HTML Reference Pages Listing

Alex's 30-Second HTML Primer

Maybe you can't learn everything in 30 seconds, but knowledge is an inverted pyramid. Here's the part that holds everything else up.

 

Other: We're sorry, all the other references, the ones we compiled on this page in year 2000, have evaporated. But, there are more primers and references on the web now than ever before. A Google Search will keep you busy until the next century. Below is one we liked, "Getting Started With HTML". Following that, in "Getting Serious" we've added a section to help you help yourself, without having to take somebody else's word for it.

Getting Started With HTML

10-minute guide by Dave Raggett, last revised 2/13/2002 (!). Covers 9-1/2 minutes more than my 30-second guide :-) and offers references to more advanced topics. Sponsored by W3C, The Document Formats Domain. Bookmark that page.

Getting Serious

In my experience with computer users and clubs trying to put up a web page, almost everybody who has contacted me for advice appeared to believe that, with a few well-chosen simple words of advice, they would get back on track and everything would be fine. The Internet Age and software marketers have misled people into believing that no knowledge of HTML is necessary to produce pleasing, functional pages.

Yes, some knowledge is necessary.

In the first place, HTML isn't that hard. But you do need to spend some time with it before dumping your handiwork upon an unsuspecting general public. If you got a free copy of Adobe GoLive, and you got in over your head with Tables and now have a scrambled mess because PageMill can't clean up your code, and you didn't save a copy of the original -- well, guess what. No one wants to hear from you.

If the biggest book in your house is TV Guide, you may need an attitude adjustment. You can't hold the whole of web lore in your head. Your friends who have learned HTML are going to get sick of questions that reveal that the asker has done no homework at all. When people hear "simple" questions that are just loaded with mistaken assumptions and confusion, they are only going to wish they were somewhere else.

You can get off to a good start or a wrong start, so take some advice from professionals and buy one of their books.

• Log in to Amazon.com and do a search of Books for search word HTML. You will get 825 hits. I'm not recommending a particular selection because one size doesn't fit all. Besides, I got started with books that aren't even listed any more.
• You could do worse than just ordering the SAMS or "Dummies" selection.
• For advanced references, log into O'Reilly's books at Oreilly.com. They are the leading edge on internet-related technical references. Look in the section for Web & Internet Center.
• HTML isn't that complicated. You only need one book to start with.
• Buy one book and use it as a reference
• Start coding the examples. I recommend coding in plain text (simpletext or notepad) before graduating to an HTML "engine" such as Adobe GoLive.
• You can view your handiwork with your browser on your own hard drive
• You need a website. We are not going to get into that here.
• Start with simple, plain, well laid out HTML pages with lots of white space.
• Don't add features you don't understand or can't fix. Practice with them on your hard drive and add advanced features later.
• See our page "List Apps" for a listing of everything we currently use and have liked in the past.

Good luck! Plan your project out in advance - pencil and paper still works! If you don't try to do too much too fast, you'll find HTML is a pleasing and easy way to publish work on the web.