HTML is a programming language used to create websites. You want to create your dream website, but you don’t want it to look like a template. It is a given that anyone who is well-versed in web design should know HTML. What is HTML, and how can you learn it?
It is important that the website you publish stands out and is unique. You want to use elements and designs that no one else in your industry is using. Most potential customers get their first impression of your business based on your website. Before you can do that, you need to learn HTML. This language specifies what a web browser should display to a visitor when they visit your website.
This article will explain what HTML is, how it came to be, how it’s used, and how it works, as well as offer you some basic HTML training tips. Are you ready to learn how to code your website without breaking it? Let’s get started.
What is HTML
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is used for creating web pages and web applications. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Web pages are both terms that we should understand.
Hypertext: “Hypertext” is simply “Text within Text.” A text that has a link within it is a hypertext. If you click on a link that leads to a new webpage, you have clicked on a hypertext. Two or more web pages (HTML documents) can be linked with HyperText.
Markup language: A markup language is a computer language used to format and layout text documents. An interactive and dynamic text can be created with markup language. A text can be converted into an image, a table, a link, etc.
Web Page: Typically, web pages are written in HTML and translated by web browsers. By entering a URL, you can identify a web page. Static and dynamic Web pages are both possible. Creating static web pages is only possible with HTML.
HTML determines the structure of a web page. It is not enough to have this structure for a web page to look good and be interactive. To give your HTML a more beautiful look and to add interactivity, you will use assisted technologies such as CSS and JavaScript.
What is the purpose of learning HTML?
HTML was originally designed to facilitate the sharing of scientific information between researchers by defining the structure of documents such as headings, paragraphs, and lists. Currently, HTML tags are widely used to format web pages using the HTML language.
When working in the Web Development domain, HTML is a MUST for students and working professionals. Here are some of the key advantages of learning HTML:
- The best way to create a website is to learn HTML and customize an existing template.
- Become a web designer – HTML and CSS design skills are a must if you want to start a career as a web designer.
- To optimize your website, to boost its performance and speed, it is important to understand HTML.
- Once you learn the basics of HTML, you can easily learn other related technologies, like JavaScript, PHP, or Angular.
What are HTML elements?
There are three components to every HTML element, regardless of what they’re creating. You have an opening tag, a content tag, and a closing tag. Your opening tags tell the web browser where your content starts. For example, it could indicate where a video player or text paragraph begins. Opening tags are marked with opening and closing angle brackets. For example, the opening tag emphasizes content, like italics. This tag should be placed before the text you want to emphasize.
The content itself is what the user sees. It can be written copy, such as a blog post. Also, you could embed a video or an image. After the opening tag, the content will begin where it is designated.
Closing tags add a forward slash before the element’s name, similar to opening tags. Remember our emphasis tag example from earlier? You would place this tag at the end of the text you want to emphasize.
If you want to italicize the word “exactly,” you would code it as follows:
<em>Exactly.</em>
The actual user-facing page would look like this:
Exactly.
Additionally, HTML elements have attributes, which contain a name and a value. An attribute’s name indicates what the user is adding, while its value reveals more.
In image tags, you need to specify the image you want to display, so that looks like this:
<img src=”img_girl.jpg”>
You can use the style attribute to make a paragraph red on your page using Arial:
<p style=”color:red;font-family:Arial”>
As you can see, we’re using the opening tag for a new paragraph. Using these attributes, everything in the paragraph would be red, from the opening tag to the closing tag.
In modern web development, it’s standard practice to use a separate CSS stylesheet instead of the HTML style attribute to adjust individual elements.
HTML class and ID are two attributes of an HTML element that identify them and allow you to target them later with CSS or JavaScript. As a result, development is more effective. Style information can be inserted into elements by using an element’s ID or class, such as background color, borders, and font colors.
What Is an HTML Tag?
An HTML tag describes how your web browser should format and display your web page.
A tag usually consists of two parts, an opening tag and a closing tag. For example, <html> is the opening tag, and </html> is the closing tag. The closing tag has the same text as the opening tag but with an additional forward slash (/). There are 100 HTML tags in total.
How Does HTML Work?
There are more than 3.56 billion web pages on the internet as of May 2022.
The majority of those pages are HTML files. (Note: we’re not talking about websites here but about web pages.)
Traditionally, a website with 150 pages would have 150 separate HTML files. Today, things have changed. A Content Management System (CMS) typically generates pages dynamically based on data stored in a database, so this won’t happen if you use one.
These files are also called HTML documents, and they form the foundation of your website. There are many on-page and off-page elements on each page of an HTML document. It includes back-end elements like meta tags, title tags, and alt tags, as well as physical elements like videos, images, text blocks, and other user-facing elements.
HTML documents end in .html or .htm. A web browser uses these documents to access static information.
The HTML document is the instructions used by the user’s web browser to construct the site. The browser reads all of the files it refers to (CSS stylesheets, JavaScript files that power dynamic elements, etc.) and renders the page accordingly, enabling viewers to see it as intended. A render takes place every time someone navigates to a specific page on your site.
The History of HTML
Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist at CERN who was a contractor in the 1980s, proposed a system for CERN researchers. He proposed an internet-based hypertext system in 1989.
The father of HTML is Tim Berners-Lee. Towards the end of 1991, Tim proposed a document titled “HTML Tags” as the first description of HTML available. HTML5 is the latest version of HTML.
Final Thoughts
The HTML language will continue to be the backbone of web design for quite some time. Understanding these concepts can even help you build your own WordPress website from HTML. It’s essential to have robust website hosting when you’re starting a new website.
