HTML links

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In principle, someone is working on it and there should be a better version in a not so distant future.
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Page is under reconstruction. Probably lots of broken links - Daniel K. Schneider 11:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC).

Definition

The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language used to createhypertext documents that are portable from one platform to another. It is the publishing language of the World Wide Web (WWW). HTML documents are SGML documents with generic semantics that are appropriate for representing information from a wide range of applications. XHTML documents are XML documents and you should start coding in XHTML (this page needs some tutorials on XHTML, but since there are so many indexes, you'll have to wait maybe forever).

This is a simple links pages. See:

• HTML for a short overview of (X)HTML formats.
• XHTML for a short introduction to XHML

Manuals & Short References

• Bare Bones Guides to HTML (HTML 4)
• htmlcompendium.org
• HTML Documentation by Ian Graham (U of Toronto). GOOD HTML Manual
• A guide to HTML and CGI scripts by M.A. Smith. Good site and up to date! It is interactive (yes you can try out things).

Specifications

• HTML latest Spec (XHTML, starting oct 2002 this is taught to our students)
• [http://www.la-grange.net/w3c/xhtml1/ XHTML en fran�ais]
• HTML 3.2 Spec
• HTML 4.x
• HTML 4, traduction française
• HyperText Markup Language Home Page
• DOM Level 1 Spec
• DOM Level 2 Spec
• XHTML Basic for mobile devices. (There is also an older XHTML mobile profile defined by OMA or even older WAP/WML)
• Webstandards.org. Nice organization that watches out for standards.

FAQ's

• Web Authoring FAQ

Tutorials

XHTML Tutorials

• HTML Goodies
• XHTML Tutorial at W3Schools
• Introduction to XHTML, with eXamples
• HTML Code Tutorial

HTML 4x Tutorials

(HTML is outdated)

• Dave Ragett's Introduction to HTML
• Webreference.com. Good site.
• [/guides/selfhtml/selfhtml.htm SelfHtml] (good German Guide, LOCAL copy)
• SELFHTML (German Site in German)
• SelfHtml (la version française)
• Conception, suivi et animation d'un site web associatif Guide complet pour le dévelopement d'un site (sur le plan conceptuel!)
• Cours d'hypertexte pour les enseignants
• HTML avec Claris Home Page de Didier Strasser (niveau �cole secondaire)

HTML Validation

• W3C Markup Validation Service
• Alternatively, you can download and install HTMLTidy that will both validate and repair your broken HTMLs

Online documentation

• The WorldWideWeb Journal

Near Future: XHTML & DOM

• Track the W3C !
• Media Lullabies: The Reinvention of the World Wide Web article by Bill Hilf
• To Use or Not to Use: An XHTML Roadmap for Designers by Molly Holzschlag, WebReview, 3/2001

Specialized topics

See also [../design/pointers.html WWW Design and Style] and [/guides/hypertext/pointers.html Hypertexts Pointers @ TECFA]

Style sheets and fonts

• SEE [/guides/css/pointers.html CSS Pointers Page]

Icons/Graphics

• [/ico/ Icon library] at Tecfa (locals: point rather than copy!)
• Ditto Search Engine (!) for icons
• VL_WWW Images and Icons (meta-index of links)
• Graphics page at webreference (maps, color, animation, ...)
• PNG Home Site
• gettyimages (commercial photos)

Chars & Entities

(instead of using old-style entities you can define a character set, a much more simple strategy)

• Unicode 4.1.0 Chart
• Unicode Character Code Charts (PDF files)
• Characters and encodings by Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, very good reading ! See e.g. A tutorial on character code issues and On the use of some MS Windows characters in HTML
• HTM entities table (Steven Garrity)
• Character Converter (Iain Tucker)
• ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) (HEX/Dec/Entities)
• iso8859-1 Table
• UniCode Home Page (includes for example code-charts and the Unicode and the Web FAQ)
• Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Fundamentals (W3C Recommendation 2005).
• Unicode in XML and other Markup Languages (W3C Technical Report)
• ASCII - ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) Table with HTML Entity Names
• The ISO 8859 Alphabet Soup
• Text to UTF-8 or HTML Entities Tool
• Unicode (UTF-8) to HTML entity online converter
• W3C I18N GEO Working Group

UTF-8 example: \u03a3 is the code for a SUM sign.

URL encoding

• URL Encoding (or what are those "%20" codes in URLs?') by Brian Wilson

Colors

• Webreference Colorizer, cool on-line tool !
• Death of the Websafe Color Palette ? (article showing that only 25 colors are safe)
• Color at webreference
• The Browser Safe Palette Webgraphics for computers that use only 256 colors (see the interactive Color Palette Map for Netscape)
• ColorMix (applet)

Frames

(don't use frames, because it destroys the idea of the URL, something you can link to)

• Sharkies Netscape Frames Tutorial

HTTP

• HTTP Made Really Easy A Practical Guide to Writing Clients and Servers, good tutorial by James Marshall (1997)
• HTTP header revealed
• Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, a few extensions to HTTP that might become the standard for uploading files (4/2000)

META TAGs

See also our [/guides/rdf/pointers.html RDF page !]

• Meta Builder and META Tags from vancouver Web Pages
• Why Internet Content Rating and Selection does not work

DHTML

DHTML is a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, but we don't teach it here since it the cost/benefit ratio is usually quite low..... and often [moving-things.html useless] Check other sites please, e.g. Dynamic Drive or ActiveUI or [/guides/toolbox.html general WebMaster's ] sites.

Mobile Devices

• An Overview of Mobile Versions of XHTML, short useful articel for those who wonder about XHTML Basic, XHTML Mobile Profile, and WML2....

Tools / Software

(only some, some maybe outdated)

Validation and Syntax correction

• HTML Tidy. This is installed under Solaris at Tecfa ([/guides/utils/tidy/ local doc dir])
• W3C HTML Validation Service
• Weblint code verification

HTML Editors

• Read WYSIWIYG or the Real Thing? and WYSIWIG Editor Shootout (Webmonkey, 5/99)
• Index at DaveCentral (free and cheap stuff): HTML Editors and Wysiwyg Editors (see also other Webmasters sites !)
• Recommended Wysiwig at Tecfa: NVU Freeware Unix/Mac/PC. (Voir aussi: [http://tecfa.unige.ch/themes/FAQ-FL/nvu_autotutoral/nvu_pageWEB.html Cr�er des pages WEB facilement] (destin� aux �tudiants LME) * GoLive (better for programmers) and Dreamweaver ($400). See also this article on doing XHTML from List Apart
• Recommended general programming editors (including HTML support): Xemacs (Unix, Win, Mac?) or For the Mac see: BBEdit $119) or BBEDit Lite (free)
• Recommended HTML Editors: HTMLKit, many plugins for various languages (freeware, if personal registration) * NoteTab (freeware version) * WebExpert (but the freeware version is no longer available !)
• Recommended XHTML Editors: Less Than Slash (self completing text editor)

Filters

(need more here)

• Don't use "save as HTML" in Word, use some Rtf2Html:
  • Logictran RTF Converter (Html and XML). Probably the best tool, goes back to the well known rtf2html 2.7.5 by Chris Hector and rtftoweb 1.6 by Christian Bolik of which we seem to have a copy (inexpensive payware)
  • Xtreme Rtrf2Html (FreeWare)
  • French rtf2html (don't know this)
  • Jason Stechschulte wrote a php filter, so you can do it on the fly (some)
  • HTML Assistant Pro (payware, does other things)

Browsers

• Mozilla. (Best overall standards compliant browser). Upgrade from Netscape 4.x NOW, give up proprietary solutions !
• Rapid Application Development with Mozilla (Mozilla as applications platform, this link should go some other place).
• The Multi-Feed RSS Sidebar Tab (Moz/NS6 Sidebar tutorial @ webreference)

Links

• Check the major WebMaster's sites, see Toolbox page.
• HTMLSource. Several HTML/XHTML Tutorials
• htmlhelp.com (Web Design Group) , good and short
• The World Wide Web Consortium HTML Page
• Recommended Sites for HTML Authors
• The WWW Help Page. Indexes some of the BEST "how-to" sites and tutorials.
• Index DOT HTML
• BrowserWatch
• Web Browsers OpenFAQ
• AllHtml Site fran�ais
• Mozilla based browsers: Mozilla * Beonex (Win/Linux) * Konqueror (linux) *

A note about browsers: IE is not a superior browser. Version 5.5 just implemented CSS much better than Netscape 4.x ever did. Newer versions (IE 6+) still fail in many aspects. They don't even respect the fundamental HTTP protocol, e.g. if you put some html in some text file (served as text/plain by the server), it will not display the html code but render it as HTML which it should *not*. IE has trouble with uploading and many other little problems like it doesn't understand correctly served XHTML as XML application. I suggest the following strategy for non-commercial webmasters who build pages and sites which must last:

• Do simple HTML. It is much easier to maintain and indexes well with search engines and it will load fast. Go for XHTML (transitional) or HTML 4.01 transitional if you know what I am talking about and don't use any JS code (any stupid beginner can do roll-over menus, so don't be afraid of not using these). People will be able to read your pages for years to come. If your pages must look pretty, you should use external style-sheets, but do NOT use tiny Windows fonts. Windows fonts look big on Windows screens but print very small and look very small on other platforms.
• If you plan to write web applications, code by W3C DOM standards and ignore NS 4.x and IE 5. Your code may or may not run with IE 5.5 (you can make allowances for this) but it will with Mozilla which is coming along nicely (install its latest Beta release and ignore Netscape if you can). It will also run with Netscape 7.x and IE 6 (unless MS decides to launch some major sabotage project). My home page shows how you can code in XHTML + CSS and still show contents to older browsers. Read A List Apart on a regular basis to keep in touch !

Things to move to a french page

• See under HTML Trail of [/guides/tie/tie.html TIE slides] (en français)
• [/guides/htmlman/html-1.html TECFA HTML Manuel], en français [ [/guides/htmlman/html.pdf version PDF] ]