HTML and JavaScript

for Visual Learners

1810 Monument Avenue, Suite 100

Richmond, VA 23220
www.visibooks.com
HTML and JavaScript for Visual Learners
Published by Visibooks, LLC, Richmond, VA

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International Standard Book Number: 0-9707479-2-6

First Edition
Table of Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................... 1

HTML Basics.................................................................... 3
Create a home page.............................................................................. 4
Create the home page......................................................................................................4
View the page in a browser ............................................................................................11
Format pages and text.........................................................................14
Change fonts................................................................................................................... 14
Change text size.............................................................................................................16
Change text weight ........................................................................................................ 17
Change text color ...........................................................................................................18
Align text.........................................................................................................................19
Indent text.......................................................................................................................21
Create lists ......................................................................................................................23
Create links to new pages................................................................... 25
Step 1: Create a new page .............................................................................................25
Step 2: Link to the new page........................................................................................ 28
Create e-mail and external links.......................................................... 31
Create an e-mail link...................................................................................................... 31
Link to an external site ..................................................................................................33
Insert and align graphics.................................................................... 34
Capture a graphic from the Web ...................................................................................34
Insert a graphic...............................................................................................................36
Align a graphic................................................................................................................38
Format a graphic............................................................................................................. 41
Create a basic navigation system........................................................ 44
Link back to the home page ..........................................................................................44
Link pages to each other ...............................................................................................45
Use graphics as links.....................................................................................................46
Use graphics as links.....................................................................................................47
Change page, link colors .................................................................... 50
Change background color of page ................................................................................50
Change link colors .......................................................................................................... 51
Change link colors ..........................................................................................................52

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 Layout & Navigation ...................................................... 57
Lay out pages using tables ................................................................. 58
Create a table................................................................................................................. 58
Create a table................................................................................................................. 59
Format a table ................................................................................................................ 63
Create a table-based home page ................................................................................. 67
Create new table-based pages......................................................................................73
Create navigation bars........................................................................ 76
Create a navigation bar for a home page .................................................................... 76
Create a navigation bar for a main section page ........................................................ 79
Add subsections to site ......................................................................82
Insert a table for content and subsection links ..........................................................82
Create subsection pages............................................................................................... 84
Place tables within tables...................................................................88
Link to an external site using frames................................................... 91

Interactivity...................................................................99
Insert META tags.............................................................................. 100
Create forms .................................................................................... 102
Use style sheets................................................................................ 111
Create a style sheet......................................................................................................112
Apply a style sheet....................................................................................................... 114
Create link effects with style sheets........................................................................... 117
Upload sites to a Web server..............................................................121

Advanced Layout.......................................................... 131

Employ background graphics............................................................ 132
Employ spacer GIFs ...........................................................................135
Insert a horizontal rule......................................................................137
Specify page margins....................................................................... 138

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 Practical JavaScript ...................................................... 141
Enable rollover graphics ....................................................................142
View source code.......................................................................................................... 143
Copy source code ......................................................................................................... 144
Modify source code......................................................................................................146
Open new windows ...........................................................................150
Validate form input............................................................................153
Validate form input............................................................................154
See how it works .......................................................................................................... 154
Insert the validation script.......................................................................................... 155
Modify the <FORM> tag.................................................................................................156

Additional Resources .............................................................................. 157

HTML Tag Chart .......................................................................................159

Index.......................................................................................................165

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 1

Introduction
Welcome to HTML and JavaScript for Visual Learners. If you’ve never
used a Visibook before, you’ll find that it contains several hundred
illustrations, with comparatively little text. It presents essential tasks,
breaks them down into steps, then walks you through them with
illustrations.

What you’ll learn

You’ll learn how to use HTML to create a
solid, attractive Web site that’s easy to
navigate. You’ll also learn how to upload
it to a Web server.
You won’t become an expert in Web
publishing—that takes practice and real-
world experience. But you will learn the
fundamentals of site-building, and get a
good foundation on which to build
professional-level skills.

Additional resources for acquiring expert-

level HTML and JavaScript skills are Follow the steps
found at the end of this book.
!
How you’ll learn it
This book has five sections: HTML Basics,
Layout & Navigation, Interactivity,
Advanced Layout, and Practical
JavaScript.

At the end of each task and section are See the results
practice exercises. Don’t worry if you
can’t work through the whole book in a
day or two. Take your time, and try to do the practice. You can check
your work against examples posted on the Web.

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2

Before you begin

Before you begin, it’s important that you know Windows well. A
working knowledge of Windows makes it much easier to learn HTML
and JavaScript. You should be familiar with:

• How directories work

• Windows Explorer
• Basic word processing

Make sure you can perform the following tasks:

• Create a folder on your computer’s hard drive

• Create a folder within a folder
• Copy a paragraph from one document and paste it into another.

If you have trouble doing this, set

aside a couple of hours to learn
Windows basics. Have a friend or
co-worker who is proficient with
computers walk you through
Windows Explorer, creating folders
and becoming familiar with file
extensions.

You should also practice using the

Cut, Copy, and Paste commands in
a standard word processing
program. When you can do these
things on your own, you’re ready to
learn HTML and JavaScript.

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 3

HTML Basics
In this section, you’ll learn how to:
• Create a home page
• Format text
• Create links to new pages
• Create e-mail and external links
• Insert graphics
• Create a navigation system
• Change page and link colors

You’ll build a site that looks like this:

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4

Create a home page

Create the home page

1. Open a browser, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.

2. Open the program Notepad. Do this by first clicking the

button on the taskbar, then Programs, then Accessories, then
Notepad.

3. At the top of the Notepad screen, type:

<HTML>

Tip:<HTML> is a tag. Tags are instructions to a Web browser. This

particular instruction lets the Web browser know that what follows is
a Web page, written in HTML.

Tags can be written in upper-case or lower-case letters—it doesn’t

matter which. <HTML>, <html>, or <HtMl> are all fine.

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 5

4. Save the file.

5. When the Save As window appears, select the C:\ drive in the
Save in drop-down list.
6. Create a new folder by clicking on the icon.

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6

7. Name the new folder “Dogs,” then double-click it so it appears in

the Save in box.

8. In the File name textbox, type index.html.

9. In the Save as type drop-down list, select All Files. When you’re
done, the window should look like this:

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 7

10. Save the page by clicking on the Save button.

Home page file names

All Web pages have a .html extension (or .htm).

All home pages have the file name index.html. index.html

comes up automatically when the address of a domain or
directory where it’s located is typed into a browser.
For instance, if you go to www.visibooks.com, the home page
appears automatically. That’s because its file name is
index.html. If the file name of the Visibooks home page was
homepage.html, you’d have to type
www.visibooks.com/homepage.html to get it to appear.

The Microsoft exception: To get your home page to come up

automatically on a Web server running Microsoft’s Internet
Information Server as it’s operating system, give your home
page the file name default.htm.

11. Below the <HTML> tag, type:

<HEAD>
<!--Created by Your Name-->
</HEAD>

Tip: The <HEAD> section contains information that doesn’t show up

on the page when it is viewed in a browser. Note the closing
</HEAD> tag: in HTML, you must give the browser instructions to
end something as well as start it.

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8

Tip: <!--Created by Your Name--> is called a comment.

Whatever text is between the dashes won’t show up on a browser’s
screen—it’s only visible if someone views the page’s HTML code. You
need to include the ! for this to work.

12. Below the </HEAD> tag, title the page “A Home Page About
Dogs” by using <TITLE> tags:

<TITLE>
A Home Page About Dogs
</TITLE>

Tip: Note that the text “A Home Page About Dogs” is not a tag. It is
text surrounded by tags. The <TITLE> tags tell the browser what to
do with the text: make it the title of the page.

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 9

Page titles
The title of a Web page describes the page. It’s what appears in
a browser’s History list. The title also shows up as a link when a
page comes up in a search engine. If all your pages have
discrete, descriptive titles, they’ll be easier for people to find.
The page title shows up in the top, or “title,” bar of the browser
used to view it. The title of this page is Dogs.

13. Below the </TITLE> tag, add:

<BODY>

</BODY>

Tip: Anything you want to be visible in a browser’s main window,

put between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags.

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10

14. Below the </BODY> tag, close the </HTML> tag. When you’re
finished, the code should look like this:

15. Between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags, type the words:

Dogs Home Page

16. Save the page.

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 11

View the page in a browser

1. Go to the browser and on its menu bar, click File, then Open.

Tip: If you’re using Netscape Communicator instead of Internet

Explorer, click Open Page, then Choose File.

2. When the Open window appears, click the Browse button.

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12

3. When the new window appears, navigate to the Dogs folder in the
Look in drop-down list, then select the home page: index.html.

4. Click the Open button, then the OK button. The page should
come up in the browser and look like this:

You have created a home page titled “A Home Page About

Dogs.”

The home page’s file name is index.html.

It is located in a folder called Dogs on the C:\ drive.

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 13

Practice: Create a home page

A. What is the correct file name for a home page?

B. Why is there a special file name for home pages?

C. Why is it important that the home page—and all other pages in a

Web site—have accurate titles?

D. What is the difference between a page’s title and its file name?

Answers

A. index .html
B. It allo ws ho me pages to appear in a bro wser witho ut typing the file name as part o f a Web address.
C. Accurate titles allo w peo ple to find pages easier when bo o k mark ing them o r searching in a bro wser’s H isto ry list.
D. A page title appears in the T itle bar at the to p o f the bro wser. It’s plain tex t, such as “T he Smith Family: Vacatio n
Pictures,” that mak es it easy fo r peo ple to k eep track o f a page. A page’s file name, such as vacpics.html, is ho w the
co mputer k eeps track o f it.

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14

Format pages and text

Change fonts
1. In front of the words “Dogs Home Page, ” insert a <FONT> tag
with the attribute FACE=”arial”:

<FONT FACE=”arial”>Dogs Home Page</FONT>

2. After the words, close the <FONT> tag:

<FONT FACE=”arial”>Dogs Home Page</FONT>

Tip:Think of an attribute as a sub-instruction to the browser. In this

case, the <FONT> tag tells the browser that text will be changed, and
the FACE attribute tells it how to change, specifying the Arial
typeface.

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 15

3. View the page in the browser. Click the browser’s Refresh button,
and the page should look like this:

Text is in the
Arial font

Web fonts
When text is viewed on a computer, only fonts installed on the
computer can be seen. For instance, if someone created a page
that specified the Tekton font, almost no one viewing it would
see it in Tekton because very few computers have that font
installed. Computers without Tekton would display text in the
default font: Times New Roman.

All Windows computers have the Arial font installed.

Windows 95 and later computers have Verdana. Macintoshes
have Helvetica, the font that Arial is based upon.
To cover all bases, specify multiple fonts:
<FONT FACE=”verdana,arial,helvetica”>

Tip: If a page doesn’t look like it’s supposed to—or nothing shows up
at all—check the HTML code you’ve written. You might have left out
a quote or made some other small mistake. Something that seems
insignificant can wreck a page:
<FONT FACE=”arial>
Missing end quote (“)

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16

Change text size

1. In Notepad, add the SIZE=”+4” attribute to the <FONT> tag:

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4”>Dogs Home

Page</FONT>

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

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 17

Change text weight

1. In Notepad, add the <B> tag in front of the words “Dogs Home
Page” and close it after them:

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4”><B>Dogs Home

Page</B></FONT>

Tip: Wheninserting multiple tags, arrange them in mirror-image

order. The tags and text above are a good example: since it starts with
the <FONT> tag, it ends with the </FONT> tag. Tags that aren’t
arranged in mirror-image order can cause display problems in some
browsers.

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

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18

Change text color

1. In the <FONT> tag, add the attribute COLOR=”red”:

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4” COLOR=”red”>

2. Save the page. View it in the browser, and the text should show up
red.

3. Change the text color to black, then save the page.

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4” COLOR=”black”>

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 19

Align text
1. Beneath the present text and tags, insert a <P> tag to begin a new
paragraph.

2. Beneath the <P> tag, insert the tag <FONT FACE=”arial”

SIZE=”-1”> and the words “These are my favorite
breeds of dog:”

3. Within the <P> tag, add the attribute ALIGN=”right”:

<P ALIGN=”right”>

4. Add a closing </P> tag after the new paragraph.

<P ALIGN=”right”>

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”-1”>These are my

favorite breeds of dog:

</P>

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20

Tip: Usually a <P> tag requires no closing </P> tag in HTML, but
in this case the ALIGN=”right” attribute is used. The closing
</P> tag after the paragraph keeps the browser from right-aligning
whatever is beneath it.

5. Save the page, then view it in the browser. It should look like this:

6. Remove the ALIGN=”right” attribute from the <P> tag.

Tip: To generate a single-line break rather than the double-space a

<P> tag generates, use the <BR> tag. Putting a <BR> or “Break” tag
between two lines of text will bump the second line down to the next
line:

<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”+4”><B>Dogs Home

Page</B></FONT>
<BR>
<FONT FACE=”arial” SIZE=”-1”>These are my
favorite breeds of dog:

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 21

Indent text
1. Below the text, “These are my favorite breeds of dog:,” insert three
new paragraphs:
<P>Chesapeake Bay Retriever</P>

<P>German Shepherd</P>

<P>Yorkshire Terrier</P>

2. Enclose these paragraphs in Unordered List tags to indent them:

<UL>

<P>Chesapeake Bay Retriever</P>

<P>German Shepherd</P>

<P>Yorkshire Terrier</P>

</UL>

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22

3. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

Tip: Notice how all the text below the <FONT FACE=”arial”
SIZE=”-1”> tag looks the same. It will stay that way until the
closing </FONT> tag is inserted.

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 23

Create lists
1. With the three breeds of dog, replace the <P> and </P> tags with
<LI> tags to generate bullets in front of the text that follows:

<UL>

<LI>Chesapeake Bay Retriever

<LI>German Shepherd

<LI>Yorkshire Terrier

</UL>

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

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24

Practice: Format pages and text

A. Why are the most common font choices Arial, Verdana, and
Helvetica?

B. What kinds of computers have the font Arial installed? Which have
Helvetica instead?

1. Change the title of the home page to “My Favorite Dogs.”

2. Change the bulleted list to a numbered list.

Tip: Use <OL> instead of <UL> to generate a numbered list.

3. Change the numbered list back to a bulleted list.

4. Make the list items bold. When you view it in the browser, the page
should look like this:

Answers

A. T ho se are the fo nts that mo st Windo ws co mputers have installed.

B. Windo ws co mputers have Arial, M acs have H elvetica.

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 25

Create links to new pages

Step 1: Create a new page
1. In Notepad, change the title of the page to “Chesapeake Bay
Retrievers,” then take out all the tags and text between the
<BODY> and </BODY> tags.

2. On the menu bar, click File, then Save As.

3. Save the new page with the file name chesapeake.html.

Tip: Remember to Save as type: All Files.

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26

File names for the Web

Most Web servers are Unix- or Linux-based, which don’t deal
cleanly with spaces in file names. For instance if you name a
file fido page.html, it may show up in the URL box of the
browser as fido%20page.html.
Also, Web servers are case-sensitive, so keeping file names
lower-case eliminates a potential source of mistakes.
Make all file names in a Web site—pages, graphics and
folders—lower-case, with no spaces.

Correct file name: german.html

Incorrect: German Shepherds.html

4. Beneath the <BODY> tag, type “Chesapeake Bay Retrievers.” This is

the page heading. Make it verdana, bold, size +3:
<BODY>

<FONT FACE=”verdana” SIZE=”+3”><B>Chesapeake

Bay Retrievers</B></FONT>

</BODY>

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 27

5. Save the page.

Providing navigation clues with text size

The heading of the Chesapeake Bay Retriever page is made one
size smaller than the heading of the home page. That’s because
the CBR page is one step down in the site hierarchy.

Level 1: Dogs
(top level heading; SIZE=”+4”) Dogs

Level 2: Chesapeake Bay Retrievers

(second-level heading; SIZE=”+3”) Chesapeake Bay
Retrievers

Making the heading of the CBR page smaller than the home
page’s heading helps show people where they are in the site.

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28

Step 2: Link to the new page

1. Open the home page (index.html) in Notepad. In front of the first
item, Chesapeake Bay Retriever, insert an anchor tag.
Then close the anchor tag :
<LI><B><A HREF=”chesapeake.html”>Chesapeake
Bay Retriever</A></B>

How an anchor tag works

Anchor tags create a clickable link to another page.
A page with this file name… …is linked to these words.

<a href=”filename.html”>New Page</a>

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 29

2. Save the home page and view it in the browser. The words
Chesapeake Bay Retriever should be a link, and the page
should look like this:

3. Click on the Chesapeake Bay Retriever link. The Chesapeake

Bay Retriever page should appear in the browser.

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30

Practice: Create links to new pages

A. Why should file names be lower-case and free of spaces?

B. Why should the headings on section pages (Chesapeake Bay

Retrievers, German Shepherds) be smaller than the heading of the
home page?

1. Create new pages for German Shepherds and Yorkshire Terriers.

Page Title File Name

German Shepherds German Shepherds german.html
Yorkshire Terriers Yorkshire Terriers yorkshire.html

2. On the home page, link the words German Shepherd and

Yorkshire Terrier to their pages.

3. On the home page, remove the words “Home Page” after

“Dogs.”

4. On the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, German Shepherd and Yorkshire

Terrier pages, put the page headings in the same font and weight as
the home page (Verdana; bold).

5. Make the page headings of these pages one size smaller than the
heading on the home page, just like on the Chesapeake Bay
Retriever page.

6. Save all pages and click on the home page’s links to make sure they
work.

Answers

A. B ecause mo st Web servers deal better with lo wer-case, spaceless file names.
B. It pro vides site users with a visual distinctio n between first-level (ho me) pages and seco nd-level (main sectio n) pages.

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 31

Create e-mail and external links

Create an e-mail link
1. In a new paragraph beneath the list, type the sentence “For more
information, contact [email protected].”

2. Surround the e-mail address with anchor tags, but instead of

linking it to a Web page, use the mailto command to link it to an
e-mail program:
For more information, contact
<A HREF=”mailto:[email protected]”>
[email protected]</A>

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32

3. Save the page. When you view it in the browser, it should look like
this:

How e-mail links work

When someone goes to a Web site and clicks on an e-mail link,
it’s supposed to open the e-mail program on that person’s
computer and insert the address into a new message.

If the person’s e-mail program isn’t configured correctly, this

won’t work. That’s why e-mail links should use the e-mail
address as a link: so people can enter the address manually if
they have to.

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 33

Link to an external site

1. In Notepad, add a new sentence after the last one. Type the
sentence, “Please also visit www.dogs.com.”

2. Surround the Web address www.dogs.com with these anchor

tags to link it to the external Web site:
<A
HREF=”http://www.dogs.com”>www.dogs.com</A>

Tip: For an external link to work, you must type http:// as part of
the Web address.

3. Save the page.

4. Preview the page in the browser, then click on the link to see if it
links to the external site www.dogs.com.

5. Close the browser.

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34

Insert and align graphics

Capture a graphic from the Web
1. Open a new browser window.

2. Go to the Web site www.visibooks.com/dogpics.

3. Place your cursor on top of the picture of the Chesapeake Bay

Retriever, then click with your right mouse button.

Right mouse
button

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 35

4. Click Save Picture As.

5. When the Save Picture window appears, select the “Dogs” folder
in the Save in drop-down list.

6. Create a new folder within Dogs called “graphics.”

7. Double-click on the graphics folder so it appears in the Save in

drop-down list.

8. Click the Save button to save the graphic inside the graphics
folder.

Tip: Creating this separate sub-folder to hold your site’s graphics

makes the site easier to organize and update.

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36

Insert a graphic
1. In Notepad, open the Chesapeake Bay Retriever page, file name
chesapeake.html.

2. Create a new paragraph under the main heading.

3. In the new paragraph, insert an image tag:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif”>

folder graphic

Tip: Notice that in this image tag there’s a “path.” For the image
source, the tag first points to the graphics folder, then to the file name
of the image within it.

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 37

4. Save the page, then view it in the browser. It should now look like
this:

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38

Align a graphic
1. In a new paragraph below the graphic, type in:
Chesapeake Bay Retrievers love water. If you
throw tennis balls in the water, these dogs
will chase them and bring them back until
your arm falls off.

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 39

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. The page should look like
this:

3. Go back to Notepad and add the ALIGN=”left” attribute to the

<IMG> tag:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif”
ALIGN=”left”>

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40

4. Save the page and view it in the browser (just click the “Refresh”
or “Reload” button). It should look like this:

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 41

Format a graphic
1. In the Chesapeake Bay Retriever page, add this ALT attribute to the
<IMG> tag:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif” ALIGN=”left”

ALT=”Chesapeake Bay Retriever”>

“Alt” text allows visually-impaired people to know what a

graphic represents. Alt text also allows search engines to index
visual content.

2. Add the VSPACE=”4” and HSPACE=”12” attributes as well:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif” ALIGN=”left”

ALT=”Chesapeake Bay Retriever” VSPACE=”4”
HSPACE=”12”>

3. Also, add the BORDER=”1” attribute:

<IMG SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif” ALIGN=”left”

ALT=”Chesapeake Bay Retriever” VSPACE=”4”
HSPACE=”12” BORDER=”1”>

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42

4. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should now look like
this:

An HSPACE of 12 creates a A Border of 1 creates a 1-pixel

horizontal space of 12 pixels border around the graphic
around the graphic that nothing
can occupy

5. Move your cursor onto the graphic. The “Alt” text—an alternative
text description of the graphic—should pop up.

The text should be aligned with the top of the graphic.

Tip: If you know the dimensions of a graphic, you can make it load
faster by specifying its width and height in pixels:
<IMG SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif” ALIGN=”left”
ALT=”Chesapeake Bay Retriever” VSPACE=”4”
HSPACE=”12” BORDER=”1” WIDTH=”150”
HEIGHT=”189”>

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 43

Practice: Insert graphics

A. Why should you specify Alt text for each graphic you insert?

1. Go to www.visibooks.com/dogpics. Save the German Shepherds

graphic in C:\dogs\graphics with the file name shepherds.gif.

2. Save the Yorkshire Terrier graphic in C:\dogs\graphics with the

file name yorkie.gif.

3. Insert shepherds.gif into the German Shepherds page in a new

paragraph below the heading.

4. Insert yorkie.gif into the Yorkshire Terriers page in a new

paragraph below the heading.

5. On the German Shepherds page, type “German Shepherds are

smart dogs” in a paragraph below the graphic.

6. On the Yorkshire Terriers page, type “Yorkshire Terriers are

cute” in a paragraph below the graphic.

7. On both pages, align the text to the side of the graphic, as on the
Chesapeake Bay Retrievers page.

8. On both pages, give the graphic a border of 1, vspace of 4, and

hspace of 12.

9. On all three “Dog” pages, put all paragraph text (not the main
headings) in the arial font, with a size of -1.

Answers

A. Alt tex t mak es it easier fo r visio n-impaired peo ple to understand a page’s co ntent, and mak es it easier fo r search engines to
catalo g it.

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44

Create a basic navigation system

Link back to the home page
1. In Notepad, open the Chesapeake Bay Retrievers page,
chesapeake.html.

2. Type the word “Home” in a new paragraph beneath the first

paragraph.

3. Enclose it in anchor tags that link it back to the home page:

<A HREF=”index.html”>Home</A>

Tip: Remember, index.html is the file name for the home page.

4. Save the page, and view it in the browser. The word Home should
now be a link, and the page should look like this:

5. On the German Shepherds page, create a link back to the home

page. Do this the same way you created the link for the Chesapeake
Bay retriever page.

6. On the Yorkshire Terriers page, create the same sort of link back to
the home page.

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 45

Link pages to each other

1. In Notepad, open the Chesapeake Bay Retrievers page.
2. Following the Home link, type:
| Chesapeake Bay Retrievers | German Shepherds |
Yorkshire Terriers

3. Make the words “Chesapeake Bay Retrievers” bold to

show site users “You are here.”

4. Link the words “German Shepherds” to the German Shepherds

page:
<A HREF=”german.html”>German Shepherds</A>

5. Link the words “Yorkshire Terriers” to the Yorkshire Terriers

page.

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46

6. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

Showing “you are here”

A site’s navigational system should show people two things:
where they are, and where they can go.

To show people where they are, make the link corresponding

to the current page into plain text. This lets users know that if
they can’t go to that page, they must be looking at it.
Home | Chesapeake Bay Retriev ers | German Shepherds | Yorkshire Terriers

You are here

Making the text bold reinforces the “you are here” message.

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 47

Use graphics as links

1. In Notepad, open the home page. Below the bulleted list of links, in
a new paragraph, insert the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, German
Shepherd and Yorkshire Terrier graphics:
<IMG SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif”>
<IMG SRC=”graphics/shepherds.gif”>
<IMG SRC=”graphics/yorkie.gif”>

2. Enclose the first image tag within anchor tags that link it to the
Chesapeake Bay Retriever page:
<A HREF=”chesapeake.html”><IMG
SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif”></A>

3. Save the page, then preview it in the browser. When you click on
the Chesapeake Bay Retriever graphic, it should take you to the
Chesapeake Bay Retriever page.

4. Go back to Notepad and add the BORDER=”0” attribute to the

first image tag:
<A HREF=”chesapeake.html”><IMG
SRC=”graphics/chessie.gif” BORDER=”0”></A>

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48

5. Save the page and view it in the browser again. The blue link
border around the Chesapeake Bay Retriever graphic should be
gone:

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 49

Practice: Create a navigation system

A. What’s a good way to show site users “You are here?”

Task: To make your Dogs site look like the site at

www.visibooks.com/dogs.

1. In Notepad, open the German Shepherds page, german.html.

2. Following the Home link, type:
| Chesapeake Bay Retrievers | German Shepherds |
Yorkshire Terriers

3. Make the words German Shepherds bold.

4. Link the words Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and

Yorkshire Terriers to their corresponding pages.

5. Save the page.

6. Using the same system, create navigation links for the Yorkshire
Terriers page. Then save the page.

7. On the home page, link the German Shepherds graphic to the

German Shepherds page. Do the same for the Yorkshire Terriers
graphic.

8. Take out the link borders of these graphics.

9. When finished, preview your Dogs site in the browser. It should
look like the site at www.visibooks.com/dogs.

Answers

A. M ak e the link co rrespo nding to the current page bo ld, and plain tex t (no lo nger a link ).

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50

Change page, link colors

Change background color of page
1. Open the home page in Notepad.
2. In the <BODY> tag, add the attribute BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc”:
<BODY BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc”>

3. Save the page and view it in the browser. The background color of
the page should now be pale yellow.

Hexadecimal colors
The ffffcc that stands for pale yellow is a hexadecimal
color. Hexadecimal colors allow you to specify colors more
precisely than you can with words. For example, you could use
the attribute BGCOLOR=yellow in the body tag and the page
background would turn bright yellow, but if you used
BGCOLOR=pale yellow, that wouldn’t work.

For shades of color, hexadecimals must be used. They work

like this:
Computers show color as a mix of red, green and blue. In
hexadecimal colors, the first pair of letters or numbers signify
red, the second pair signify green, and the third pair signify
blue:

Red Green Blue

ff ff cc

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 51

Hexadecimal colors, continued

The color values go from the maximum amount of color (ff)
to no color at all (00):

Max Mid-range None

ff cc 99 66 33 00

Navy blue would be shown in hexadecimals as no red (00), no

green, (00), and a little bit of blue (66):
000066

A list of hexadecimal color codes is posted at:

www.webmonkey.com/reference/color_codes

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52

Change link colors

1. In the home page, add the attribute LINK=”#ff0000” to the
<BODY> tag:

<BODY BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc” LINK=”#ff0000”>

This makes the links on the page show up in red.

2. Add the attribute VLINK=”#00ff00” to the <BODY> tag:

<BODY BGCOLOR=”#ffffcc” LINK=”#ff0000”

VLINK=”#00ff00”>

This makes visited links show up in green.

Tip: Visited links are links to pages that have already been viewed in
the browser.

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 53

3. Save the page and view it in the browser. The links on the page
should either be red or green.

Consistent link colors

Link colors should be consistent throughout a Web site. If the
links on one page are red, they should be red on every page.

Learning that “red equals link” once is much easier for people
than having to figure out the link color for each page or section
of a site.

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54

Practice: HTML Basics

Task: To create a Web site about cats that looks like the site at
www.visibooks.com/cats.

1. Create a new home page and title it “The Wonderful World of

Cats.”

2. Save it in a new folder on the C:\ drive called Cats:

C:\Cats

3. Make the heading of the page read “The Wonderful World of

Cats.”

4. Below the main heading on the home page, insert a bulleted list:

House Cats
Alley Cats
Big Cats

5. Make these items arial, with a size of -1.

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 55

6. Link each list item to a new page about it. For instance, link
“House Cats” to a new page about house cats with file name
housecats.html.

7. On each of these new pages, put a descriptive heading at the top

of the page. For instance, the words “House Cats” at the top of
the house cats page.

8. Put the main headings of all four pages in the Arial font. Make
them bold. Give the home page’s heading a size of +3. Give the
headings of the other pages a size of +2.

9. On each page, write a descriptive sentence or two in a new

paragraph below the main heading. Make it arial, with a size of -1.

10. Go to www.visibooks.com/catpics and get the three cat graphics

there. Put them in a folder called “graphics” within the C:\Cats
folder.

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56

11. Insert the appropriate graphic on each of the 3 pages between the
main heading and the descriptive text below.

12. Align each graphic left, then specify vspace of 4 and hspace of 16.

13. Link each of the three “cat” pages back to the home page, and to
each other. On each page, make the “you are here” link into bold,
plain text.

14. Make the background color of each page light grey.

15. Make the link color on each page bright red. Make the visited link
color orange.

16. Preview the site in the browser. It should look like the site at
www.visibooks.com/cats.

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 57

Layout & Navigation

In this section, you’ll learn how to:
• Lay out pages using tables
• Create navigation bars
• Add subsections to site
• Place tables within tables
• Link to an external site using frames

You’ll build a site that looks like this:

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58

Lay out pages using tables

Tables and Web page layout

Almost all professional-quality Web sites are laid out using
tables. Just like a spreadsheet has cells that contain numbers, a
table on a Web page has cells that contain links, graphics, and
text.
The lines on this page clearly show its layout with table cells:

cell cell cell

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 59

Create a table
1. Create a new folder on the C:\ drive called “Travel.”

2. In Notepad, create a home page (file name index.html) titled

“Traveling Down South.” Save it in the Travel folder.

Tip: Make sure that your new home page has the correct file name—
index.html—and all necessary tags:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<!--Created by Your Name-->
</HEAD>
<TITLE>
Traveling Down South
</TITLE>
<BODY>

</BODY>
</HTML>

3. You’re going to create a simple one-row, two-cell table that looks

like this:

links content

4. The first step is to begin the table. Below the <BODY> tag, begin
your table with the <TABLE> tag:
<BODY>
<TABLE>

5. Below the <TABLE> tag, start a row with the <TR> (Table Row)
tag:
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>

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60

6. In the table row, start the first cell with the <TD> (Table Data) tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>

7. After the <TD> tag, type the word “links,” then close the cell
with the </TD> tag:
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>

You’ve created the first cell in the row:

links content

8. Now create the second cell in the row by adding a <TD> tag, the
word Content, and closing the cell with a </TD> tag:
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>

links content

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 61

9. Finish the table by closing the row with a </TR> tag, then closing
the table with the </TABLE> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

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62

10. You have set up the basic table. To make it possible to see the table
outlines in a browser, add the attribute BORDER=”1” to the
<TABLE> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=1>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

11. Save the page, then view it in the browser. It should look like this:

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 63

Format a table
1. Now you’ll extend the table. In Notepad, add the WIDTH=”100%”
attribute to the <TABLE> tag:

<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=1 WIDTH=”100%”>
<TR>
<TD>Links</TD>
<TD>Content</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

2. Save the page and view it in the browser. It should look like this:

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64

Percentage vs. fixed-width tables

When laying out a page using a table, set the table’s width at
100%. That way, the contents of the page can stretch to fill the
whole monitor, regardless of the monitor’s resolution.
If you want it to fit a fixed-width table on all monitors, you’re
limited to a table 580 pixels wide:
640 pixels
width of
- 20 pixels
browser offset: the
- 40 pixels
20 for the
= 580 pixels
width
low- distance that page vertical available
resolution content is indented scroll bar, for table
monitor from the sides of the plus 20 extra
browser

Creating pages with fixed-width tables offers precise control,

but wastes space on higher-resolution monitors:


Page:laid out using a table 580 pixels wide 

Monitor used to view page:1280 pixels wide

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