Creating a Web Page with HTML

Introduction

In six weeks, you'll learn to create HTML documents that conform to the W3C standards. That means that your code will look the same in every browser. In addition, you'll learn to upload those files to a Web server so that anyone in the world with web connectivity may view your web page. Proceed to the Topics Covered section below for more.

Prerequisite

Students should be proficient with web browsers and the Internet.

Topics Covered

Basic formatting tags, such as body, paragraph, and header tags, for example
Tables
Lists (nested and non–nested)
- Unordered
- Ordered
- Definition
Code conformance with the W3C
Frames
File transferring with ftp and Fetch
File permissions
Commenting and proper documentation techniques
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) (light intro)

Assignments

Two homework assignments and a project will make up the work outside of class.

Compiling Environment

You'll write your source code in any text editor and check your code with HTML Tidy. Any Internet browser will serve as your HTML code interpreter. No other software program will be needed to produce Web documents.

Announcements

5 April 2008:
- Welcome to the class!

Time and Place

Sundays from 10:00 AM — 12:00 PM in room E1002, Hunter East, Hunter College (map). We'll take a 15–minute break at about 11:00 AM.

Textbook

Free online sources will replace a textbook for this course. Refer to the Assigned Readings section for more.

Assigned Readings

Getting Started With HTML: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/
Advanced HTML: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Advanced.html

Homework

HW 1
1. Visit the Software section below and install the software tools you'll need for the semester.
2. Read Getting Started With HTML as listed in the Assigned Readings section above.
3. Write an HTML document consisting of a level one heading (h1) and one or more paragraphs (p). Run your source code through Tidy to make sure that it is W3 compliant.
HW 2
1. You'll continue building on the first assignment for this homework. Include the following tags in your new page:
  
  <h2>, <h3>, <i>, <b>, <img>, and <a>.
  
  Include keywords (see the source of this page for more), the proper document type definition (DTD), and comments. Observe proper formatting and ensure that tidy reports no "warnings or errors." Get creative, proofread, proofread again, then test in multiple browsers.

Project

The project for the semester is to translate a Word™ document to HTML. The document will be handed out as a hardcopy in class and you'll have one week to generate the HTML equivalent.

Resources

HTML 4.01 Specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/
The CSS 2.1 Properties Reference from culturedcode.com: http://www.culturedcode.com/css/
CSS Zen Garden: The Beauty of CSS Design: http://www.csszengarden.com

Software

The software tools that you'll use for this course are

Amaya

I advise you to use the W3's Amaya, which is free and available for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux.

Windows NT/2000/XP: 7.8MB
Mac (PPC version): 11.8MB
Mac (Intel): 11.2MB

HTML Tidy

The Linux version of Tidy is 223kb

The Mac version of Tidy is 250kb

Watch the three–minute tutorial on how to install tidy on Mac OS X (9.2MB)

The Windows version of Tidy is 135kb

Watch the two–minute tutorial on how to install tidy in Windows (9.2MB)

Any Browser

I encourage you to visit Kelson Vibber's Alternative Browser Alliance. Links to many free alternative web browsers are listed there, and the information contained on its pages will prove very useful as you learn HTML.

Help

E–mail: rvanegas at hunter dot cuny dot edu

Title	HTML & XHTML Pocket Reference	CSS Pocket Reference	HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide	CSS: The Definitive Guide
Author	Jennifer Niederst Robbins	Eric A Meyer	Chuck Musciano & Bill Kennedy	Eric A Meyer
Edition	Third	Second	Sixth	Third
ISBN	0596527276	0596007779	0596527322	0596527330
Book cover