HTML and JavaScript

for Visual Learners

datec learning centers

Table of Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................... 1

HTML Basics.................................................................... 3
Create a home page.............................................................................. 4
Create the home page......................................................................................................4
View the page in a browser ............................................................................................11
Format pages and text.........................................................................14
Change fonts................................................................................................................... 14
Change text size.............................................................................................................16
Change text weight ........................................................................................................ 17
Change text color ...........................................................................................................18
Align text.........................................................................................................................19
Indent text.......................................................................................................................21
Create lists ......................................................................................................................23
Create links to new pages................................................................... 25
Step 1: Create a new page .............................................................................................25
Step 2: Link to the new page........................................................................................ 28
Create e-mail and external links.......................................................... 31
Create an e-mail link...................................................................................................... 31
Link to an external site ..................................................................................................33
Insert and align graphics.................................................................... 34
Capture a graphic from the Web ...................................................................................34
Insert a graphic...............................................................................................................36
Align a graphic................................................................................................................38
Format a graphic............................................................................................................. 41
Create a basic navigation system........................................................ 44
Link back to the home page ..........................................................................................44
Link pages to each other ...............................................................................................45
Use graphics as links.....................................................................................................46
Use graphics as links.....................................................................................................47
Change page, link colors .................................................................... 50
Change background color of page ................................................................................50
Change link colors .......................................................................................................... 51
Change link colors ..........................................................................................................52
Layout & Navigation ...................................................... 57
Lay out pages using tables ................................................................. 58
Create a table................................................................................................................. 58
Create a table................................................................................................................. 59
Format a table ................................................................................................................ 63
Create a table-based home page ................................................................................. 67
Create new table-based pages......................................................................................73
Create navigation bars........................................................................ 76
Create a navigation bar for a home page .................................................................... 76
Create a navigation bar for a main section page ........................................................ 79
Add subsections to site ......................................................................82
Insert a table for content and subsection links ..........................................................82
Create subsection pages............................................................................................... 84
Place tables within tables...................................................................88
Link to an external site using frames................................................... 91

Interactivity...................................................................99
Insert META tags.............................................................................. 100
Create forms .................................................................................... 102
Use style sheets................................................................................ 111
Create a style sheet......................................................................................................112
Apply a style sheet....................................................................................................... 114
Create link effects with style sheets........................................................................... 117
Upload sites to a Web server..............................................................121

Advanced Layout.......................................................... 131

Employ background graphics............................................................ 132
Employ spacer GIFs ...........................................................................135
Insert a horizontal rule......................................................................137
Specify page margins....................................................................... 138
 Practical JavaScript ...................................................... 141
Enable rollover graphics ....................................................................142
View source code.......................................................................................................... 143
Copy source code ......................................................................................................... 144
Modify source code......................................................................................................146
Open new windows ...........................................................................150
Validate form input............................................................................153
Validate form input............................................................................154
See how it works .......................................................................................................... 154
Insert the validation script.......................................................................................... 155
Modify the <FORM> tag.................................................................................................156

Additional Resources .............................................................................. 157

HTML Tag Chart .......................................................................................159

Index.......................................................................................................165
 1

Introduction
Welcome to HTML and JavaScript for Visual Learners. If you’ve never
used a Visibook before, you’ll find that it contains several hundred
illustrations, with comparatively little text. It presents essential tasks,
breaks them down into steps, then walks you through them with
illustrations.

What you’ll learn

You’ll learn how to use HTML to create a
solid, attractive Web site that’s easy to
navigate. You’ll also learn how to upload
it to a Web server.
You won’t become an expert in Web
publishing—that takes practice and real-
world experience. But you will learn the
fundamentals of site-building, and get a
good foundation on which to build
professional-level skills.

Additional resources for acquiring expert-

level HTML and JavaScript skills are Follow the steps
found at the end of this book.
!
How you’ll learn it
This book has five sections: HTML Basics,
Layout & Navigation, Interactivity,
Advanced Layout, and Practical
JavaScript.

At the end of each task and section are See the results
practice exercises. Don’t worry if you
can’t work through the whole book in a
day or two. Take your time, and try to do the practice. You can check
your work against examples posted on the Web.
2

Before you begin

Before you begin, it’s important that you know Windows well. A
working knowledge of Windows makes it much easier to learn HTML
and JavaScript. You should be familiar with:

• How directories work

• Windows Explorer
• Basic word processing

Make sure you can perform the following tasks:

• Create a folder on your computer’s hard drive

• Create a folder within a folder
• Copy a paragraph from one document and paste it into another.

If you have trouble doing this, set

aside a couple of hours to learn
Windows basics. Have a friend or
co-worker who is proficient with
computers walk you through
Windows Explorer, creating folders
and becoming familiar with file
extensions.

You should also practice using the

Cut, Copy, and Paste commands in
a standard word processing
program. When you can do these
things on your own, you’re ready to
learn HTML and JavaScript.
 3

HTML Basics
In this section, you’ll learn how to:
• Create a home page
• Format text
• Create links to new pages
• Create e-mail and external links
• Insert graphics
• Create a navigation system
• Change page and link colors

You’ll build a site that looks like this:

4

Create a home page

Create the home page

1. Open a browser, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.

2. Open the program Notepad. Do this by first clicking the

button on the taskbar, then Programs, then Accessories, then
Notepad.

3. At the top of the Notepad screen, type:

<HTML>

Tip:<HTML> is a tag. Tags are instructions to a Web browser. This

particular instruction lets the Web browser know that what follows is
a Web page, written in HTML.

Tags can be written in upper-case or lower-case letters—it doesn’t

matter which. <HTML>, <html>, or <HtMl> are all fine.
 5

4. Save the file.

5. When the Save As window appears, select the C:\ drive in the
Save in drop-down list.
6. Create a new folder by clicking on the icon.
6

7. Name the new folder “Dogs,” then double-click it so it appears in

the Save in box.

8. In the File name textbox, type [Link].

9. In the Save as type drop-down list, select All Files. When you’re
done, the window should look like this:
 7

10. Save the page by clicking on the Save button.

Home page file names

All Web pages have a .html extension (or .htm).

All home pages have the file name [Link]. [Link]

comes up automatically when the address of a domain or
directory where it’s located is typed into a browser.
For instance, if you go to [Link], the home page
appears automatically. That’s because its file name is
[Link]. If the file name of the Visibooks home page was
[Link], you’d have to type
[Link]/[Link] to get it to appear.

The Microsoft exception: To get your home page to come up

automatically on a Web server running Microsoft’s Internet
Information Server as it’s operating system, give your home
page the file name [Link].

11. Below the <HTML> tag, type:

<HEAD>
<!--Created by Your Name-->
</HEAD>

Tip: The <HEAD> section contains information that doesn’t show up

on the page when it is viewed in a browser. Note the closing
</HEAD> tag: in HTML, you must give the browser instructions to
end something as well as start it.
8

Tip: <!--Created by Your Name--> is called a comment.

Whatever text is between the dashes won’t show up on a browser’s
screen—it’s only visible if someone views the page’s HTML code. You
need to include the ! for this to work.

12. Below the </HEAD> tag, title the page “A Home Page About
Dogs” by using <TITLE> tags:

<TITLE>
A Home Page About Dogs
</TITLE>

Tip: Note that the text “A Home Page About Dogs” is not a tag. It is
text surrounded by tags. The <TITLE> tags tell the browser what to
do with the text: make it the title of the page.
 9

Page titles
The title of a Web page describes the page. It’s what appears in
a browser’s History list. The title also shows up as a link when a
page comes up in a search engine. If all your pages have
discrete, descriptive titles, they’ll be easier for people to find.
The page title shows up in the top, or “title,” bar of the browser
used to view it. The title of this page is Dogs.

13. Below the </TITLE> tag, add:

<BODY>

</BODY>

Tip: Anything you want to be visible in a browser’s main window,

put between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags.
10

14. Below the </BODY> tag, close the </HTML> tag. When you’re
finished, the code should look like this:

15. Between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags, type the words:

Dogs Home Page

16. Save the page.

 11

View the page in a browser

1. Go to the browser and on its menu bar, click File, then Open.

Tip: If you’re using Netscape Communicator instead of Internet

Explorer, click Open Page, then Choose File.

2. When the Open window appears, click the Browse button.

12

3. When the new window appears, navigate to the Dogs folder in the
Look in drop-down list, then select the home page: [Link].

4. Click the Open button, then the OK button. The page should
come up in the browser and look like this:

You have created a home page titled “A Home Page About

Dogs.”

The home page’s file name is [Link].

It is located in a folder called Dogs on the C:\ drive.

 13

Practice: Create a home page

A. What is the correct file name for a home page?

B. Why is there a special file name for home pages?

C. Why is it important that the home page—and all other pages in a

Web site—have accurate titles?

D. What is the difference between a page’s title and its file name?

Answers

A. index .html
B. It allo ws ho me pages to appear in a bro wser witho ut typing the file name as part o f a Web address.
C. Accurate titles allo w peo ple to find pages easier when bo o k mark ing them o r searching in a bro wser’s H isto ry list.
D. A page title appears in the T itle bar at the to p o f the bro wser. It’s plain tex t, such as “T he Smith Family: Vacatio n
Pictures,” that mak es it easy fo r peo ple to k eep track o f a page. A page’s file name, such as [Link], is ho w the
co mputer k eeps track o f it.
14

Format pages and text

Change fonts
1. In front of the words “Dogs Home Page, ” insert a <FONT> tag
with the attribute FACE=”arial”:

<FONT FACE=”arial”>Dogs Home Page</FONT>

2. After the words, close the <FONT> tag:

<FONT FACE=”arial”>Dogs Home Page</FONT>

Tip:Think of an attribute as a sub-instruction to the browser. In this

case, the <FONT> tag tells the browser that text will be changed, and
the FACE attribute tells it how to change, specifying the Arial
typeface.
 15

3. View the page in the browser. Click the browser’s Refresh button,
and the page should look like this:

Text is in the
Arial font

Web fonts
When text is viewed on a computer, only fonts installed on the
computer can be seen. For instance, if someone created a page
that specified the Tekton font, almost no one viewing it would
see it in Tekton because very few computers have that font
installed. Computers without Tekton would display text in the
default font: Times New Roman.

All Windows computers have the Arial font installed.

Windows 95 and later computers have Verdana. Macintoshes
have Helvetica, the font that Arial is based upon.
To cover all bases, specify multiple fonts:
<FONT FACE=”verdana,arial,helvetica”>

Tip: If a page doesn’t look like it’s supposed to—or nothing shows up
at all—check the HTML code you’ve written. You might have left out
a quote or made some other small mistake. Something that seems
insignificant can wreck a page:
<FONT FACE=”arial>
Missing end quote (“)
16

Change text size

1. In Notepad, add the SIZE=”+4” attribute to the <FONT> tag:

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4”>Dogs Home

Page</FONT>

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:
 17

Change text weight

1. In Notepad, add the <B> tag in front of the words “Dogs Home
Page” and close it after them:

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4”><B>Dogs Home

Page</B></FONT>

Tip: Wheninserting multiple tags, arrange them in mirror-image

order. The tags and text above are a good example: since it starts with
the <FONT> tag, it ends with the </FONT> tag. Tags that aren’t
arranged in mirror-image order can cause display problems in some
browsers.

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:
18

Change text color

1. In the <FONT> tag, add the attribute COLOR=”red”:

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4” COLOR=”red”>

2. Save the page. View it in the browser, and the text should show up
red.

3. Change the text color to black, then save the page.

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4” COLOR=”black”>
 19

Align text
1. Beneath the present text and tags, insert a <P> tag to begin a new
paragraph.

2. Beneath the <P> tag, insert the tag <FONT FACE=”arial”

SIZE=”-1”> and the words “These are my favorite
breeds of dog:”

3. Within the <P> tag, add the attribute ALIGN=”right”:

<P ALIGN=”right”>

4. Add a closing </P> tag after the new paragraph.

<P ALIGN=”right”>

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”-1”>These are my

favorite breeds of dog:

</P>
20

Tip: Usually a <P> tag requires no closing </P> tag in HTML, but
in this case the ALIGN=”right” attribute is used. The closing
</P> tag after the paragraph keeps the browser from right-aligning
whatever is beneath it.

5. Save the page, then view it in the browser. It should look like this:

6. Remove the ALIGN=”right” attribute from the <P> tag.

Tip: To generate a single-line break rather than the double-space a

<P> tag generates, use the <BR> tag. Putting a <BR> or “Break” tag
between two lines of text will bump the second line down to the next
line:

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4”><B>Dogs Home

Page</B></FONT>
<BR>
<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”-1”>These are my
favorite breeds of dog:
 21

Indent text
1. Below the text, “These are my favorite breeds of dog:,” insert three
new paragraphs:

<P>Chesapeake Bay Retriever</P>

<P>German Shepherd</P>

<P>Yorkshire Terrier</P>

2. Enclose these paragraphs in Unordered List tags to indent them:

<UL>

<P>Chesapeake Bay Retriever</P>

<P>German Shepherd</P>

<P>Yorkshire Terrier</P>

</UL>
22

3. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

Tip: Notice how all the text below the <FONT FACE=”arial”
SIZE=”-1”> tag looks the same. It will stay that way until the
closing </FONT> tag is inserted.
 23

Create lists
1. With the three breeds of dog, replace the <P> and </P> tags with
<LI> tags to generate bullets in front of the text that follows:

<UL>

<LI>Chesapeake Bay Retriever

<LI>German Shepherd

<LI>Yorkshire Terrier

</UL>

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:
24

Practice: Format pages and text

A. Why are the most common font choices Arial, Verdana, and
Helvetica?

B. What kinds of computers have the font Arial installed? Which have
Helvetica instead?

1. Change the title of the home page to “My Favorite Dogs.”

2. Change the bulleted list to a numbered list.

Tip: Use <OL> instead of <UL> to generate a numbered list.

3. Change the numbered list back to a bulleted list.
4. Make the list items bold. When you view it in the browser, the page
should look like this:

Answers

A. T ho se are the fo nts that mo st Windo ws co mputers have installed.

B. Windo ws co mputers have Arial, M acs have H elvetica.
 25

Create links to new pages

Step 1: Create a new page
1. In Notepad, change the title of the page to “Chesapeake Bay
Retrievers,” then take out all the tags and text between the
<BODY> and </BODY> tags.

2. On the menu bar, click File, then Save As.

3. Save the new page with the file name [Link].

Tip: Remember to Save as type: All Files.

26

File names for the Web

Most Web servers are Unix- or Linux-based, which don’t deal
cleanly with spaces in file names. For instance if you name a
file fido [Link], it may show up in the URL box of the
browser as fido%[Link].

Also, Web servers are case-sensitive, so keeping file names

lower-case eliminates a potential source of mistakes.
Make all file names in a Web site—pages, graphics and
folders—lower-case, with no spaces.

Correct file name: [Link]

Incorrect: German [Link]

4. Beneath the <BODY> tag, type “Chesapeake Bay Retrievers.” This is

the page heading. Make it verdana, bold, size +3:
<BODY>

<FONT FACE=”verdana” SIZE=”+3”><B>Chesapeake

Bay Retrievers</B></FONT>

</BODY>
 27

5. Save the page.

Providing navigation clues with text size

The heading of the Chesapeake Bay Retriever page is made one
size smaller than the heading of the home page. That’s because
the CBR page is one step down in the site hierarchy.

Level 1: Dogs
(top level heading; SIZE=”+4”) Dogs

Level 2: Chesapeake Bay Retrievers

(second-level heading; SIZE=”+3”) Chesapeake Bay
Retrievers

Making the heading of the CBR page smaller than the home
page’s heading helps show people where they are in the site.
28

Step 2: Link to the new page

1. Open the home page ([Link]) in Notepad. In front of the first
item, Chesapeake Bay Retriever, insert an anchor tag.
Then close the anchor tag :
<LI><B><A HREF=”[Link]”>Chesapeake
Bay Retriever</A></B>

How an anchor tag works

Anchor tags create a clickable link to another page.
A page with this file name is linked to these words.

<a href=”[Link]”>New Page</a>

 29

2. Save the home page and view it in the browser. The words
Chesapeake Bay Retriever should be a link, and the page
should look like this:

3. Click on the Chesapeake Bay Retriever link. The Chesapeake

Bay Retriever page should appear in the browser.
30

Practice: Create links to new pages

A. Why should file names be lower-case and free of spaces?

B. Why should the headings on section pages (Chesapeake Bay

Retrievers, German Shepherds) be smaller than the heading of the
home page?

1. Create new pages for German Shepherds and Yorkshire Terriers.

Page Title File Name

German Shepherds German Shepherds [Link]
Yorkshire Terriers Yorkshire Terriers [Link]

2. On the home page, link the words German Shepherd and

Yorkshire Terrier to their pages.

3. On the home page, remove the words “Home Page” after

“Dogs.”

4. On the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, German Shepherd and Yorkshire

Terrier pages, put the page headings in the same font and weight as
the home page (Verdana; bold).

5. Make the page headings of these pages one size smaller than the
heading on the home page, just like on the Chesapeake Bay
Retriever page.

6. Save all pages and click on the home page’s links to make sure they
work.

Answers

A. B ecause mo st Web servers deal better with lo wer-case, spaceless file names.
B. It pro vides site users with a visual distinctio n between first-level (ho me) pages and seco nd-level (main sectio n) pages.
 31

Create e-mail and external links

Create an e-mail link
1. In a new paragraph beneath the list, type the sentence “For more
information, contact info@[Link].”

2. Surround the e-mail address with anchor tags, but instead of

linking it to a Web page, use the mailto command to link it to an
e-mail program:
For more information, contact
<A HREF=”[Link]
info@[Link]</A>
32

3. Save the page. When you view it in the browser, it should look like
this:

How e-mail links work

When someone goes to a Web site and clicks on an e-mail link,
it’s supposed to open the e-mail program on that person’s
computer and insert the address into a new message.

If the person’s e-mail program isn’t configured correctly, this

won’t work. That’s why e-mail links should use the e-mail
address as a link: so people can enter the address manually if
they have to.
 33

Link to an external site

1. In Notepad, add a new sentence after the last one. Type the
sentence, “Please also visit [Link].”

2. Surround the Web address [Link] with these anchor

tags to link it to the external Web site:
<A
HREF=”[Link]

Tip: For an external link to work, you must type http:// as part of
the Web address.

3. Save the page.

4. Preview the page in the browser, then click on the link to see if it
links to the external site [Link].

5. Close the browser.

34

Insert and align graphics

Capture a graphic from the Web
1. Open a new browser window.

2. Go to the Web site [Link]/dogpics.

3. Place your cursor on top of the picture of the Chesapeake Bay

Retriever, then click with your right mouse button.

Right mouse
button
 35

4. Click Save Picture As.

5. When the Save Picture window appears, select the “Dogs” folder
in the Save in drop-down list.

6. Create a new folder within Dogs called “graphics.”

7. Double-click on the graphics folder so it appears in the Save in

drop-down list.

8. Click the Save button to save the graphic inside the graphics
folder.

Tip: Creating this separate sub-folder to hold your site’s graphics

makes the site easier to organize and update.
36

Insert a graphic
1. In Notepad, open the Chesapeake Bay Retriever page, file name
[Link].

2. Create a new paragraph under the main heading.

3. In the new paragraph, insert an image tag:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]”>

folder graphic

Tip: Notice that in this image tag there’s a “path.” For the image
source, the tag first points to the graphics folder, then to the file name
of the image within it.
 37

4. Save the page, then view it in the browser. It should now look like
this:
38

Align a graphic
1. In a new paragraph below the graphic, type in:
Chesapeake Bay Retrievers love water. If you
throw tennis balls in the water, these dogs
will chase them and bring them back until
your arm falls off.
 39

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. The page should look like
this:

3. Go back to Notepad and add the ALIGN=”left” attribute to the

<IMG> tag:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]”
ALIGN=”left”>
40

4. Save the page and view it in the browser (just click the “Refresh”
or “Reload” button). It should look like this:
 41

Format a graphic
1. In the Chesapeake Bay Retriever page, add this ALT attribute to the
<IMG> tag:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]” ALIGN=”left”

ALT=”Chesapeake Bay Retriever”>

“Alt” text allows visually-impaired people to know what a

graphic represents. Alt text also allows search engines to index
visual content.

2. Add the VSPACE=”4” and HSPACE=”12” attributes as well:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]” ALIGN=”left”

ALT=”Chesapeake Bay Retriever” VSPACE=”4”
HSPACE=”12”>

3. Also, add the BORDER=”1” attribute:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]” ALIGN=”left”

ALT=”Chesapeake Bay Retriever” VSPACE=”4”
HSPACE=”12” BORDER=”1”>
42

4. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should now look like
this:

An HSPACE of 12 creates a A Border of 1 creates a 1-pixel

horizontal space of 12 pixels border around the graphic
around the graphic that nothing
can occupy

5. Move your cursor onto the graphic. The “Alt” text—an alternative
text description of the graphic—should pop up.

The text should be aligned with the top of the graphic.

Tip: If you know the dimensions of a graphic, you can make it load
faster by specifying its width and height in pixels:
<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]” ALIGN=”left”
ALT=”Chesapeake Bay Retriever” VSPACE=”4”
HSPACE=”12” BORDER=”1” WIDTH=”150”
HEIGHT=”189”>
 43

Practice: Insert graphics

A. Why should you specify Alt text for each graphic you insert?

1. Go to [Link]/dogpics. Save the German Shepherds

graphic in C:\dogs\graphics with the file name [Link].

2. Save the Yorkshire Terrier graphic in C:\dogs\graphics with the

file name [Link].

3. Insert [Link] into the German Shepherds page in a new

paragraph below the heading.

4. Insert [Link] into the Yorkshire Terriers page in a new

paragraph below the heading.

5. On the German Shepherds page, type “German Shepherds are

smart dogs” in a paragraph below the graphic.

6. On the Yorkshire Terriers page, type “Yorkshire Terriers are

cute” in a paragraph below the graphic.

7. On both pages, align the text to the side of the graphic, as on the
Chesapeake Bay Retrievers page.

8. On both pages, give the graphic a border of 1, vspace of 4, and

hspace of 12.

9. On all three “Dog” pages, put all paragraph text (not the main
headings) in the arial font, with a size of -1.

Answers

A. Alt tex t mak es it easier fo r visio n-impaired peo ple to understand a page’s co ntent, and mak es it easier fo r search engines to
catalo g it.
44

Create a basic navigation system

Link back to the home page
1. In Notepad, open the Chesapeake Bay Retrievers page,
[Link].

2. Type the word “Home” in a new paragraph beneath the first

paragraph.

3. Enclose it in anchor tags that link it back to the home page:

<A HREF=”[Link]”>Home</A>

Tip: Remember, [Link] is the file name for the home page.

4. Save the page, and view it in the browser. The word Home should
now be a link, and the page should look like this:

5. On the German Shepherds page, create a link back to the home

page. Do this the same way you created the link for the Chesapeake
Bay retriever page.

6. On the Yorkshire Terriers page, create the same sort of link back to
the home page.
 45

Link pages to each other

1. In Notepad, open the Chesapeake Bay Retrievers page.
2. Following the Home link, type:
| Chesapeake Bay Retrievers | German Shepherds |
Yorkshire Terriers

3. Make the words “Chesapeake Bay Retrievers” bold to

show site users “You are here.”

4. Link the words “German Shepherds” to the German Shepherds

page:

<A HREF=”[Link]”>German Shepherds</A>

5. Link the words “Yorkshire Terriers” to the Yorkshire Terriers

page.
46

6. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

Showing “you are here”

A site’s navigational system should show people two things:
where they are, and where they can go.

To show people where they are, make the link corresponding

to the current page into plain text. This lets users know that if
they can’t go to that page, they must be looking at it.
Home | Chesapeake Bay Retriev ers | German Shepherds | Yorkshire Terriers

You are here

Making the text bold reinforces the “you are here” message.
 47

Use graphics as links

1. In Notepad, open the home page. Below the bulleted list of links, in
a new paragraph, insert the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, German
Shepherd and Yorkshire Terrier graphics:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]”>
<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]”>
<IMG SRC=”graphics/[Link]”>

2. Enclose the first image tag within anchor tags that link it to the
Chesapeake Bay Retriever page:
<A HREF=”[Link]”><IMG
SRC=”graphics/[Link]”></A>

3. Save the page, then preview it in the browser. When you click on
the Chesapeake Bay Retriever graphic, it should take you to the
Chesapeake Bay Retriever page.

4. Go back to Notepad and add the BORDER=”0” attribute to the

first image tag:
<A HREF=”[Link]”><IMG
SRC=”graphics/[Link]” BORDER=”0”></A>
48

5. Save the page and view it in the browser again. The blue link
border around the Chesapeake Bay Retriever graphic should be
gone:
 49

Practice: Create a navigation system

A. What’s a good way to show site users “You are here?”

Task: To make your Dogs site look like the site at

[Link]/dogs.

1. In Notepad, open the German Shepherds page, [Link].

2. Following the Home link, type:
| Chesapeake Bay Retrievers | German Shepherds |
Yorkshire Terriers

3. Make the words German Shepherds bold.

4. Link the words Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and

Yorkshire Terriers to their corresponding pages.

5. Save the page.

6. Using the same system, create navigation links for the Yorkshire
Terriers page. Then save the page.

7. On the home page, link the German Shepherds graphic to the

German Shepherds page. Do the same for the Yorkshire Terriers
graphic.

8. Take out the link borders of these graphics.

9. When finished, preview your Dogs site in the browser. It should
look like the site at [Link]/dogs.

Answers

A. M ak e the link co rrespo nding to the current page bo ld, and plain tex t (no lo nger a link ).
50

Change page, link colors

Change background color of page
1. Open the home page in Notepad.
2. In the <BODY> tag, add the attribute BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc”:
<BODY BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc”>

3. Save the page and view it in the browser. The background color of
the page should now be pale yellow.

Hexadecimal colors
The ffffcc that stands for pale yellow is a hexadecimal
color. Hexadecimal colors allow you to specify colors more
precisely than you can with words. For example, you could use
the attribute BGCOLOR=yellow in the body tag and the page
background would turn bright yellow, but if you used
BGCOLOR=pale yellow, that wouldn’t work.

For shades of color, hexadecimals must be used. They work

like this:
Computers show color as a mix of red, green and blue. In
hexadecimal colors, the first pair of letters or numbers signify
red, the second pair signify green, and the third pair signify
blue:

Red Green Blue

ff ff cc
 51

Hexadecimal colors, continued

The color values go from the maximum amount of color (ff)
to no color at all (00):

Max Mid-range None

ff cc 99 66 33 00

Navy blue would be shown in hexadecimals as no red (00), no

green, (00), and a little bit of blue (66):
000066

A list of hexadecimal color codes is posted at:

[Link]/reference/color_codes
52

Change link colors

1. In the home page, add the attribute LINK=”#ff0000” to the
<BODY> tag:

<BODY BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc” LINK=”#ff0000”>

This makes the links on the page show up in red.

2. Add the attribute VLINK=”#00ff00” to the <BODY> tag:

<BODY BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc” LINK=”#ff0000”

VLINK=”#00ff00”>

This makes visited links show up in green.

Tip: Visited links are links to pages that have already been viewed in
the browser.
 53

3. Save the page and view it in the browser. The links on the page
should either be red or green.

Consistent link colors

Link colors should be consistent throughout a Web site. If the
links on one page are red, they should be red on every page.

Learning that “red equals link” once is much easier for people
than having to figure out the link color for each page or section
of a site.
54

Practice: HTML Basics

Task: To create a Web site about cats that looks like the site at
[Link]/cats.

1. Create a new home page and title it “The Wonderful World of

Cats.”

2. Save it in a new folder on the C:\ drive called Cats:

C:\Cats

3. Make the heading of the page read “The Wonderful World of

Cats.”

4. Below the main heading on the home page, insert a bulleted list:

House Cats
Alley Cats
Big Cats

5. Make these items arial, with a size of -1.

 55

6. Link each list item to a new page about it. For instance, link
“House Cats” to a new page about house cats with file name
[Link].

7. On each of these new pages, put a descriptive heading at the top

of the page. For instance, the words “House Cats” at the top of
the house cats page.

8. Put the main headings of all four pages in the Arial font. Make
them bold. Give the home page’s heading a size of +3. Give the
headings of the other pages a size of +2.

9. On each page, write a descriptive sentence or two in a new

paragraph below the main heading. Make it arial, with a size of -1.

10. Go to [Link]/catpics and get the three cat graphics

there. Put them in a folder called “graphics” within the C:\Cats
folder.
56

11. Insert the appropriate graphic on each of the 3 pages between the
main heading and the descriptive text below.

12. Align each graphic left, then specify vspace of 4 and hspace of 16.

13. Link each of the three “cat” pages back to the home page, and to
each other. On each page, make the “you are here” link into bold,
plain text.

14. Make the background color of each page light grey.

15. Make the link color on each page bright red. Make the visited link
color orange.

16. Preview the site in the browser. It should look like the site at
[Link]/cats.
 57

Layout & Navigation

In this section, you’ll learn how to:
• Lay out pages using tables
• Create navigation bars
• Add subsections to site
• Place tables within tables
• Link to an external site using frames

You’ll build a site that looks like this:

58

Lay out pages using tables

Tables and Web page layout

Almost all professional-quality Web sites are laid out using
tables. Just like a spreadsheet has cells that contain numbers, a
table on a Web page has cells that contain links, graphics, and
text.
The lines on this page clearly show its layout with table cells:

cell cell cell

 59

Create a table
1. Create a new folder on the C:\ drive called “Travel.”

2. In Notepad, create a home page (file name [Link]) titled

“Traveling Down South.” Save it in the Travel folder.

Tip: Make sure that your new home page has the correct file name—
[Link]—and all necessary tags:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<!--Created by Your Name-->
</HEAD>
<TITLE>
Traveling Down South
</TITLE>
<BODY>

</BODY>
</HTML>

3. You’re going to create a simple one-row, two-cell table that looks

like this:

links content

4. The first step is to begin the table. Below the <BODY> tag, begin
your table with the <TABLE> tag:
<BODY>
<TABLE>

5. Below the <TABLE> tag, start a row with the <TR> (Table Row)
tag:
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
60

6. In the table row, start the first cell with the <TD> (Table Data) tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>

7. After the <TD> tag, type the word “links,” then close the cell
with the </TD> tag:
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>

You’ve created the first cell in the row:

links content

8. Now create the second cell in the row by adding a <TD> tag, the
word Content, and closing the cell with a </TD> tag:
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>

links content
 61

9. Finish the table by closing the row with a </TR> tag, then closing
the table with the </TABLE> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
62

10. You have set up the basic table. To make it possible to see the table
outlines in a browser, add the attribute BORDER=”1” to the
<TABLE> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=1>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

11. Save the page, then view it in the browser. It should look like this:
 63

Format a table
1. Now you’ll extend the table. In Notepad, add the WIDTH=”100%”
attribute to the <TABLE> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=1 WIDTH=”100%”>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:
64

Percentage vs. fixed-width tables

When laying out a page using a table, set the table’s width at
100%. That way, the contents of the page can stretch to fill the
whole monitor, regardless of the monitor’s resolution.
If you want it to fit a fixed-width table on all monitors, you’re
limited to a table 580 pixels wide:
640 pixels
width of
- 20 pixels
browser offset: the
- 40 pixels
20 for the
= 580 pixels
width
low- distance that page vertical available
resolution content is indented scroll bar, for table
monitor from the sides of the plus 20 extra
browser

Creating pages with fixed-width tables offers precise control,

but wastes space on higher-resolution monitors:


Page:laid out using a table 580 pixels wide 

Monitor used to view page:1280 pixels wide
 65

3. Remove the table border by specifying BORDER=”0”:

<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=”0” WIDTH=”100%”>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

4. Make the first cell light grey by adding the attribute

BGOLOR=”#CCCCCC” to the first <TD> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=”0” WIDTH=”100%”>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR=”#CCCCCC”>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

5. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:
66

6. You’ll notice that the word Links is right up against the edge of the
left-hand cell. To add a 16-pixel margin between the edge of the
cells and their contents, add the attribute CELLPADDING=”16”
to the <TABLE> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=”0” WIDTH=”100%”
CELLPADDING=”16”>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR=”#CCCCCC”>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

7. To eliminate the spacing between cells, add the attribute

CELLSPACING=”0” to the <TABLE> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=”0” WIDTH=”100%”
CELLPADDING=”16” CELLSPACING=”0”>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR=”#CCCCCC”>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

8. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

Cell Padding creates a cushion Cell Spacing is the

of pixels between the edge of space between cells.
the cell and what’s inside it. In this case, 0 pixels
 67

Create a table-based home page

1. Create a folder called “graphics” inside the Travel folder on your
hard drive.

2. Go to [Link]/travelpic. Capture the graphic there

([Link]) and save it in the graphics folder.

3. In the right-hand cell on the home page, replace the word Content
with the heading “Traveling South.” Give the heading a size
of +3, put it in the Verdana font, and make it bold.

4. Insert the graphic in a new paragraph beneath the heading.

5. Under the graphic, add the following sentences as a new paragraph:

If you've got a couple of weeks for vacation, you might want

to visit the South. Richmond, Williamsburg, and Charleston
are all beautiful cities.

Make the text arial, size -1.

68

6. In the left-hand cell, replace the word Links with the names of this
site’s main sections: Richmond, Williamsburg and Charleston.
Separate them with <P> tags and put them in the arial font, at size
-1.
The code for the page can look like this:
 69

7. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:
70

8. To bring the left-hand cell’s content to the top of the cell, add the
attribute VALIGN=”top” to the first <TD> tag. (To cover all
bases, add the attribute to the second <TD> tag as well):

<TABLE BORDER=”0” WIDTH=”100%”

CELLPADDING=”16” CELLSPACING=”0”>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR=”#CCCCCC” VALIGN=”top”>
<FONT FACE="arial" SIZE=”-1”>
Richmond
<P>
Williamsburg
<P>
Charleston
</FONT>
</TD>
<TD VALIGN=”top”>
<FONT FACE="verdana" SIZE=”+3”><B>Traveling
South</B></FONT>
<P>
<IMG SRC="graphics/[Link]">
<P>
<FONT FACE="arial" SIZE=”-1”>If you've got a
couple of weeks for vacation, you might want
to visit the South. Richmond, Williamsburg,
and Charleston are all beautiful
cities.</FONT>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
 71

9. To control the widths of the table cells, add the attribute

WIDTH=”20%” to the first <TD> tag, and the attribute
WIDTH=”80%” to the second:

<TABLE BORDER=”0” WIDTH=”100%”

CELLPADDING=”16” CELLSPACING=”0”>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR=”#CCCCCC” VALIGN=”top”>
<FONT FACE="arial" SIZE=”-1” WIDTH=”20%”>
Richmond
<P>
Williamsburg
<P>
Charleston
</FONT>
</TD>
<TD VALIGN=”top” WIDTH=”80%”>
<FONT FACE="verdana" SIZE=”+3”><B>Traveling
South</B></FONT>
<P>
<IMG SRC="graphics/[Link]">
<P>
<FONT FACE="arial" SIZE=”-1”>If you've got a
couple of weeks for vacation, you might want
to visit the South. Richmond, Williamsburg,
and Charleston are all beautiful
cities.</FONT>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
72

10. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should now look like
this:
 73

Create new table-based pages

1. On the Notepad menu bar, click Edit, then Select All.

2. Once all the code on the page is selected, click Edit, then Copy.

3. On the menu bar, click File, then New.

4. When a new blank page comes up, click Edit, then Paste.
74

5. Save the new page at C:\Travel with the file name [Link].

6. Title the new page “Richmond, VA.”

7. Open a browser and go to [Link]/travelpic/richpic.

Capture the Richmond, Virginia graphic there ([Link]) and
place it in the graphics folder.

8. Replace the “Traveling South” heading with one that reads

“Richmond, Virginia.” Give it a size of +2.

9. Replace the home page graphic with the Richmond graphic.

Beneath the graphic, in a new paragraph, type the sentence,
“Richmond is the capital of Virginia.”

10. Add the word “Home” below the words in the left-hand cell. When
you’re done, the page should look like this:
 75

Practice: Lay out pages using tables

A. Why do you usually want to create tables with a percentage width,
rather than a fixed-pixel width?

Task: To make your Travel site look and work like the one at
[Link]/travel.

1. Create pages for Williamsburg and Charleston just like the

Richmond page.

Get the graphic and text for the Williamsburg page at

[Link]/travelpic/willpic. Get the Charleston graphic
and text at [Link]/travelpic/charlpic.

2. Using the words Richmond, Williamsburg, Charleston, and

Home in the left-hand cell of each page, link all the pages in this
Web site to each other.

T IP: Don’t forget to transform the link that shows “You Are Here”
into bold, plain text.

3. Insert the text and graphics in their appropriate pages.

4. Align all graphics to the left. Give them vspace of 4 pixels and
hspace of 12 pixels. Give each graphic appropriate Alt text.

5. When you’re done, preview the site in the browser. It should look
and work like [Link]/travel.

Answers

A. Fix ed-width tables waste space and mak e pages lo o k a bit sparse when viewed o n higher-reso lutio n mo nito rs.
76

Create navigation bars

Create a navigation bar for a home page
1. Create a folder called “Travel West” on your hard drive at
C:\Travel West.

2. Create a home page titled “Traveling West for Vacation.” Save it

in the Travel West folder.

3. Between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags, create a table with one
row and 3 cells in the row:
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD> </TD>
<TD> </TD>
<TD> </TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

4. Give the <TABLE> tag these attributes:

WIDTH=”100%”
Border=”0”
CELLPADDING=”4”
CELLSPACING=”0”

5. In the table’s first cell, enter the word “California.” In the

second cell, “The Rockies,” and in the third cell, “The
Midwest.”

6. Make each cell 33% wide (except for the middle one, which has to
be 34%: their sum must equal the table width of 100%).
 77

7. Center the words in each cell with <CENTER> tags:

<TD WIDTH=”33%”>
<CENTER>
California
</CENTER>
</TD>
<TD WIDTH=”34%”>
<CENTER>
The Rockies
</CENTER>
</TD>
<TD WIDTH=”33%”>
<CENTER>
The Midwest
</CENTER>
</TD>

8. Change the text in each cell to arial, size -1, and change the
background color of all cells to light grey (#cccccc).

9. When you’re done, preview the page in the browser. The table
should look like this:

10. Below the table, in a new paragraph, enter the heading

“Traveling West.” Make it arial, size +4, bold.

11. Below that, add a new paragraph with this text:

When you go West, be sure to visit the
sights of California, the natural wonders of
the Rockies, and the cities of the Midwest.
78

12. Make the new paragraph verdana, size -1 and save the page.

13. View the page in the browser. It should look like this:
 79

Create a navigation bar for a main section page

1. Create a new page with file name [Link]. Title it
“Vacationing in California.”

2. Make the table just like the one on the home page, except with 4
cells instead of 3.

Tip: Don’t forget to change the cell widths. There are now four cells,
and their widths must add up to 100%. That means 25% per cell.

3. Format the table and text just like on the home page, but make the
California cell bright yellow (BGCOLOR=”#ffff00”) to show
“You are here.”

4. When you’re done, save the page and view it in the browser. The
table should look like this:

5. Link the word Home to the home page (<A

HREF=”[Link]”>Home</A>), then save the page.

6. Open the home page in Notepad.

7. Link the word California to the California page.

8. Save the page.

80

Practice: Create navigation bars

Task: To make your Travel West site look like the site at
[Link]/travelwest.

1. Create a new blank page and save it with the file name
[Link]. It will be The Midwest page, but leave it blank for
right now.

2. Create a new page with file name [Link]. This is The Rockies
page. Title it “Nature in the Rocky Mountains.” Make its
navigation bar table exactly like that of the California page.

3. Change the “You are here” yellow background color from the
California cell to The Rockies cell.

4. Link California, The Midwest and Home to their respective

pages.

5. When you’re done, preview the page in the browser. It should look
like this:
 81

6. Repeat this process with the California and Midwest pages so

they’ve got functioning navigation bars that show “you are here.”

7. Go to the home page and in the navigation bar, link The Rockies
and The Midwest to their respective pages.

8. Make all text that corresponds to the current page bold. (Example:
make “The Rockies” bold on The Rockies page.)

9. When you’re done, preview the site in the browser. It should look
like the site at [Link]/travelwest.
82

Add subsections to site

Insert a table for content and subsection links
1. In Notepad, open the California page in the Traveling West Web
site.

2. Below the navigation bar table, add another table that has one row
and two cells in the row. Give the table the attributes:
WIDTH=”100%”
BORDER=”0”
CELLPADDING=”16”
CELLSPACING=”0”

3. Make the first cell 25% wide and the second cell 75% wide.

4. In the left-hand cell, put the subsections for the main California
section:

The Golden Gate Bridge

<P>
Highway 101
<P>
Big Sur
 83

5. In the right-hand cell, put the heading “Places to visit in

California.” Below the heading, in a new paragraph, type the
sentence :

When in California, be sure to see the

Golden Gate bridge, Highway 101, and Big Sur.

6. Align the contents of both cells to the top of each.

7. Make the text in the left-hand navigation cell arial, size -1.
8. Make the heading in the right-hand cell bold, arial, size +3. Make
the paragraph beneath the heading verdana, size -1.

9. When you’re done, save the page and preview it in the browser.
The page should look like this:
84

Create subsection pages

1. Create new blank pages for subsections The Golden Gate Bridge,
Highway 101 and Big Sur:

Page Title File Name

The Golden Gate Seeing the Golden [Link]

Bridge Gate Bridge

Highway 101 Driving Highway 101 [Link]

Big Sur Staying in Big Sur [Link]

2. Copy the tables from the California page and paste them into the
Golden Gate Bridge page.

3. On the Golden Gate Bridge page, change the heading to read

“Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge.” Make it size +2.

4. Below the heading, change the paragraph to read:

The Golden Gate Bridge isn't golden--it's actually

orange.

5. Make it verdana, size -1.

 85

6. Link the words California, Highway 101, and Big Sur to their
respective pages. Leave The Golden Gate Bridge as plain text to
show “you are here.”

7. When you’re done, save the page and view it in the browser. It
should look like this:

Consistent page layout

Copying tables from one page and pasting them into new
pages ensures that all pages share the same layout.

This consistency makes site navigation easier: no matter which

page in the site is being viewed, a person knows where the
page’s links and content will be.
86

Practice: Add subsections to site

A. What’s the best way to keep tables consistent from page to page?

Task: To make your Travel West Web site look and work like the one
at [Link]/travelwest2.

1. Open the California page in Notepad. Link The Golden Gate

Bridge, Highway 101 and Big Sur to their respective pages.

2. Open the Golden Gate Bridge page. Copy both tables from the
page.

3. Paste these tables into the Highway 101 page.

4. On the Highway 101 page, link the words The Golden Gate
Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge page. Get rid of the anchor tags
around Highway 101 so it shows as plain text.

5. Change the Highway 101 page’s heading and descriptive text

beneath it so it looks like this:
 87

6. Format the Big Sur page so its layout and navigation are consistent
with the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway 101 pages.

Heading:
Staying in Big Sur

Paragraph:
There are many excellent hotels right on the ocean
in Big Sur.

7. Save all pages.

8. When you’re done creating all the pages in the California section of
this site, preview it in a browser. It should look and work like
[Link]/travelwest2.

Answers

A. Co pying and pasting tables fro m o ne page to ano ther.

88

Place tables within tables

1. In Notepad, open the Golden Gate Bridge page
([Link]).

2. In front of the paragraph below the main heading, begin a new

table with:

2 rows
1 cell in each row
WIDTH=”200”
CELLPADDING=”8”

Tip: To create a table with more than one row, just begin a new row
after ending the one above it:

<TR>
<TD> </TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD> </TD>
</TR>

Note: the width is a number—200—which renders the width in

pixels rather than as a percentage.

3. Color the top cell blue (#0000ff) and the bottom cell grey
(#cccccc).

4. In the top cell, put the words, “A Whole Lot of Paint.” Center the
words and make them bold.
 89

5. In the bottom cell, type the sentence:

The Golden Gate bridge is covered with enough paint to coat

four battleships.

6. Make the text arial, size -1.

7. Save the page and view it in the browser. When you’re done, it
should look like this:

8. Make the text in the top cell white. Do this by adding the
COLOR=”#ffffff” attribute to the <FONT> tag:

<FONT FACE="arial" SIZE=”-1”

COLOR=”#ffffff”>
<B>A Whole Lot of Paint</B>
</FONT>
90

9. Add the ALIGN=”right” attribute to the <TABLE> tag:

<TABLE WIDTH=”200” BORDER=”0”

CELLPADDING=”8” ALIGN=”right”>

10. Save the page and preview it in the browser. The page should look
like this:
 91

Link to an external site using frames

How to use frames

“Frames” are a way to put more than one Web page at a time
on a computer’s screen:

2=CA
2=CA  2=CA!




A live example of frames can be seen at

[Link]/frames.
Many sites that used frames have now eliminated them,
returning to single-page layouts. That’s because frames have
serious drawbacks:

• Frames are difficult to update. Every screen involves

three or more pages to keep track of: the frameset itself,
and at least two others to go in the frames.
• Frame navigation is tricky. Links require special
“targets” that go from page to frame.
• Frames often require people to scroll annoyingly in
more than one place.

However, frames are useful for one thing: they allow a user to
get back to a site with one click while clicking through other
sites linked to it. An example of this can be seen in the external
links at [Link]/[Link].
The following exercise demonstrates how to use frames to
provide convenient links to external sites.
92

1. On the Golden Gate Bridge page, in a new paragraph below the

first one, type:

Visit the Web site for the Golden Gate bridge at

[Link].
[Link] will be linked to the frameset page.

2. Create a new blank page with file name [Link]. This will
be the “frameset” page that holds two other pages.

3. Insert this HTML code into the new blank page:

<HTML>

<HEAD></HEAD>

<TITLE>Golden Gate Frameset</TITLE>

<FRAMESET ROWS="50,*">

<FRAME NAME="topframe" SRC="[Link]">

<FRAME NAME="bottomframe"
SRC="[Link]

</FRAMESET>

</HTML>
 93

Tip: The ROWS=”50,*” attribute in the <FRAMESET> tag tells

the frameset to make the top frame 50 pixels high, and to allow the
bottom frame to fill in the rest of the available space beneath it.

The top frame will contain the link back to the Golden Gate Bridge
page. The bottom frame will contain an external site:
[Link].

Link back to the Golden Gate Bridge page


The [Link] site will display here


4. Save [Link].

5. Create a new page with file name [Link]. This is the page
that will contain a link back to the Golden Gate Bridge page.

6. Give the new page a light grey background, and a single link on it:
Back to the Golden Gate Bridge page.

7. Use an anchor tag with the TARGET=”_top” attribute to link

back to the Golden Gate Bridge page:
<A HREF=”[Link]” TARGET=”_top”>Back
to the Golden Gate Bridge page</A>
94

Tip:The TARGET=”_top” attribute enables linking to a page

outside of the current frame
Click here Go to new page outside frame

Back to the Golden Gate Bridge Golden Gate Bridge Page

Page

which avoids clicking on the link and having the page come up in
the same frame:
Click here Page comes up in same frame

Back to the Golden Gate Bridge Golden Gate Bridge page

Page

8. Make the link arial, size -1, and bold.

9. Save the page.

 95

10. Open [Link] in the browser. It should look like this:

11. Click on the Back to the Golden Gate Bridge page link. It
should take you back to the Golden Gate Bridge page.
96

Tip: To make the frameset look more crisp and clean, try using the
following attributes in [Link]:
<HTML>

<HEAD>
</HEAD>

<TITLE>Golden Gate Frameset</TITLE>

<FRAMESET ROWS="28,*" FRAMEBORDER=”0”>

<FRAME NAME="topframe" SRC="[Link]"

MARGINWIDTH=”12” MARGINHEIGHT=”4”
SCROLLING=”NO” NORESIZE>

<FRAME NAME="bottomframe"
SRC="[Link]
MARGINWIDTH="12" MARGINHEIGHT="12"
SCROLLING=”AUTO” NORESIZE>

</FRAMESET>

</HTML>
 97

Practice: Layout & Navigation

A. Why is it important that navigational links stay in the same place and
order on pages throughout a Web site?

B. What is the minimum number of files that must be used to make a

frameset work?

Task: Make your Travel West Web site look and function like the one
at [Link]/travelwest3.

1. Lay out the Rockies page using tables so it looks like the California
page.
Heading for the Rockies page:
Nature in the Rocky Mountains

2. Create pages for three subsections of The Rockies main section:

Streams
Snow
Rock Formations

3. Make sure that these pages are linked and laid out just like the
Golden Gate Bridge, Highway 101 and Big Sur pages.

Page File name Heading

Streams [Link] Mountain Streams
Snow [Link] Snow in the Rockies
Rock [Link] Rock Formations
Formations
98

4. Repeat this process with the Midwest section of the site. The
subsections of the Midwest section are:

St. Louis
Chicago
DeMoines

Page File name Heading

Midwest [Link] Cities of the Midwest
St. Louis [Link] St. Louis
Chicago [Link] Chicago
DeMoines [Link] DeMoines

5. On the Chicago page, insert a one-row, one-cell, fixed-width table

200 pixels wide, with cell padding of 4. Color it pale yellow
(BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc”).

6. In this table, put the sentence, “In the past, Chicago was home
to Al Capone, Mayor Daley, and the nation’s biggest
stockyards.”

7. On the St. Louis page, link to the external Web site

[Link] using frames.

Paragraph for St. Louis page:

Find out what’s going on in St. Louis at
[Link].

8. When you’re done, open the Travel West site in the browser. It
should look and function like the one at
[Link]/travelwest3.
 99

Interactivity
In this section, you’ll learn how to:
• Insert META tags
• Create forms
• Format text with style sheets
• Employ templates
• Upload sites to a Web server

You’ll build a site that looks like this:

100

Insert META tags

META tags
META tags are HTML tags that can include a description of
the page, as well as “keywords that provide clues to its content.
META tags make a page easier to find and index by search
engines.
META tags don’t show up on a Web page. Rather, they reside
unseen in its HTML code.

1. In Notepad, open up the home page of the Travel West Web site.
2. Beneath the <HEAD> and signature (<!--your name-->) tags,
insert the first <META> tag for describing the site’s contents:

<HEAD>
<!--Created by Your Name-->
<META NAME=”description” CONTENT=”This is
the Travel West Web site. It contains
information about vacationing in California,
the Rockies and the Midwest.”>
</HEAD>
 101

3. Beneath the “description” meta tag, insert a new <META> tag for
its search keywords:
<HEAD>
<!--Created by Your Name-->
<META NAME=”description” CONTENT=”This is
the Travel West Web site. It contains
information about vacationing in California,
the Rockies and the Midwest.”>
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT=”traveling,
travel, west, California, rockies, midwest,
golden gate bridge, highway 101, Big Sur,
streams, snow, rock formations, St. Louis,
Chicago, De Moines”>
</HEAD>
102

Create forms
1. Create a new page with file name [Link].

2. Title the page “Request for Information” and save it in the Travel
West folder on your hard drive.

3. Below the <BODY> tag, type the sentence:

Fill out the following form to get more
information about traveling West:

4. Below the sentence, insert a <P> tag, then insert a <FORM> tag:
<BODY>

Fill out the following form to get more

information about traveling West:

<P>

<FORM>

</BODY>

5. Below the <FORM> tag, create a table with 4 rows and 2 cells in
each row. Make the width 50%, give it cellpadding of 4, and a
border of 1.
 103

6. In the top three left-hand cells, put:

Name:
Address:
E-Mail:

7. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

8. In the top right-hand cell, insert a text input field. Do this with an
<INPUT> tag:

<TR>
<TD>Name:</TD>
<TD><INPUT TYPE=”text” NAME=”name”
SIZE=”20”></TD>
</TR>

Tip: The TYPE of this input is “text,” which makes it a textbox.

The NAME of this input is “name,” which is how the server knows
that it’s where people enter their name. The SIZE is 20 characters—
the length of the textbox.
104

9. Save the page and view it in a browser. It should now look like this:

Text input box

10. Insert textboxes in the cells next to Address and E-mail as well.
Name the input textbox next to Address “address,” and name
the input textbox next to E-mail “email.”

<INPUT TYPE=”text” NAME=”address” SIZE=”20”>

11. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should now look like
this:
 105

12. In the last row’s right-hand cell, insert a submit button, <INPUT
TYPE=”submit”>. Use the VALUE attribute to specify the text
displayed on the button:
<TR>
<TD>E-mail:</TD>
<TD><INPUT TYPE=”text” NAME="email"
SIZE=”20”></TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD></TD>
<TD><INPUT TYPE=”submit” VALUE="Send me
info"> </TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

13. Save the page and view it in the browser. When you’re done, the
page should look like this:
106

14. Remove the border from the table and align the text in the left-
hand cells to the right.

<TD><P ALIGN=”right”>Name:</TD>

15. Make the left-hand cell in the first row 5% wide, and the right-
hand cell in the first row 45% wide.

Tip: By specifying the width of cells in the first row, the cells in the
rows beneath will assume the same widths.

16. Save the page, view it in the browser, and it should look like this:
 107

17. Open the home page in Notepad and add a new paragraph:
Get more information about Western Travel
mailed to you

18. Link this sentence to [Link].

19. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

20. Click on the link sentence. It should bring up the page with the
form.
108

Making a form work

To make a form work, an action must be assigned to it. To add
an action to your form, add the ACTION attribute to the
<FORM> tag.

Consult with your Web server administrator to specify what

action you should assign. For example, an action for a form
might look something like this:
<FORM METHOD=”POST”
ACTION="[Link]
bin/[Link]”>

This tells the form to post its data to a program called

[Link] on at [Link]. This program might take
the form data and e-mail it to whomever you choose.
 109

Practice: Create forms

1. Create a new page with file name [Link]. Title it “My

Favorite Places.”

2. Insert a form, then insert a table with four rows and two cells in
each row. Fill the cells with the text and form objects seen below:

Drop-down
list

Radio
buttons

Tip: The HTML code for a drop-down list looks like this:
<SELECT NAME="select">
<OPTION>First Choice</OPTION>
<OPTION>Second Choice</OPTION>
<OPTION>Third Choice</OPTION>
</SELECT>

The HTML code for radio buttons looks like this:

<input type="radio" name="radios"
value="radio1" checked> This is radio button
1
<br>
<input type="radio" name="radios"
value="radio2"> This is radio button 2
110

3. Put these values in the drop-down list:

California
The Rockies
The Midwest

4. When finished, save the page and preview it in the browser. It

should look like this:
 111

Use style sheets

The pros and cons of style sheets

Style sheets are a flexible, powerful tool for laying out and
formatting Web pages. They allow every page in a site to get
display instructions from just one style sheet.
For instance, if you created a 1,000 page Web site using style
sheets, and you wanted to change the link color on every page,
you’d only need to change the link color on one style sheet.
Without style sheets, you’d have to change 1,000 individual
pages.
Style sheets can also create display effects. An example of this is
at [Link]. When you roll your cursor over links,
they become underlined—if you’re viewing the page with the
Internet Explorer browser.

That’s the disadvantage of using style sheets: they’re

interpreted differently by each browser. A style sheet-based
page viewed in Internet Explorer may look different than it
does in Netscape Navigator or other browsers.
112

Create a style sheet

1. Create a new page with file name [Link].

2. Save it in a new folder on the C:\ drive called CSS Site.

Tip: This is a style sheet, not a Web page. It’s a file that gives Web
pages formatting instructions, but isn’t ever seen. It contains no
HTML, and has a different file extension: .css rather than .html.

3. On the blank [Link] page, insert the following instruction:

.bodytext {font-family:"Courier New",
Courier, mono; font-size:11pt; font-
weight:bold; color:”#ff0000”; background-
color:#ccccff”}

Here are the component parts of the formatting instructions for

the .bodytext style:

.bodytext " The type of text to be formatted.

font- " The fonts in which the text should be

family displayed. First the computer looks for
Courier New, then Courier, then a
monospaced font.

The quotes in “Courier New” allow the

computer to read font names with spaces.

font-size " The size of the text. Unlike in HTML, style

sheets allow specific point sizes to be used.

font- " Bold or plain text.

weight

color " The color of the text.

background " Changes the color of the page area directly

-color behind the text.
 113

4. Save [Link]. It should look like this:

114

Apply a style sheet

1. In Notepad, create a new home page and put it the CSS Site
folder.
2. Title the home page “Style Sheet Demo Page.”

3. Below the <BODY> tag, type the text CSS Site. Make it a size 1
heading using <H1> tags:

<BODY>

<H1>CSS Site</H1>

4. In a new paragraph beneath it, type the sentence, “Cascading Style

Sheets are a powerful and flexible tool for formatting Web pages:”
<BODY>

<H1>CSS Site</H1>

<P>Cascading Style Sheets are a powerful and

flexible tool for formatting Web pages</P>

5. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:
 115

6. Below the <HEAD> tag, add a <LINK> tag that points to

[Link]:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<LINK REL="stylesheet" HREF="[Link]">
</HEAD>
<TITLE>Style Sheet Demo Page</TITLE>

7. In the <P> tag, add the CLASS attribute that points to the
.bodytext style:

<P CLASS="bodytext">Cascading Style Sheets

are a powerful and flexible tool for
formatting Web pages.</P>

8. Save the home page and view it in the browser. It should look like
this:

The home page’s <LINK REL="stylesheet"

HREF="[Link]"> tag referred to [Link] for
formatting instructions.

The paragraph on the page referred to the .bodytext style on

[Link] for formatting instructions.
116

Tip: To use the same stylesheet to format pages throughout a site, just
insert the same <LINK> tag in each Web page. For instance, if there
were 100 pages in the CSS Site, they could all contain the same
<LINK REL="stylesheet" HREF="[Link]"> tag
and format body text the same way by using the <P
CLASS=”bodytext”> tag.
 117

Create link effects with style sheets

“Cascading” style sheets

Style instructions can be contained within a Web page itself,
without referring to a separate style sheet. These instructions will
override those of the style sheet, hence the term “Cascading Style
Sheets:”
An instruction in a
page’s text
<FONT
COLOR=”#ff0000”>
This is red
text.</FONT>

overrides a style
instruction for the page
<STYLE
TYPE="text/css">
.greentext { color:
“#00ff00” }
</STYLE>

<BODY>
<P
CLASS=”greentext”>
This is green text.

which overrides a style

instruction for the site.
<LINK REL=”stylesheet”
HREF=”[Link]”>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

<P CLASS=”bodytext”>
This is blue text.

The following exercise employs an in-page style.

118

9. In the CSS Site folder, open the home page in Notepad.

10. Below the <HEAD> tag, replace this:
<LINK REL="stylesheet" HREF="[Link]">

with this:

<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
A:link {color:"#ff0000"; text-
decoration:none}
A:visited {color:"#ff0000"; text-decoration:
none}
A:hover {color:"#00ff00"; text-decoration:
underline}
-->
</STYLE>

11. Below the present paragraph, add a new paragraph:

A good resource for learning more about
style sheets is Webmonkey.

12. Link the word “Webmonkey” to the external site

[Link] Also, make the word Webmonkey
bold.

13. Save the page and refresh it in the browser. When you put your
cursor on the word Webmonkey, it should change from red and
plain to green and underlined.

"
 119

Practice: Using style sheets

1. Open [Link] in Notepad.

2. Add the following style instruction below the .bodytext style:

.heading {font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 48pt}

3. Save [Link].

4. Open the home page and replace:

<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
A:link {color:”#ff0000”; text-decoration:
none}
A:visited {color:”#ff0000”; text-decoration:
none}
A:hover {color:”#00ff00”; text-decoration:
underline}
-->
</STYLE>

with the original <LINK> tag:

<LINK REL="stylesheet" HREF="[Link]">

120

5. Add the CLASS=”heading” attribute to the <H1> tag.

<H1 CLASS=”heading”>

6. Save the home page and view it in the browser. It should look like
this:
 121

Upload sites to a Web server

FTP
FTP stands for “File Transfer Protocol, a way to transfer files
between computers over the Internet. Uploading a site to a
Web server requires special FTP software.

The most popular program used to upload and download Web

pages from a server is WS_FTP. The LE version is free and can
be downloaded at [Link] or [Link].

The Pro version costs $39.95, and can also be found at the Web
site of the company that makes it, [Link].
Below are instructions for uploading files using the free LE
version.

1. Download WS_FTP LE and install it.

2. Open the program. You should see an initial Session Properties

window. It should look like this:
122

3. Click the New button.

4. In the Profile Name textbox, enter the name of your upload

process, such as “Upload my Web site.”

5. In the Host Name/Address textbox, enter the name or IP address

of your Web server. It can be something like [Link],
[Link], or [Link].

Tip: Contact your Web server administrator to find out the Host
Name or IP Address of your Web server. The Web server
administrator can also supply your User ID and Password.

6. Leave the Host Type set at Automatic detect, and input your
User ID and Password.

7. Check the Save Pwd checkbox, then click the Apply button. The
Session Properties window should now look something like this:
 123

8. Click the OK button, and after your Web server is contacted the
WS_FTP window will appear. It should look something like this:

Your computer Web server

9. At the top of the left-hand Local System window, double-click on

the green arrow icon to go up in the file hierarchy. Double-click
it again to get to the C:\ drive.

10. Double-click on the folder containing your Web site to open it up.

11. In the right-hand Remote System window, double-click on the

public_html folder, or the folder that leads to your site on the
server.
124

12. You should now see your Web pages on your computer and on
your Web server. To send over your Web pages, highlight them,
then click on the button to send them to the Web server.

Tip: If there are already pages on your Web server, the new pages you
send over will replace the old versions with the same file name.
 125

Practice: Interactivity 

Create a new home page and site

1. Create a new home page titled “World Dances.” Save it at

C:\Dance.

2. Create a home page for the site that looks like this:

Tip: Get the graphics and text for this page at

[Link]/dancing.

3. At the bottom of this and every other page in the site, put an e-mail
link to info@[Link].
126

Create main section pages

1. Link the words American, Latin, and European in the navigation

bar to new main section pages on American, Latin, and European
dance, respectively.

Tip: Get the images and text for these pages at

[Link]/dancing.
The American dance page should look like this:

2. Make the Latin and European pages look consistent with the
American dance page.
 127

Create subsection pages

1. On the American dance page, link the words Lindy Hop and
Foxtrot to new subsection pages on those dances. The Lindy Hop
page should look like this:

Tip: Get the images and text for this and the other subsection pages at
[Link]/dancesub.

2. Make the Foxtrot page look consistent with the Lindy Hop page.
3. Create the subsection pages Tango, Merengue, and Salsa for the
Latin section.

4. Create the subsection pages Waltz and Contra Dancing for the
European section.
128

META tags

1. Include this META description in the home page:

Dances Around the World includes information about American,
Latin and European dances.

2. Include these META keywords in the home page:

dance, worldwide, tango, merengue, salsa, lindy hop, foxtrot,

waltz, contra dancing.
 129

Creating forms

1. On the home page, insert a form that looks like this:

2. When you’re done, preview the whole Web site in the browser. It
should look like the site at [Link]/worlddancing.
130
 131

Advanced Layout
In this section, you’ll learn how to:
• Employ background images
• Employ spacer GIFs
• Insert a horizontal rule
• Specify page margins

You’ll create a page that looks like this:

132

Employ background graphics

1. Open Notepad.

2. Create a new page with all necessary HTML tags and a two-cell
table:

Rows: 1
Cells: 2
Width: 100 Percent
Border: 0
Cell Padding: 18
Cell Spacing: 0

3. Save the file on your computer’s Desktop with the file name
[Link]. Title it Advanced Layout.

4. Give both cells in the table a dark blue background color

(#000099).

5. Make the first cell 10% wide, and the second cell 90% wide.
 133

6. Go to [Link]/advlayout/pics and save [Link] on

your computer’s Desktop. Insert it in the left-hand cell.

7. Go to [Link]/advlayout/pics and save [Link] on

your computer’s Desktop. Make it the background of the right-
hand cell using the BACKGROUND attribute:

<TD WIDTH=”90%” BGCOLOR="#000099"

BACKGROUND=”[Link]”>

8. In the right-hand cell, type the text, “The Magazine for People
Who Like Gadgets.”

9. Make the text arial, size +1, bold.

10. Color the text white.

11. Preview the page in the browser. It should look like this:

Tip: Notice the line towards the bottom of the cell where [Link]
begins repeating. It repeats because background graphics tile to fill all
available space in a cell. The cell is 136 pixels tall: 100 pixels for
[Link], plus 36 for Cell Padding (18 pixels at the top and bottom
of [Link]).

[Link] is only 123 pixels tall; therefore, there’s 13 pixels of space left
to fill. To fix this, use an image editing program like Photoshop,
Fireworks or Paint Shop pro to make the background image 136 pixels
tall.
134

12. Below the first table, insert a three-cell table with a width of 100%
and cellpadding of 4. It’s border and cellpadding should be 0. Make
the cells equal width and color them black.

13. In the first cell, enter the text, “Laptops.” In the second, “Cell
Phones,” and in the third, “PDAs.” Make the text white and center
it withing the cells.

14. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:
 135

Employ spacer GIFs

Why use spacer GIFs?

Spacer GIFs are used to stretch table cells to an exact width.
They are transparent, so they remain invisible regardless of the
cell’s background color.

A spacer GIF is used in the exercise below. It keeps the width of

the left-hand cell constant, regardless of the size or resolution
of the screen used to view it.

1. Go to [Link]/advlayout/pics and save [Link] on

your computer’s Desktop.

2. Below the top two tables, insert a third table just like the first table.

3. Insert [Link] in the left-hand cell. Give it a width of 100 and

height of 1.
<TD WIDTH="10%" BGCOLOR="#000099"><IMG
SRC="[Link]" WIDTH="100"
HEIGHT="1"></TD>

Tip: Most spacer GIFs are 1x1 pixel, which load very quickly online.
This one started out as 50x50 to make it easier to see and save.

4. Change the background color of the cell containing [Link] to

bright yellow (#ffff00).
136

5. Put text in the right-hand cell so the page looks like this when
viewed in the browser:

6. Set the browser to high resolution—1024x768 pixels. The page

should look like this:

Notice how the left-hand cells in the top and bottom tables stay the
same width, regardless of the width of the browser used to view
them.
 137

Insert a horizontal rule

1. Below the text in the right-hand cell, insert a <P> tag, then the tag
for a horizontal rule:

You can read our product reviews and also

offer your own opinions and observations on
high tech products.
<P>
<HR>

2. This generates a 3-D rule. To give it a cleaner look, add the

attributes NOSHADE and SIZE=”1” to the <HR> tag:

<HR NOSHADE SIZE=”1”>

3. Place text below the horizontal rule so it looks like this when
viewed in the browser:
138

Specify page margins

1. In the <BODY> tag, add the LEFTMARGIN, RIGHTMARGIN,
TOPMARGIN, MARGINWIDTH and MARGINHEIGHT attributes.
Give them all a value of zero:
<BODY LEFTMARGIN="0" RIGHTMARGIN="0"
TOPMARGIN="0" MARGINWIDTH="0"
MARGINHEIGHT="0">

Tip: The LEFTMARGIN, RIGHTMARGIN, and MARGINWIDTH

(along with TOPMARGIN and MARGINHEIGHT) attributes are
redundant to account for browser differences: Internet Explorer
recognizes LEFTMARGIN, RIGHTMARGIN and TOPMARGIN,
while Netscape Navigator recognizes MARGINWIDTH and
MARGINHEIGHT.

2. Specify a background color of white (#ffffff) for the cell

containing the page’s text. Specify a background color of dark blue
(#000099) for the page itself.
 139

3. Save the page and view it in the browser. When you’re done, it
should look like this:
140

Practice: Advanced layout

1. Give the navigation table (the one with Laptops, Cell Phones and
PDAs) five cells.

2. Put | characters (on the same key as the backslash \ character on

your keyboard) in the cells surrounding the one that contains Cell
Phones.

3. Give the cells with the | characters a width of 1%, and center the |
characters within the cells.

4. Color the | characters white. When you’re done, the page should
look like the one at [Link]/advancedlayout:
 141

Practical JavaScript
In this section, you’ll learn how to:
• Enable rollover graphics
• Open new windows
• Validate form input

You’ll incorporate functions that look like this:

Creating rollover graphic links

Opening new windows

Validating forms
142

Enable rollover graphics

What is JavaScript?
JavaScript is a programming language that sits in the HTML
code of a Web page. It’s not an industrial-strength language
like C++, Java, or Perl that’s used to program Web servers.
Rather, JavaScript is used to perform simple functions within
Web pages.

The following section shows you how to employ JavaScript’s

three most useful functions. It won’t teach you how to write
programs in JavaScript. Learning a programming language is
just that: learning a new language, which can take months or
years to master. Rather, you’ll learn how to obtain functioning
JavaScript scripts and modify them to do what you want.
This approach is fast and effective. There are thousands of
JavaScript scripts available for free on the Web that perform
anything you’d want to do in a Web page—all you have to do
is customize them.

Working with source code

Sometimes you’ll see a Web page and say to yourself, “I
wonder how they did that?” By viewing the page’s HTML and
JavaScript source code, you can find out.

You can also copy source code, paste it into pages you’re
working on, and modify it. Since that’s so easy to do, source
code for Web pages isn’t usually copyrighted.

The following exercise shows you how to copy, paste, and

modify an existing JavaScript to put rollover graphic links on
your Web pages.
 143

View source code

1. Create a folder on your hard drive called “rollover,” at C:/rollover.

2. Using the browser, go to [Link]/advancedlayout.

3. View the page’s source code by clicking View , then Source.

144

Copy source code

1. A copy of Notepad with advancedlayout(1) in the title bar will
appear. Select all the HTML, then copy it.

2. Create a new blank page in Notepad and paste all the copied
HTML code into it.

3. Save the page at C:\rollover as [Link].

4. Create a folder within the rollover folder called graphics:

C:\rollover\graphics.

5. Go to [Link]/rolloverpics. Capture all six graphics

there and save them in the graphics folder.
 145

6. Go to [Link]/rollover.
The graphics in the navigation bar are
rollover links:

7. View its source code and highlight all

the code between and including the
<SCRIPT> and </SCRIPT> tags.
It’s between the <HEAD> and
</HEAD> tags:

8. Copy this JavaScript code.

9. Paste the JavaScript code between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags
in [Link].
146

Modify source code

1. You’ll notice that the names of the graphics specified in the
JavaScript ([Link], [Link],
[Link] ) don’t correspond with the names of the
graphics in your graphics folder.

Modify the source code to specify the correct file names for your
graphics:

Graphics
that pop
up when
cursor is
on link

img1on = new Image();

[Link] = "graphics/[Link]";
img2on = new Image();
[Link] = "graphics/[Link]";
img3on = new Image();
[Link] = "graphics/[Link]";

img1off = new Image();

[Link] = "graphics/[Link]";
img2off = new Image();
[Link] = "graphics/[Link]";
img3off = new Image();
[Link] = "graphics/[Link]";

Graphics
that sit
there
when
cursor is
off link
 147

2. Go back to [Link]/rollover in the browser, and view

the page’s source code. Scroll down until you see the code for the
second table, the one that defines the black navigation bar.
3. Highlight and copy the anchor tag with the onMouseOver and
onMouseOut attributes, the closing anchor tag (</a>), and the
image tag inside them. It links to [Link]:

4. In [Link], get rid of the two cells with the | characters in them.
148

5. Paste the anchor tags and the image tag they enclose into
[Link] so they replace the word Laptops:

From this:
<TD WIDTH="33%"
BGCOLOR="#000000"><CENTER><FONT FACE="arial"
SIZE="-1"
COLOR="#ffffff">Laptops</FONT></CENTER></TD>

To this:

<TD WIDTH="33%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><CENTER><A

HREF = "[Link]"
onMouseOver = "imgOn('img1')"
onMouseOut = "imgOff('img1')"><IMG
SRC="graphics/[Link]" WIDTH="120"
HEIGHT="20" BORDER="0" name="img1"
alt="Laptops"></a></CENTER></TD>

6. Change the file name for the graphic being linked from
[Link] to your graphic: [Link].

7. Save [Link] and view it in the browser. It should work like

this:
 149

Practice: Enable rollover graphics

1. In the navigation bar of [Link], replace the words “Cell

Phones” and “PDAs” with rollover graphics. Use the graphics
[Link], [Link], [Link] and [Link].

Tip: Modify the anchor tag and image code in the first cell for use in
the other two.

<A HREF = "[Link]"

onMouseOver = "imgOn('img1')"
onMouseOut = "imgOff('img1')"><IMG
SRC="graphics/[Link]" WIDTH="120"
HEIGHT="20" BORDER="0" name="img1"
alt="Laptops"></A>

2. When you’re done, save the page and view it in the browser. It
should look like this:
150

Open new windows

1. In Notepad, open up the home page for the Travel West Web site:
[Link] at C:\Travel West.

2. In the browser, go to [Link]/newwindow.

3. View the source code for the page. Highlight and copy the
JavaScript code between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags.

4. Paste it below the <META> tags in [Link]:

 151

5. Change the JavaScript code so that it opens [Link] in the

new window:
From this:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
function Contact()
{
OpenNewWindow =
[Link]('[Link]','help','toolbar=n
o,location=0,directories=no,status=yes,menub
ar=0,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,width=300,
height=350');
}
</SCRIPT>

To this:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
function Contact()
{
OpenNewWindow =
[Link]('[Link]','help','toolbar=
no,location=0,directories=no,status=yes,menu
bar=0,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,width=300
,height=350');
}
</SCRIPT>

Tip: JavaScript is not HTML—it’s a programming language. It works

better without quotes around values. Also, don’t change the case of
words in a script that works. JavaScript is, unlike HTML, case-
sensitive.
152

6. View the source code again at [Link]/newwindow.

7. Find the anchor tag between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags that
refers to the JavaScript function Contact().
<FONT FACE="arial" SIZE="+1"><B><A
HREF="javascript:Contact()">Open new window
with form inside</A></B></FONT>

Tip: A function is a job performed by a program. The one above is

named Contact(). Its job is to open the window that allows people
to contact Visibooks.

8. Copy the anchor tag, then paste it into [Link] so it links the
second sentence to the

From this:
<A HREF="[Link]">Get more information
about Western travel mailed to you</A>

To this:
<A HREF="javascript:Contact()">Get more
information about Western travel mailed to
you</A>

9. Save [Link] and view it in the browser.

 153

10. Click on the linked sentence. A new window should pop up with
the form inside:

Tip: To change the size and appearance of the window that pops up,
change the values after [Link]:

OpenNewWindow =
[Link]('[Link]','help','toolbar=n
o,
location=0,directories=no,status=yes,menubar
=0,
scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,
width=300,height=350')

Change to
status=no
Change width and
to get rid of
height values to the status
change size of bar at the
window in pixels
bottom of
the window
154

Validate form input

See how it works
1. In Notepad, open [Link] in the Travel West site.

2. In the browser, go to [Link]/validate.

3. Click on the Send me info button. When you do, an alert window
should appear. When you enter your name and click the button,
another alert window should appear that reads, “Please input
your address.” This also works with the e-mail input.
 155

Insert the validation script

1. View the source of the page at [Link]/validate, and
copy the JavaScript between the <HEAD> tags:

<script> Comment
tags hide
<!-- the script
function validate() from older,
non-
{ JavaScript
if ([Link]=="") capable
{ browsers
so they
alert ("Please input your name.") don’t
return false display it
}
if ([Link]=="")
{
alert ("Please input your address.")
return false
}
if ([Link]=="")
{
alert ("Please input your e-mail address.")
return false
}
}
//-->
</script>

Tip:Here’s a diagram that explains the if statement variables:


if ([Link]=="")

Stands for Name of Identifies Denotes

page itself form input field blank field

2. Paste it between the <HEAD> tags in [Link].

156

Modify the <FORM> tag

1. Add a NAME attribute to the <FORM> tag. Name the form “info:”

<FORM NAME="info" METHOD=”POST”

action="[Link]
bin/[Link]">

2. Add the attribute ONSUBMIT to the <FORM> tag. Tell the form
that when the submit button is clicked, perform the function
return validate():

<FORM NAME="info" METHOD=”POST”

ONSUBMIT="return validate()"
action="[Link]
bin/[Link]">

3. Save the page. Notice how the JavaScript’s if statement input

variables have the same name as the form’s input fields:
<script> <TABLE WIDTH=”50%”
<!-- CELLPADDING=”4”
function validate() BORDER=”0”><TR><TD
{ WIDTH=”5%”><P
if ([Link]=="") ALIGN=”right”>Name:</TD>
{ <TD WIDTH=”45%”> <INPUT
alert ("Please input your name.") TYPE=” text” NAME="name"
return false SIZE=”20”> </TD></TR><TR>
} <TD><P ALIGN=”right”>Address:</TD>
if ([Link]=="") <TD> <INPUT TYPE=TEXT
{ NAME="address" SIZE=”20”>
alert ("Please input your address.") </TD></TR><TR>
return false <TD><P ALIGN=”right”>E-
} mail:</TD><TD> <INPUT TYPE=”text”
if ([Link]=="") NAME="email " SIZE=”20”>
{ </TD></TR><TR><TD></TD><TD> <INPUT
alert ("Please input your e-mail address.") TYPE=”submit” VALUE="Send me
return false info"> </TD></TR></TABLE>
}
}
//-->
</script>

4. View [Link] in the browser. It should look and work like

the form at [Link]/validate.
 157

Additional Resources

Webmonkey ([Link])
A how-to site for people building Web sites, filled with excellent
tutorials and resources.

EchoEcho ([Link])
Even more tutorials than Webmonkey, and all clear and detailed.
Contains helpful statistics on browser usage, monitor settings,
platforms, and other technology used to view Web pages.

Project Cool ([Link])

Knowledge, guidance and inspiration for people building Web sites. It
includes a good style sheet guide at
[Link]/developer/reference/css_style.html.

Web Review ([Link])

A sharp and informative site for Web developers, with sections on
Authoring, Design, Development, E-Commerce, Multimedia, and
Back-End Web server Programming.

HTML Help ([Link])

Good resource site with lots of information on style sheets and HTML
technical standards. Includes online tools such as an HTML validator,
link checker, and ASCII character guide.

HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide (book)

Chuck Musciano, Bill Kennedy, O’Reilly; ISBN: 059600026X
Like most O’Reilly books, geared towards programmers. A
comprehensive resource for HTML, but better yet, a guide to making
HTML work with XML—the “next big thing” in Web development.

Voodoo’s Introduction to JavaScript ([Link]-

mannheim/~skoch/js/[Link])
One of the original JavaScript tutorials, and still excellent. Explains the
“why” as well as the “how” of programming in JavaScript.

HomeSite
The mother of all HTML editing programs. Allows search-and-replace
through entire sites, and includes many other useful features.
Download a 30-day trial version at [Link].
158
 159

HTML Tag Chart

Task Tag Example

Set up a Web page <HTML> <HTML>

<HEAD></HEAD>
<TITLE></TITLE> <HEAD>
<BODY></BODY> Signature, Meta tags, JavaScript,
</HTML> Style sheets go here
</HEAD>

<TITLE>
The page’s title goes here
</TITLE>

<BODY>
Whatever you want to appear on the
screen goes here
</BODY>

</HTML>

Format text

Create a paragraph <P> This is a paragraph.

Align paragraph right; center <P ALIGN=”right” ></P> This paragraph is centered
paragraph in this cell by using the
<P ALIGN=”center” ></P> ALIGN attribute.

Make text bold <B></B> This text is bold.

Indent text <UL></UL> This text is indented

Create <UL> • List item

bulleted list <LI> • List item
</UL>

Create numbered list <OL> 1. Item #1

<LI> 2. Item #2
</OL>
160

Task Tag Example

Create a link

Link to a page within site <A HREF=”[Link]”></A> This sentence is linked to a page
about X topic.

Create an e-mail link <A you@[Link]

HREF=“ [Link] ></A>

Link to an external page <A This sentence is linked to

HREF=“[Link] ></A> [Link].

Insert a graphic

Insert graphic <IMG SRC=”[Link]”>

Align a graphic right or left <IMG SRC=”[Link]” ALIGN=”right” > Text flows in
to the side of the graphic
<IMG SRC=”[Link]” ALIGN=”left” > when it’s aligned right or left.

Add vertical, horizontal space <IMG SRC=”[Link]” VSPACE=”x” > Creates vertical and horizontal
around a graphic space around graphic that
<IMG SRC=”[Link]” HSPACE=”x” > nothing can occupy.

Remove/Add border <IMG SRC=”[Link]” BORDER=”0” >

<IMG SRC=”[Link]” BORDER=”1” >

Insert horizontal rule

Create rule <HR>

Remove 3-D effect, specify <HR NOSHADE SIZE=”1” >

size
 161

Task Tag Example

Change whole page

Change background color <BODY BGCOLOR=”#cccccc” > Page with grey background

Change link, visited link colors <BODY LINK=”#ff0000” Red link

VLINK=”#00ff00” >
Green link

Change page margins <BODY Text and graphics on page

TOPMARGIN=”0” go right to its edges.
LEFTMARGIN=”0”
RIGHTMARGIN=”0”
MARGINWIDTH=”0”
MARGINHEIGHT=”0” >

Create a table

Insert table <TABLE>

<TR>
<TD></TD>
<TD></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

Specify widths <TABLE WIDTH=”100%” > 20% 80%

<TR>
<TD WIDTH=”20%” >
<TD WIDTH=”80%” >
</TR>
</TABLE>

Specify border <TABLE BORDER=”0” >

Pad cells <TABLE CELLPADDING=”16” >

Cell contents 16 pixels from
are inset edge of cells

Space cells <TABLE CELLSPACING=”24” > Cells are by 24 pixels

separated
162

Task Tag Example

Change cell background color <TD BGCOLOR=”#000000>

Insert background image in cell <TD BACKGROUND=”[Link]”>

Employ frames

Create a frameset <HTML>

<HEAD></HEAD>
<TITLE> </TITLE>
<FRAMESET ROWS="50,*">
<FRAME NAME="topframe"
SRC="[Link]">
<FRAME NAME="bottomframe"
SRC="[Link]">
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>

Include forms

Establish form <FORM>

Insert textbox <FORM>

<INPUT TYPE=”text” >

Specify size <INPUT TYPE=”text” SIZE=”20” >

Specify name <INPUT NAME=”x” >

Insert checkbox <INPUT TYPE=”checkbox” >

Insert radio buttons <INPUT TYPE=”radio” >

Make only one clickable <INPUT TYPE=”radio”

NAME=”radiobut”
VALUE=”radio1” >

<INPUT TYPE=”radio”
NAME=”radiobut”
VALUE=”radio2” >
 163

Task Tag Example

Insert drop-down list <SELECT NAME="x"> <SELECT NAME="x">

<OPTION>First Choice</OPTION>
<OPTION></OPTION> <OPTION>Second Choice</OPTION>
<OPTION>Third Choice</OPTION>
<OPTION></OPTION> </SELECT>

<OPTION></OPTION>

</SELECT>

Insert comment field <TEXTAREA NAME="x" COLS="22"

rows="8"></TEXTAREA>

Insert submit button <INPUT TYPE=”submit”>

Change text on button <INPUT TYPE=”submit”

VALUE=”your text here” >
164

Task Tag Example

Employ style sheets

Create style sheet Save file with .css extension. [Link]

Create style .stylename { }

Specify font family .stylename {

font-family:”arial,sans-serif” }

Specify font size .stylename {

font-size:”32pt” }

Specify font weight .stylename {

font-wight:”bold” }

Specify font color .stylename {

color:”#0000ff” }

Specify background color .stylename {

background-color:”#cccc99” }

Link to a style sheet <LINK REL=”stylesheet”

HREF=”[Link]”>

Apply a style <P class=”stylename”>

<H2 class=”stylename”>

Create rollover effects A:hover {

color:"#00ff00";
text-decoration: underline }
 165

Index
Browser
Internet Explorer .................................................................................................11
Netscape Communicator....................................................................................11
viewing pages .......................................................................................................11
Colors
hexadecimal..........................................................................................................50
link.........................................................................................................................52
page.......................................................................................................................50
table cells...............................................................................................................65
Forms..............................................................................................................................102
action...................................................................................................................108
validation............................................................................................................154
Frames..............................................................................................................................91
frameset ................................................................................................................92
Graphics
aligning .................................................................................................................38
background ........................................................................................................132
capturing...............................................................................................................34
copyright...............................................................................................................35
formatting.............................................................................................................41
inserting ................................................................................................................36
rollover................................................................................................................142
spacers.................................................................................................................135
using as links ........................................................................................................47
Home Page
creating ...................................................................................................................4
file name .................................................................................................................7
Horizontal Rule ............................................................................................................137
JavaScript.......................................................................................................................141
form validation..................................................................................................155
Open New Window...........................................................................................150
programming.....................................................................................................142
rollovers..............................................................................................................149
Links
e-mail ....................................................................................................................31
external sites .........................................................................................................33
target .....................................................................................................................94
to new page...........................................................................................................25
Navigation
bars........................................................................................................................76
clues.......................................................................................................................27
system....................................................................................................................44
you are here..........................................................................................................46
166

Software
Notepad...................................................................................................................4
Source Code...................................................................................................................143
copying................................................................................................................144
modifying............................................................................................................146
Style Sheets.....................................................................................................................111
applying...............................................................................................................114
creating................................................................................................................112
link effects ...........................................................................................................117
Tables................................................................................................................................58
border....................................................................................................................62
creating..................................................................................................................59
formatting.............................................................................................................63
tables within..........................................................................................................88
width......................................................................................................................63
Tag
<A> (anchor).......................................................................................................28
<BODY>.................................................................................................................9
<FONT>...............................................................................................................15
<HEAD>.................................................................................................................7
<HTML>................................................................................................................4
<IMG>..................................................................................................................39
<META>.............................................................................................................100
<P>........................................................................................................................19
<TABLE>..............................................................................................................59
<TITLE>.................................................................................................................9
Text
aligning..................................................................................................................19
center ing ...............................................................................................................77
changing color ......................................................................................................18
changing fonts......................................................................................................14
changing size.........................................................................................................16
changing weight ...................................................................................................17
creating lists..........................................................................................................23
indenting...............................................................................................................21
Web fonts..............................................................................................................15
Uploading.......................................................................................................................121
FTP ......................................................................................................................121
Web Page
consistent layout ..................................................................................................85
layout.....................................................................................................................58
margins................................................................................................................138
proper file names .................................................................................................26
title...........................................................................................................................8
Web Server.....................................................................................................................123