The Bare Bones Guide to HTML
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Credit where credit is due
--------------------------------------------------
Many people have provided suggestions and assistance on earlier versions,
including:
* Jutta Degener * R. Alan Monroe
* Henry Churchyard * Ann Lynnworth
* John Berkin * Mike Kelsey
* Larry Katz * Russ Allbery
* N.J. Taber *
[email protected]
* Dean Hedman * Susan Hagan
* Nick Galbreath * John Van Essen
| UP to Gateway Page || Plain Text | Formatted || Kevin's Home Page |
What is unique about this guide
--------------------------------------------------
Several people have created excellent HTML guides and made them available
on the Web -- who needs another one?
This document is designed to serve a particular niche. It is intended as a
concise "cheat sheet" that you can use to look up the correct forms of tags
as you are creating Web pages. Other HTML guides provide significantly more
descriptive material about how to use particular tags or how HTML works in
general. If you are a beginner, you might try one of those guides first.
There are also several style guides that focus more on how to write pages
that look good and work on different browsers. I encourage you to read one
or more of them if you are planning on creating Web pages; far too many
people ignore the fact that their pages are going to be read by other
people and that there are better and worse ways of doing things.
My WWW Help Page has links to numerous other sites that provide information
on HTML and Web page design. It's a good place to start if you have
specific questions that go beyond the "bare bones" information provided
here.
This guide is designed for people who know enough not to need step-by-step
instructions, but who haven't memorized the exact format of every HTML tag
yet. If you want a "quick reference" that you can glance at without having
to read through additional descriptive material, this guide is for you.
| UP to Gateway Page || Plain Text | Formatted || Kevin's Home Page |
Which tags are included
--------------------------------------------------
The other distinguishing aspect of this guide is what it includes. The Bare
Bones Guide to HTML is intended to include all of the tags in common usage
on Web pages today. Specifically, the Guide lists the following:
* HTML 3.2 tags
* Netscape extensions to HTML
The development of HTML has been a confusing process, as attempts to adopt
formal standards have often been overrun by developments in the
marketplace. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the official standards
body for HTML. In May 1996, W3C released the HTML 3.2 draft, which was
designed to reflect and standardize generally-accepted practices at that
time.
In its Position Statement on HTML, W3C recommends that information
providers use the HTML 3.2 specification. Therefore, version 3.0 of the
Bare Bones Guide to HTML includes all the HTML 3.2 tags, whether they were
originally introduced as part of the HTML 2.0 or HTML 3.0 proposals, or as
Netscape extensions to HTML. The current versions of major browsers should
support all, or virtually all, these tags.
I have also included all of the Netscape tags introduced with Netscape
Navigator up to version 3.0b5, with the exception of some server
interaction tags such as server push animation. Some of these extensions
will not display properly if people viewing your pages are using another
browser, so you should think about your audience before deciding whether to
use them.
| UP to Gateway Page || Plain Text | Formatted || Kevin's Home Page |
FORMATTING OF THIS DOCUMENT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For clarity, I have separated out different attributes that can be applied
to the same tag onto separate lines. Generally, multiple attributes can be
combined in the same tag.
Tags are listed in upper case for ease of reading, although most tags are
not case sensitive.
SYMBOLS USED
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
URL URL of an external file (or just file name if in the same directory)
? Arbitrary number (i.e. <H?> means <H1>, <H2>, <H3>, etc.)
% Arbitrary percentage (i.e. <hr align=left width="%>" means <hr align=left width="50%>", etc.)
*** Arbitrary text (i.e. ALT="***" means fill in with text)
$$$$$$ Arbitrary hex (i.e. BGCOLOR="#$$$$$$" means BGCOLOR="#00FF1C", etc.)
,,, Comma-delimited (i.e. COORDS=",,," means COORDS="0,0,50,50", etc.)
| Alternatives (i.e. ALIGN=LEFT|RIGHT|CENTER means pick one of these)
[*] Link to an annotation
COMPATIBILITY
(remember, HTML is evolving and browser implementations vary)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
(no notation) In the HTML 3.2 spec.; should work on current browsers
N1.0 Netscape extension introduced with Navigator version 1.0
N1.1 Netscape extension introduced with Navigator version 1.1
N2.0 Netscape extension introduced with Navigator version 2.0
N3.0b Netscape extension introduced with Navigator version 3.0 beta
| UP to Gateway Page || Plain Text | Formatted || Kevin's Home Page |
Version History
--------------------------------------------------
Version 3.0 -- July 21, 1996.
* Updated everything to conform to the HTML 3.2 specification.
* Added a new section for Java tags supported by HTML 3.2
* Revised the introductory material and annotations.
* Redesigned the layout of the "tables" version, in order to make it
easier to read.
* All major browsers now support tables, so to save time I have decided
to eliminate the separate non-table "HTML" version of the Guide, and
to rename the "tables" version as the "formatted" version. Users who
cannot view this version can still use the "plain text" version.
* Added the new tags implemented by beta versions of Netscape Navigator
3.0 up to 3.0b5, including:
o table cell colors
o multi-column text
o spacers
o frame border control
o strikeout via the <S> tag and underlining via the <U> tag. These
were in HTML 3.0 but not HTML 3.2, so I list them as Netscape
extensions.
o the FACE attribute for the <FONT> tag (originally a Microsoft
extension)
* Fixed more typos.
Version 2.0 -- October 7, 1995. Lots of changes and corrections in this
version.
* Rewrote the introductory material and compatibility table language
* Added + notation for Netscape extensions that have been adopted by
most major browsers. This notation is by nature approximate; it
represents my judgment about which tags have are widely supported even
though they are not (and may never be) in HTML 3.0.
* Added ,,, notation in table of symbols for comma-delimited lists.
* Restructured the Hard Formatting and Soft Formatting sections into
Presentation Formatting and Structural Definition. This change makes
clear the important distinction between presentation-based and
structural markup. A few tags have been moved around as a result of
this change, and the <ADDRESS> tag has been moved up from
Miscellaneous into Structural Definition.
* Eliminated the Alignment section by shifting the tags listed there
into either Structural Definition or Presentation Formatting. Although
this results in the Netscape <CENTER> tag being split up from the
other alignment tags, it allows the alignment attributes of tags such
as <P> and <H?> to be associated with the underlying tags they operate
on. This change is consistent with the HTML 3.0 philosophy of handling
alignment through attributes to existing tags rather than through
dedicated tags.
* Added listing for Netscape client pull animation (this has been around
since Netscape 1.1, but was not listed in the Guide).
* Support for new Netscape and HTML 3.0 tags implemented in Netscape
2.0:
o Frames (added a whole new section)
o Embedded Objects (in Links and Graphics)
o Divisions (in Structural Definition)
o Font Color (in Presentation Formatting)
o Big/Small font size (in Structural Definition)
o Superscript/Subscript (in Presentation Formatting)
o File Upload (in Forms)
o Text wrap (in Forms)
o Target Windows (in Links and Graphics) and Base Target (in
Miscellaneous)
o Client-side imagemaps (in Links and Graphics)
* Removed <XMP> tag, because I have been convinced that it is archaic.
* Moved prologue tags to Miscellaneous section, to indicate that they
are not required and reduce confusion.
* Fixed listing for <NOBR> container by adding a closing tag
* Changed "outline type" to "numbering type" for Netscape extension to
ordered lists, in order to avoid confusion about what this attribute
does.
* Changed wording of <P> tag description to indicate that it is
"usually" rendered as a double return.
* Changed notation for hex triplet from $$$ to $$$$$$ to indicate that
six characters are required to reference the three hex values.
* improved consistency of column alignment in the text version.
Version 1.22 -- August 18, 1995. Added a tag and some attributes that had
been accidentally omitted from the forms section, and corrected the listing
of which color tags are in the HTML 3.0 spec.
Version 1.21 -- July 26, 1995. Removed the archaic <NEXTID> tag and added
some annotations to the HTML and table versions.
Version 1.2 -- July 25, 1995. Several revisions to improve compliance with
the official HTML specifications, and to acknowledge more widespread
implementation of certain HTML 3.0 tags.
Version 1.1 -- July 19, 1995. Cleaned up a number of things in the
introductory material, and correctly specified the ISO 8859-1 character set
instead of ASCII.
Version 1.03 -- July 12, 1995. Updated copyright notices to eliminate
confusion with Bare Bones Software. Added Netscape relative font sizing
tag, and changed the link to the list of ASCII symbol codes.
Version 1.02 -- April 24, 1995. Corrected some additional typos, fixed the
link to this version history, and added the standard copyright and
registered TM codes to go along with the Netscape versions.
Version 1.01 -- April 11, 1995. Fixed a couple minor typos and ambiguities
pointed out by helpful folks, including some errors in the list tags
section.
Version 1.0 HTML -- April 6, 1995. Has some additional introductory
material, but the text is otherwise identical to version 1.0. Formatted for
WWW viewing, with assistance from John Berkin.
Version 1.0 -- April 2, 1995. Corrected some errors pointed out by other
people, and made some minor revisions to the introduction and the
formatting of certain sections.
Version 0.9b -- March 30, 1995. First public version. Posted on
comp.infosystems.www.providers.
| UP to Gateway Page || Plain Text | Formatted || Kevin's Home Page |
Copyright ©1995, 1996 Kevin Werbach.
Last updated July 21, 1996.
