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HTML Introduction

Next Technology October 12, 2023

HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages.


What is HTML?

  • HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
  • HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages
  • HTML describes the structure of a Web page
  • HTML consists of a series of elements
  • HTML elements tell the browser how to display the content
  • HTML elements label pieces of content such as “this is a heading”, “this is a paragraph”, “this is a link”, etc.

A Simple HTML Document

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
</head>
<body>

<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>

</body>
</html>

Example Explained

  • The <!DOCTYPE html> declaration defines that this document is an HTML5 document
  • The <html> element is the root element of an HTML page
  • The <head> element contains meta information about the HTML page
  • The <title> element specifies a title for the HTML page (which is shown in the browser’s title bar or in the page’s tab)
  • The <body> element defines the document’s body, and is a container for all the visible contents, such as headings, paragraphs, images, hyperlinks, tables, lists, etc.
  • The <h1> element defines a large heading
  • The <p> element defines a paragraph

What is an HTML Element?

An HTML element is defined by a start tag, some content, and an end tag:

<tagname> Content goes here… </tagname>

The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:

<h1>My First Heading</h1>

<p>My first paragraph.</p>

Start tagElement contentEnd tag
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
<br>nonenone

Web Browsers

The purpose of a web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari) is to read HTML documents and display them correctly.

A browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses them to determine how to display the document:

HTML Page Structure

Below is a visualization of an HTML page structure:

Below is a visualization of an HTML page structure:

<html>

<head>

<title>Page title</title>

</head>

<body>

<h1>This is a heading</h1>

<p>This is a paragraph.</p>

<p>This is another paragraph.</p>

</body>

</html>

HTML History

Since the early days of the World Wide Web, there have been many versions of HTML:

YearVersion
1989Tim Berners-Lee invented www
1991Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML
1993Dave Raggett drafted HTML+
1995HTML Working Group defined HTML 2.0
1997W3C Recommendation: HTML 3.2
1999W3C Recommendation: HTML 4.01
2000W3C Recommendation: XHTML 1.0
2008WHATWG HTML5 First Public Draft
2012WHATWG HTML5 Living Standard
2014W3C Recommendation: HTML5
2016W3C Candidate Recommendation: HTML 5.1
2017W3C Recommendation: HTML5.1 2nd Edition
2017W3C Recommendation: HTML5.2