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Dear Colleagues,
Please note that in the November issue of Update the Computer Section
article entitled HTML omits several essential elements that were part of
the original piece when I submitted it to the editor. Below is the article
the way it was intended to look. I have highlighted the corrected areas.
Thanks to Deirdre C. Stam for pointing this out to me. Deirdre also notes
that, ". . . the statement that codes surround text should be amended to
indicate that some codes, especially those indicating spacing, consist of
single tages (and not pairs of tags)" and ". . . the description of HTML
editors implies that all are WYSIWYG, but that is not the case. Some of the
simpler and older editors do not in fact produce a replica of the final
product in the editing phase."
HTML
It seems like everyone has a World Wide Web page these days and art
libraries, museums, and visual resource collections are no exception.
Simply call up our wonderful Art Libraries Society of North America's
homepage (http://caroline.eastlib.ufl.edu:80/arlis) to see the vast array
of people, organizations, and publications on the Internet. Libraries are
using their web pages to provide millions of people access to their online
catalogs, publications, staff, and other resources. Museums are providing
information about exhibitions and events. On some pages you can even browse
virtual exhibitions of a museum's collection.
But how does one get a homepage in cyberspace? If you have access to the
World Wide Web from your workplace, you should contact those in charge of
maintaining the server. If not, you will need to find an Internet provider
such as a FreeNet or commercial Internet service such as CompuServe. Once
you gain access, however, you will still need to create your page using
HTML.
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is a way of coding a
document so that it will be readable by a World Wide Web browser such as
Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Both text and images can be
formatted using HTML. The HyperText Markup Language is based on tags which
modify the text that they encompass. For example:
<CENTER> This text is centered. </CENTER>
Below is a very basic example of an HTML document as viewed on Netscape:
***Please see the November issue of Update for the illustration
This document's HTML coding looks like this::
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>This title appears in the title bar, not in the document</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1><CENTER>This is a very basic HTML document</CENTER></H1>
The title above appears in large type and is centered. This text is smaller
and flush left.
</BODY>
</HTML>
Below is a description of what the tags mean:
<HTML> </HTML> These tags should surround any HTML document. Some browsers
will not read the page unless it is so marked.
<HEAD> </HEAD> Text surrounded by these tags contain the header
information such as the title bar title. Any text within this area will not
appear in the document itself.
<TITLE> </TITLE> Text within these tags will appear in the title bar of
the browser.
<BODY> </BODY> This is the area in which the content of your web page will
appear.
<CENTER> </CENTER> Text within these tags will appear as centered in the
browser window.
<H1> </H1> Text surrounded by these tags will appear in a larger, bold
typeface. H1 is the largest header and H6 is the smallest.
HTML documents can be created in several ways. The simplest way is to
create them by hand using any text editor such as Notepad. You can also
use HTML editors such as HoTMetal (Unix, Windows), HTML Assistant Pro
(Windows), or HTML Editor (Mac). These products have been designed to make
creating and editing an HTML document a bit easier. For example they allow
you to simply press a key to create <BOLD> tags around selected text. They
also will allow you to see what your document will look like on the Web
while you edit.
Some popular word processing programs have templates that allow you
"automatically" convert text into HTML. Keep in mind, however, that since
this technology is relatively new and HTML has many limitations, your
documents may not convert exactly the way you may expect.
One of the easiest ways to get ideas for an HTML document is to look at
how other people have created their pages. In Netscape, for example, you
can View the Document Source to see how the page looks in HTML. You can
even copy a page and paste in your own information to create a document.
Below are a few references to help you learn more about HTML:
Online sources:
Beginners Guide to HTML at
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html
Composing Good HTML at
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/tilt/cgh/
Printed Sources:
Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy, HTML: The Definitive Guide (Sebastopol,
CA: O'Reilly & Associates, 1996).
Kenny Chu, HTML publishing on the Internet (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996).
Laura Lemay, Teach yourself Web publishing with HTML 3.0 in a week
(Indianapolis, Ind.: Sams.net, 1996).
**************************************************
Annette Haines
Fine Arts Library
Michigan State University
100 Library
East Lansing, MI 48824-1048
Phone (517) 355-3806
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/finearts
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