframeContent.html" name="myIframe" id="myIframe"></iframe>
9
<h1>Hello</h1>
10
</body>
11
</html>

"iframeTest.css"

1 body {
2 background-color: #FFF;
3 }
4
5 #myIframe { /* ID-Selector */
6 float: right; /* float with the right margin of the browser's window */
7 margin-top: 100px; /* margin from the top of the window */
8 border: 1px solid black;
9 width: 350px;
10 height: 300px;
11 }

The CSS property float: left|right|none (also applicable to <img>) floats the iframe to the left or right
margin of the browser's window.

You can also use CSS property position: absolute|fixed|relative|static to position the iframe (and
other HTML elements), "absolute" positions the element relative to its first positioned ancestor element;
"fixed" is relative to the browser window and does not scroll away; "relative" means relative to its
normal position; the default "static" positions the element in the order it appears in the document.

#myIframe {
position: absolute;
left: 300px;
top: 50px;
border: 1px solid black;
width: 350px;
height: 300px;
}

10.5 CSS display and visibility Properties

display: block|inline|inline-block|none|list-item|table|table-row|table-
cell|grid|inline-grid
block and inline: The display property controls the layout and flow of an HTML element. Most
elements have a default display value of block (<div>, <p>) or inline (<span>, <em>).
The display:block can be used to display an inline element as a block. For example,
image#id1 { /* display this image as block and center */
display:block;
margin: 5px auto;
}
span.block { /* display this class of inline element <span> as a block */
display:block;
}

On the other hand, display:inline can be used to display a block element inline. For example,
li { /* display this block element inline without line break */
display:inline;
}

inline-block: blend the element in with the flow of the text, while allowing us to use padding,
margin, height and similar properties which has no visible effect on inline elements.
none: will NOT be displayed and not taking up space (vs. visibility:hidden would not display the
element but the element still take up space)
list-item: display the element as if it is a <li>.
table, table-row, table-cell: to display the element (<div>) as <table>, <tr>, <td>.
grid: display in a grid, for example,
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Test grid layout</title>
<style>
#main {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 100px 50px 100px;
grid-template-rows: 100px 100px;
}
section {
height: 50px;
width: 80px;
background-color: lightgray
}
#main #section1 {
grid-column: 1; /* column numnner */
grid-row: 1; /* row number */
}
#main #section2 {
grid-column: 2;
grid-row: 1;
}
#main #section3 {
grid-column: 1;
grid-row: 2;
}
#main #section4 {
grid-column: 3;
grid-row: 2;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<main id="main">
<section id="section1">Section 1</section>
<section id="section2">Section 2</section>
<section id="section3">Section 3</section>
<section id="section4">Section 4</section>
</main>
</body>
</html>

visibility: hidden|visible: used to hide or show the element without removing the element from
the normal flow of the page. That is, the space occupied by the element is preserved.

10.6 CSS cursor Property

You can use property cursor to change the mouse pointer.

Example: [TODO]

Link To HTML/CSS References & Resources

Last modified: June 2022

Feedback, comments, corrections, and errata can be sent to Chua Hock-Chuan ([email protected]) | HOME

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