Web pages are built primarily by writing instructions in HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTML is a simple programming language; its main aim is to tell a Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, how a Web page should look on-screen.

HTML is composed of elements. A paragraph or an image, for example, is an element. Elements, in turn, are composed of tags, attributes, and sometimes content:

Tags: A tag is a simple descriptive term that tells a Web browser what element it’s dealing with. The beginning of each element is shown by the name of that element within angle braces; this is called a start tag. The start tag for a paragraph, for example, is ; for an image, it’s . The end of an element is shown by the end tag, which is just like the start tag except that the end tag has a slash before the element’s name. The end tag for a paragraph, therefore, is

. Some elements, such as IMG, don’t have an end tag.

Attributes: An attribute is a modification of the basic element. You specify the width and height of an image, for example, by adding attributes to the tag, as in the following example:

Content: Content is anything that goes between the start tag and the end tag, as in the following example: This is the content of this paragraph.

The tags and attributes that you need most often are covered in more depth in the rest of this chapter, but the basics I just covered help you to understand the choices that you face among different Web-page-building programs.

These days, everyone wants to jump on the Web bandwagon, and it seems like every program under the sun can be used to make Web pages. You can use word processors such as Microsoft Word and dedicated page-creation software such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, or Microsoft FrontPage. Every program has its quirks, and not all of them produce high quality, clean HTML code.

Leaving out the Johnny-come-latelies, such as word processors that tack HTML onto their older functions, two basic kinds of page-building programs are available:

Text editor: Kind of like a word processor without the frills

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WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program: Lets you develop the Web page visually instead of by working directly with the code. The main advantage of this approach is that what you see on the screen as you’re working is the same as you would see if viewing the Web page in a browser.

Proponents of pure text editors and WYSIWYG enthusiasts can get about as raucous defending their favourite approaches as a bunch of football fans can get about the Premier League. The plain fact, though, is that sometimes you’ll want to use one type of editor and sometimes you’ll prefer the other kind of program. The following sections describe the differences between these two types of programs.

Text editors

HTML files are simple text files. They contain nothing but the plain-old letters, symbols, and numbers that you find on your keyboard. HTML is so simple, in fact, that you don’t need any kind of specialized Web-page-building program. You can create Web pages perfectly well by using nothing but Windows Notepad - assuming that you have enough knowledge of the language that you can type it in without making any mistakes.

You don’t have to settle for total simplicity, however, to get the raw power of working directly with the HTML source code. A number of high-powered text editors are designed specifically for creating HTML code. One of the most popular of the major computer magazines, such as PC Magazine, which constantly road-test all the competitors, is Macromedia HomeSite.

At its most basic, you can use HomeSite as a plain-old text editor, but it also has some shining qualities that can make your Web programming life a lot easier. For starters, the text is colour-coded, which means that elements, attributes, and content appear in different colours, making the HTML code easier to read and understand. HomeSite also comes with a host of helpful tools built into it, such as context-sensitive lists of the attributes that you can use with the tags that you type.

WYSIWYG programs

WYSIWYG programs are easy for novices to use in the early stages of Web site creation, but they can quickly prove less than satisfactory. The reason for both factors is the same: The program makes a bunch of choices for you. Although this feature may seem like a comfort at first, it quickly becomes a limitation. If you go for a WYSIWYG program, make sure that it’s sophisticated enough that you can still use it as your skills advance.

Most WYSIWYG programs have at least some degree of depth beneath their surface simplicity. Both GoLive and Dreamweaver, for example, let you set the attributes for every element, in case you don’t like the default choices.

Dreamweaver gives you the best of both worlds because it comes with (and interfaces directly with) HomeSite+ (or BBEdit for the Mac version). That means that you can enjoy both the quickness of WYSIWYG creation and the total control of text editing in the same page-creation session.