Have you ever seen a web page and thought, "I wish I could do that!" Well, here's how you can make your own web page.
Of course, you will need to think of what you want in a web page. Is it for personal use or business use? If it is a personal page, you will want to tell what your hobbies are and even build a web page on those hobbies that you like or your personal things (for instance if you have a health condition maybe write what you think of it, how you deal with it, etc.) A picture of yourself would also be good. Be sure to put a link so people can e-mail you.
If you are making a business home page, you will need to write what your company makes or does.
For a business page, if you are an advanced programmer, an image map (a graphic with links in it) would be a good idea, to offer more detailed information of the company. If you can not make an image map, links to offer more information would be great, also.
To make your web pages do what you want them to do, you have to input the proper programming.
It is kind of like Basic, but none of the programming codes are the same. In this programming, you put in tags to program the web page.
These tags are: special code name, and the brackets: "<"; and: ">". Some commands tell what parts of the web page should be where. For a lot of tags, you must end by typing in the exact same tag (previously typed in), with a: "/", in front of the code name (example </UL>; UL stands for unnumbered list).
Writing HTML documents is like writing a paper or essay. It consists of two main parts: the head and the body. Every HTML document begins with the tag <HTML> and every HTML document ends with the tag </HTML>.
Start with the header.
You put in the <HEAD> tag.
Now, like writing a paper, you have to have a title for the web document.
Put in the <TITLE> tag and put in the title. Say it's "Sample Document".
Then end it with the tag </TITLE>.
The title is the only line in the header section.
Now end the header by putting in the end head tag which is </HEAD>.
By now your HTML document should look like this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Sample Document</TITLE>
</HEAD>
Now comes the next part of a paper or a web page: the real part of the page - the body.
Put in the <BODY> tag and you can really start your web document.
There are hundreds and hundreds of tags you can put in, but here's a few simple ones. One very important comment - all spaces in web documents are collapsed to one, so it wouldn't matter if you put in 20 spaces or 1, it would only show one when you looked at it on the Internet. To make bold text, simply put in the <B> tag; for italics, <I> is the appropriate tag. Just remember to end the tag by typing in </B> or </I> so you won't have italic or bold text throughout your whole document!
You can also control the size of the font by using a tag with an "H" in front of the number (which can be between one and six, one being the biggest and six being the smallest). So if you wanted a title (in the body of the web page), you would probably want to use the <H1> tag and end the text you want big with </H1>, and if you wanted a sub-title, you would probably want to use the <H3> and </H3> tags. You can make a horizontal line by using the tag <HR>. You don't have to end this tag, just type it in and you'll have a line.
You can make a list with dots (bullets) beside each line in the list, by starting with the title of the list then the <UL> tag (which stands for an unordered list); so, if you were making a list of ingredients, you'd need to type:
Ingredients <UL>.
Next, you'll have to put in the <LI> tag (which stands for list item), and the list item you want, like an ingredient, then end the line with </LI> When you're finished with all the items, you'll need to end the list on the next line with the </UL> tag (UL stands for unnumbered list). So a simple list would look like this:
<UL>
<LI>1 c. sugar</LI>
<LI>1/2 c. butter</LI>
<LI>1 c. brown sugar</LI>
<LI>1 tsp. salt </LI>
</UL>
You can also make lists with numbers next to the items, like if you were doing directions to something. Instead of the <UL> tags, you'll use <OL> tags (which stands for ordered lists). For an example:
<OL>
<LI>Mix them all together.</LI>
<LI>Cook it all together.</LI>
<LI>Enjoy it.</LI>
</OL>
In most web pages, you will probably see links to other web pages. Here's how to make links:
-First, you'll need the site URL (http://www.domain.com/directory(if there is one)/filename.HTM is the layout).
-In the tag, you'll need to type in <A HREF="thesitenamehere">
-Now a description goes here, like "My page" or something like "Yahoo searching", followed by </A>
So the final result of a tag would be something like this:
<A HREF="http://www.yahoo.com">Yahoo Searching</A>.
You can put these tags by themselves, in lists, or anywhere else in a web document. You can also use this basic tag to make a link to send an e-mail to someone.
For instance, if you were sending an e-mail to hollywood@aol.com, you'd put in the tag <A HREF="mailto:hollywood@aol.com" (the e-mail address) >; now a description, like "E-mail me!" or "E-Mail Hollywood"; then the </A> tag, so the final result would be:
<A HREF="mailto:hollywood@aol.com">E-Mail
Hollywood!</A>.
Now a few guidelines to HTML web-page making.
- First, it is always a good idea to have all of your tags in capital letters so you can distinguish tags from text.
- Next, don't forget to put quotes around a URL or e-mail address and a bracket after the quote, so only what is supposed to be a link should be. If this isn't done correctly, it could really mess up your page.
- Next, it's not a very good idea to put a lot of graphics
on a web page. It takes longer to download the page and it clutters up the screen.
Web pages can be hard to make, because most of the time you will be typing them in, on a simple
text editor and you will not have "WYSISYG" (what you see is what you get) format. You should always save your document (when you are typing it) , as a text file with the .HTM extension; or if you have Windows 95 or a Mac, you can use the .HTML extension.
I like a basic web page that has kind of a twist to it. I like emphasized text, one or two pictures or an image map, and important links to useful places. What I don't like is cluttery pages, lots of graphics, pages that have invalid links, or just don't make sense.
For more detailed information and for more experienced web page designers, you will probably want to buy a book for the subject. I suggest "HTML: The Definitive Guide" by Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy or "Creating Cool Web Pages with HTML, 2nd E dition" by Dave Taylor, which also has a disk to make image maps, which are graphics with links in them.
If your Internet provider doesn't provide a space on the web for you or you don't know how to make one or get it up on the web, e-mail me and send the HTML file (it can be completed or uncompleted, but you must tell me what you want, to finish it) and I'll get it up as soon as possible.
I have a sample web page up so you can look at the results of what you type into a web page. This address is www.castleweb.com/~will/sample.htm.
You can e-mail me at wmeier@castleweb.com or wcmeier@ix.netcom.com.
You can visit my web pages at www.castleweb.com/~will/ and www.castleweb.com/diabetes/d_02_1a1.htm
Will Meier
wmeier@castleweb.com
wcmeier@ix.netcom
http://www.castleweb.com~will/
http://www.castleweb.com/diabetes/d_02_1a1.htm
Will Meier has diabetes and likes computers a lot. In the 96-97
school year he will be an Eighth
Grader at Saegert Middle School in Seguin. He is a member of
the Seguin Internet Club.
To contribute to this column contact Gloria Rivera, riverag@connecti.com,
303-4764.
To join theSeguin Internet Club, contact Jerry Weers, weersjt@texas.net,
303-1808; or Alton Hierholzer, altonh@connecti.com, 303-9260.
Past articles published in thiscolumn can be found in the club
web pages at http://lonestar.texas.net/~weersjt/club/home.html
Next week: Susan Wehe writes about Teens and the Net.