Web Authoring Languages

A web page is a file designed to be viewed in a browser. The file is created in a text editor such as notepad and saved with a .htm or .html extension.
One web page acts as the "home page" to be an introduction to the web site and the contents. This page always has the filename of "index.html"

A web site is a collection of pages relating to a single organization or purpose. The pages are hyperlinked for easy navigation.
You will create a web site with a home page to introduce a reader to all of the web projects you will create.
Your web site is stored on UNH's Unix server under a directory path of: "pubpages.unh.edu"

Markup Languages

A set of rules to define a format, layout or structure of text within a web page.
The first standardized markup language was developed in the '60's so IBM to create large documents and manuals. The Standard Generalized Markup Language became widely accepted in mid 80's for industries to publish their documents.

Tim Berners Lee adapted SGML to create a "light" version for publishing on the network at CERN. In 1991 HTML became the language to create web pages.

The benefits of HTML include:

Easy to learn
Limited set of codes
Codes are embeded with the content making the page very portable

The drawbacks of HTML include:

Limited set of codes
Codes are used primarily for text presentation
Lacks flexibility
Designed to work with browsers on PC's, not PDA's cell phones, and other wireless devices.
Sloppy coding practices developed

A new variant of SGML was defined in 1996 to meet the growing changes in information on the Internet. This language, XML, was developed by W3C as a flexible method to create common information formats and share both the format and the information on the web.

The benefits of XML include:

Separates content of the document from the presentation and format
Can create self-describing codes
Can create custom data structures for industry or company needs
Uses strict adherence to syntax rules
Is case sensitive

XHTML is a subset of XML that is the successor to HTML. It supports backward compatibility to older browsers. It separates the content from the codes.Finally, XML has the ability to extend the language by creating new tags. It has the promise of increased platform interoperability as movile devices are more frequently used on the Web.(See Fleke pg.15-16)

XHTML Building Blocks

Document Declaration

First line of a web page
Identifies the version of xml in use

Document Type (DTD)

Specifies the version of XHTML
Transitional is backward compatible to older browsers

Elements or tags

Tags are enclosed in < and >
Most tags such as <head> and <body > are in pairs
A standalone tag will not have a paired ending.

Attributes or properties

Modify the element
Identify the property and the value, such as bgcolor = "yellow"

Comments

Notations ignored by the program
Use for documentation of page elements
Begin with < !-- and end with -->

               In chapter 2 we learned to create these XHTML elements
                The two sections of a web page
                Block-Level tags
                    headings
                    paragraphs
                    lists 
                    blockquotes
                    preformatted text
                Text-level tags
                    logical style
                    physical style
                    font tags that are deprecated in XHTML
                    special characters like a blank space     
                Extra tags
                    Line break tag
                    Horizontal Rule tag

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