What is HTML?

knowwiths September 01, 2024

Understanding HTML: The Web's Skeleton

What is HTML?


HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and is a standardized language for documents on the World Wide Web. It is, therefore, the backbone of all web pages and, as such, gives structure and layout to the making of quite interactive and good-looking websites.


What is HTML?


HTML - HyperText Markup Language. HTML is not a programming language; rather, it is a markup language. Markup languages are systems for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text. That means, in HTML, structure is defined for a web page by embedding tags and attributes around contents.


HTML Components:

Elements: These are the building blocks of HTML and always comprise one opening tag, followed by content, and one closing tag. Example:, <p> This is a paragraph. </p> is an element in HTML.

Tags: Tags are what you put in to make an HTML element. They are enclosed with angle brackets, like <h1>, <div>, or <a>.

Attributes: These define extra information about the elements and are inserted within the opening tag. In <a href="https://example.com">, href is an attribute of the anchor tag <a>.


Evolution of HTML

HTML has been improved several times since its proposal by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991 came into the arena. Now, in a nutshell, here it goes :

  • HTML 1.0: It was the first version, basic, and with limited scope.
  • HTML 2.0: It further introduced features such as form elements, etc.
  • HTML 3.2: Standardized by W3C, it integrated both tables and applets support.
  • HTML 4.01: An important revision with the addition of CSS for better presentation of content and structure.
  • XHTML: This is a more rigid version of HTML with full compliance to the syntax of XML.
  • HTML5: This is the latest version that brings in new document elements like <header>, <footer>, and <article>, with great improvement in the support of multimedia elements and several APIs, which are useful to build an even more dynamic web.

Now, HTML5 is a standard, with many more semantic tags and a powerful platform for modern web applications.


Basic Structure of an HTML Document

Any HTML document starts with mentioning the document type as <!DOCTYPE html> declaring the version of HTML that it will be using. Then, it is divided into two parts: <head> and <body>. 



<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">

    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,
  initial-scale=1.0">

<title>My First HTML Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Welcome to My Website</h1>

    <p>This is a paragraph of text on my website.</p>

</body>
</html>


  • <!DOCTYPE html>: This declaration states the document type and version of HTML.
  • <html>: The root element of an HTML document.
  • <head>: The element that carries meta-information about the document, such as its title, character set, and links to stylesheets.
  • <body>: This is where all the content of the webpage goes, including text, images, links, and even other media.


Understanding HTML Tags

HTML tags are used to represent the elements of a web page. Here are some of the most common HTML tags:

  • <h1> to <h6>: Header tags that define headings. <h1> is the highest in priority, whereas <h6> is the lowest.
  • <p>: Paragraph tag; defines text as being a paragraph.
  • <a>: Anchor tag; creates hyperlinks.
  • IMG: This is an image tag, used to insert images in web pages.
  •  DIV: This is a division tag, used to group block-level contents for styling, positioning, etc.
  •  SPAN: This is the inline tag, which is used to group content for the purpose of styling.


Semantic Importance of HTML

Semantic HTML basically means using HTML tags that describe what the browser will render inside of it, instead of just using generic <div>s all over the place. Semantic tags like <header>, <footer>, <article>, and <section> help the document outline better and make more sense. This improves accessibility, SEO, and, most importantly, makes your code a lot more readable.

For example, if you have a blog post, using <article> to wrap it rather than a <div> immediately tells you that this is a self-contained piece of content.


HTML and CSS

While HTML creates the skeleton of a webpage, Cascading Style Sheets or CSS are for styling. HTML and CSS combined make visually wonderful websites; from layout to color to font, they make the content not only visually pleasing but also relevant. By using CSS, you can control the style, color, font style, and flow of your paragraphs to create well-designed documents with appealing content. Below is an example of how you can style an HTML paragraph. 


  <p style="color: blue; font-size: 18px;">This is a styled
  paragraph</p>

This is better, however, to be kept separate from the HTML, referring to an external stylesheet: 

<head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
</head>

/* styles.css */
p {
    color: blue;
    font-size: 18px;
	}

HTML Forms and User Input

HTML forms allow for user input. Typically, the <form> element contains input fields. Along with that come a few input tags called <input>, <textarea>, <select>, and <button> that allow users to submit data.

Here is a basic example of the form:


<form action="/submit-form" method="post">
    <label for="name">Name:</label>
    <input type="text" id="name" name="name">
    <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>


  • <form>: This defines the form.
  • action: Tells where the form data should be sent to
  • method: Defines the HTTP method to be used- GET or POST.
  • <label>: Ties a label to an input field.
  • <input>: A form control defines things such as text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc.


HTML5 APIs

But HTML5 also introduced several new APIs that allowed developers to extend the abilities of HTML to create more dynamic and interactive web applications that relied less on third-party plugins. To name a few, there is:

  • Geolocation API: allows web applications to access the geographical location of the user.
  • Canvas API: enables the drawing of graphics on a web page via scripting, usually JavaScript.\
  • Web Storage API: provides methods to store data locally within the user's browser.
  • Drag and Drop API: It simplifies the creation of drag-and-drop functionality for web pages.


Best Practices While Writing HTML

While writing HTML, following are a few best practices that should be kept in mind in order to have clean, maintainable, and accessible code:

  • Semantic Tags: Semantic elements available in HTML5 provide much better structure and SEO, as already discussed.
  • Indent and Keep Your Code Organized: Proper indentations of code maintain good readability.
  • Verify Your Code: use W3C validators to check for errors; this will ensure your code upholds the standard of the web.
  • Use External Stylesheets and JavaScript Files: Refrain from using inline styles and scripts; this is important in maintaining clean HTML, separating content from design and behavior.
  • Performance Optimisation: Try to avoid heavy resources and optimize images where possible to enhance web page loading.


Conclusion

HTML is the backbone of web development. When the basic ideas and characteristics are understood, it makes one enable either to create or maintain a website. Be it a fresher who wants to learn or a developer who wants to perfect his art-HTML will definitely give one a firm grounding on all aspects of the Internet. With HTML continuously upgrading, its usage empowers the developers to make websites more interactive, accessible, and friendly for the users.



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