A Website
= HTML + Words + Pictures
A website may look like a piece of paper with pictures and a few words on it, but each web page is
actually programming code.
A picture may be worth a thousand words (more if your baby is
in the picture), but a server wants HTML code to tell it where to find
the picture so it can show it off. Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is
the standard for website design. The HTML on a web page has two parts:
the head, which contains the rules for indexing the page in the search
engine's database, and the body, which contains the "content"
of the website. The text and images and navigation links you see are
content.
If you want to see what this page looks like in HTML
code, click on "View" in the top line of your browser's
options. When the "View" window opens, click on
"Source" (or "Page Source" if you're using Firefox).
Programming code will pop up. It will start out by telling the search
engine it's an HTML page (<html>) and end by telling the search
engine it's read all the HTML for that page (</html>). Sandwiched
in between, are the <head> and </head>, where you put the
meta tags, and the <body> and </body> tags, where you put
the content. The head and body between the <html> and
</html> make up the web page. A website are those web pages linked
together under a domain name
at a common IP
address.
Java.
Those blinking photo-quality images and swirling/scrolling stuff you
find on some web pages are probably Java script applets inserted into
HTML pages. That clock that follows the cursor around on our special
effects page is Java. The message that pops up on some of our page
and tells you that it is not nice to take things that do not belong to
you when you try to download the pictures is also Java script. People
using the Microsoft Explorer browser generally see the scripted effects.
People who use other browsers such as Firefox and Netscape may not see
it.
Flash. Flash
gives your web page a movie effect for those visitors who have the right
version of Flash player installed on their computer. Unless you provide
a clearly marked alternative way of viewing your site (which means
creation of an HTML alternative page for any entirely FLASH page),
people see that "Click here for a Flash-free Page" will back
right out of your website.
Size Matters.
Each web page of a website is a separate file. Smaller pages (less than
20 KB total file size including images and content) are faster loading
and easier to navigate that larger files/pages (see our page layout
discussion for other ways size matters). Since pictures can carry lots
of KBs, it is important to make them "web-ready" (i.e.,
minimize file size of all the pictures you put on a page) and to
structure your page so that all the images do not load at once. People
do not like like to wait for pages to downloads.
Navigation. Pages are linked together with navigation
bars or navigation links. The words like "Home" and
"Design" at the top and bottom of
this page are navigation links. They will highlight when your cursor
passes over them. For instance, if you click here, you
will navigate (go) back to the main FAQ page.
FAQs
Java
Flash
What lies
beneath the surface?