week 2-intro-html
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
22-3375 Web Design I // Columbia College Chicago
Introductions / HTML pt1
shawncalvert.com/webdesign-1 !
TO DOdownload assignments folder,
type out answers to ex1/questions.txt
Q.
Name
Major
HTML/CSS experience
What are some things you hope to accomplish this semester (outside this class)?
Why you should want to succeed in this class:
“Graphic Design” is not media-speci!c
Build on your existing skills
Dif!culty of learning these skills outside of a structured environment
More jobs, better pay
It really is fun and empowering to code!
How you will succeed this class:
Take it week-by-week
Be an active learner: don’t just copy and paste, ask lots of questions, make sure you understand the
underlying concepts, and be open to changing your assumptions about web design and coding
If you miss classes, be serious about contacting me (or classmates) and catching up on your work
Allow yourself time to get frustrated and start over on your assignments
Internet
A global network of interconnected computers.
WWW
!The web is just one service of the internet.
!It is system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text,
images, videos, and other multimedia, and navigate between them via hyperlinks.
URL / DNS / IP / HTTP
User types a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) into a browser, e.g., www.amazon.com
!
The URL is sent to a DNS (Domain Name Service), which translates the URL into an IP address, e.g.,
18.12.23.1 !
The correct server is found through the IP address, which is sent an HTTP request (get), and
returns the requested html pages, images, etc, back to the browser
!
Server-side / Client-side
Client-side coding is what we will be doing in this class, using HTML, CSS and Javascript. This
just means that our code will be downloaded from the server and then compiled entirely in
the browser.
!
!SERVERpage.html
asp
.net
java
etc
php
!!!BROWSER
style.css
script.js
You do not need any special software to create html, css or javascript files, just a plain text editor. I
recommend using bbedit in class. Check out the resources page on the class site for other options.
The file extension defines the type of language of the file (file.html, file.css, file.js).
Your html/css/js files do not need to be on a server to be opened in a browser.
!
!
Rich Text to Plain Text
Just as with InDesign, when you receive text from someone that has already been formatted (e.g. from Word), you should always paste that text into TextEdit, and convert to plain text.
Rich Text to Plain Text
In TextEdit, go to ‘Format’ to ‘Make Plain Text.’
Rich Text to Plain Text
Copy and paste the plain text into your HTML and start typing in tags to recreate the document structure.
Let’s get started!
HTML
Hyper Text +
Markup Language
Hyper Text
Markup Language
A markup language is a set of markup tags.
The purpose of the tags are to describe page content.
Markup Language
Without any markup to give your content structure, the browser renders unformatted and unstyled text, also known as “plain text”.
Markup Language
HTML tags give structure and meaning to your content. “Semantic markup” refers to the use of meaningful tags to describe content (e.g. using header tags for header content).
Markup Language
Once your content is marked up, the browser applies built-in default styles to the tags. While you can override these styles with css, your marked up, non-css styled document should be readable and have a clear hierarchy.
HTML Elements
Anatomy of an Element
An HTML element includes both the HTML tag and everything between
the tag (the content).
<tag>Content</tag>
Anatomy of an Element
The element tag gives the content structure and meaning.
<tag>Content</tag>
Anatomy of an Element
Tags normally come in pairs. The first tag is the start tag, and the second
tag is the end tag.
<tag>Content</tag>
Anatomy of an Element
HTML has a defined set of tag names (also called keywords) that
the browser understands.
<h1>Main Headline</h1>
Anatomy of an Element
Most elements can have attributes, which provides additional informatin
about the element.
<html lang=”en”></html>
Anatomy of an Element
Attributes always follow the sameformat: name=”value”. You can use
either single or double quotes.
<div class=”left-nav”></div>
Tags: Basic Structure
doctype
html
head
body
<!DOCTYPE html>
EXCEPTION
The doctype is not actually a tag, but a declaration, telling the browser what kind of html you are using. The
doctype above declares HTML 5.
<html></html> STRUCTURE
The <html> element defines the whole HTML document.
<head></head>
The <head> element contains special elements that instruct the browser
where to find stylesheets, provide meta info, and more.
<html lang=”en”></html>STRUCTURE
The <html> element should have a “lang” attribute to tell the browser what language
your page is written in.
<body></body>
The <body> element contains the document content (what is shown
inside the browser window).
Nesting
The use of our first three tags (html, head and body), introduces and important concept: Nesting, which is when tags “wrap” other tags. When you create markup, you should indicate nesting by indenting the nested tags with 2 spaces (preferred) or a tab.
Document Hierarchy: Parents, children and siblings
Just as in a genealogy tree, the family hierarchy is described in terms of relationships. All elements in the document have a parent (up to ‘document’, which is at the top), and may have children (nested inside) or siblings (placed alongside).
<parent x>
<child and sibling y> </child and sibling y>
<child and sibling z> </child and sibling z>
</parent x>
Tags: Head Tags
title base meta link
script style
<title></title> STRUCTURE
The title element:• defines a title in the browser toolbar, • provides a title for the page when it is added to favorites • displays a title for the page in search engine results.
<title>My Portfolio</title>EXAMPLE
<meta>STRUCTURE
The <meta> tag provides metadata about the HTML document. Metadata will not be displayed on the page, but
will be machine readable.
<meta charset="utf-8"> STRUCTURE
The <meta> is a single tag — it does not require a closing tag.
EXAMPLE
<link>STRUCTURE
The <link> tag defines the relationship between a document
and an external resource. It is a single tag.
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css">
STRUCTURE
In the example above, the <link> tag has three attributes: rel (relationship), type, and href (hypertext reference).
EXAMPLE
Tags: Headings
<h1></h1> through
<h6></h6>
The header elements are block-leveltags that give you the ability to assign semantic weight (importance) to your
headlines.
EXAMPLE
Tags: Images
<img> STRUCTURE
The <img> element is a single, inline tag that works anywhere in the body
to insert a jpg, png, svg or gif file.
The <img> tag is empty; it requires a src (source) attribute to
“pull in” the image into the page. It does not require an “alt” tag, but if the image
is essential to the content (e.g. not a background or decorative element), it
should have one.
NOTE
<img src="images/logo.gif" alt=”Acme Corp”>
STRUCTURE
All <img> tags should also contain analt attribute. This is “alternate” text
that will appear if for some reason the image link is broken or the file is unavailable.
EXAMPLE
Tags: Paragraphs
<p></p>STRUCTURE
The <p> element is a block-level tag that contains default space-before and
space-after properties (making indention unnecessary.)
EXAMPLE
Tags: Lists
<ul>
<ol>
<dl>
List tags are always used in nested pairs. !
The wrapping tags define the list type, and indicate where the list series begins
and ends.
NOTE
<ul> <li></li>
</ul>STRUCTURE
The <ul> (unordered list) element is a block-level tag that wraps a series of <li> (list item) elements. The default property
for the list items is a bullet.
EXAMPLE
<ol> <li></li>
</ol>STRUCTURE
The <ol> (ordered list) element is a block-level tag that wraps a series of <li> (list item) elements. The default property
for the list items is decimal (1, 2, 3).
EXAMPLE
Tags: Anchors (linking)
<a></a> STRUCTURE
The <a> element is an inline tag that works anywhere in the
body to create a hyperlink.
EXAMPLE
<a href="aboutme.html">About Me</a>
<a> tags are always used in pairs, wrapping the content you want to activate
as a link. If you use an absolute URL, it must start with “http://”.
<a href="http://www.colum.edu">My school</a>
Relative vs Absolute links
Whenever you link to a file with an ‘href‘ (hypertext reference ) or ‘src’ (source) attribute, you are providing the browser and address to the resource. That address can be relative or absolute.
root directory (www.mysite.com)
index.html
images
logo.png
report.pdf
stylesheet.css
!
Relative vs Absolute links
A relative link is relative to the resource’s location in its directory. It is like saying “the restaurant is 2 blocks away.” In the example below, if ‘logo.png‘ were linked from the homepage (index.html), the tag would be:
<img src=”images/logo.png”>
root directory (www.mysite.com)
index.html
images
logo.png
report.pdf
stylesheet.css
!
Relative vs Absolute links
An absolute link is the full address to the resource’s location in the entire web. It is like saying “the restaurant is at 222 West Grand, Chicago IL 60625.”
<img src=”http://www.mysite.com/images/logo.png”>
root directory (www.mysite.com)
index.html
images
logo.png
report.pdf
stylesheet.css
!
Where did those text styles come from?
All browsers have what is called a “client stylesheet” that applies formatting
to your html elements, such as text size, font, color, margins, line-height, and much more.
Your custom css overrides some of these default styles.
But it is ugly!
Before we begin learning how to add visual design to our pages, it is crucial
that we understand how to create a foundation of solid structural design.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol
Local(your computer) Host
(www)
FTP Software
All premium code editors have ftp built in, which allows you to sync your project files to the server easily.
You will often need to post or download files from the server manually. For this you can use dedicated ftp software:
Fetch, Transmit and FileZilla & Fireftp (both free) are all good choices for Mac.
WALKTHROUGH: Set up a project in bbedit
Wordpress
CMS
A Content Management System (CMS) is a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content on a web site as well as maintenance from a central page.
index.php database
Dynamic CMS
WALKTHROUGH: Set up a theme in Wordpress
WALKTHROUGH: Create a post in Wordpress