1 Basic HTML
1 Basic HTML
CS 4173
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What is the WWW?
A distributed document delivery
system
Uses a client-server model
Main presentation language is
HTML
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Client-Server Model
Two processes (possibly networked):
The client
Sends requests to the server
Blocks until reply is received
The server
Processes requests from clients
Never blocks
Can reply to several clients
simultaneously
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HTML
Hypertext Markup Language
Intended to be maximally portable
Logical markup
Graceful degradation of presentation
Markup language:
Computer language for describing syntax of tags
May be used with other tools to specify
rendering
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Logical Markup
Logical markup:
Describes parts of document
Does not specify how to render
Example:
This is <strong>very</strong> important
This is very important
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Logical Markup
Presentation is client’s `decision’
When client cannot present then
there is graceful degradation
<img alt=“image description”
src=“foo.gif”>
Object example from Cougar
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Some history
Gopher & the Internet Superhighway
SGML
GML + Charles Goldfarb = SGML
eXtensible Markup Language
HTML
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Why HTML became XHTML
HTML was originally a SGML application
Tags described the syntax
A DTD could check the syntax
Informal mapping from syntax to rendering
Multiple incompatible versions arose
IETF moves at ’net speed not web $peed
Tag abuse was rampant in the ’net
They were a plague unto the users
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Why HTML became XHTML
(2)
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XHTML Basics
Very few real changes from HTML
But more strict
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XHTML Basics
3 Parts to an XHTML or HTML
document
DOCTYPE
What DTD are you using
Head
Meta information
Only <title> is required
Body
Text to render
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XHTML Document
Structure
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XHTML Basics
Tags
Elements
Attributes
Entities
<,>,&,‘ ’
Ö,ð,÷,©, etc.
See example at CS4173 website
Comments
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XHTML Tags vs. Elements
Tag is markup to represent an
element
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XHTML Tags vs. Elements
Browser-specific tags
MARQUEE, BLINK, etc.
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XHTML Basics
Tags may be nested but
Tags may not overlap
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Overlap versus Nesting
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Links — Why The WWW Is
HT
‘A’ element
HREF TITLE
NAME ID
CLASS STYLE
REL Anchor Text
TYPE TABINDEX
URIs and
URLs
RFCs
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Where are the tools?
HTML Tidy
/opt/bin/tidy on borg
The validator
http://validator.w3.org/
http://www.cs.dal.ca/validator?
http://www.cs.dal.ca/validate?
http://www.cs.dal.ca:81?
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XHTML/HTML Examples
XHTML element sampler
XHTML sample template
Both in the examples section of the
website
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For More About HTML
RFC 1866 (HTML 2.0) (at faqs.org)
Explains some of the philosophy behind HTML
So many choices!…
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Which Standard to Follow?
Minimal standard for this course is
HTML 4.01 Transitional
Preferred standard is XHTML 1.0 or
1.1
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