The basic webmasters toolbox
The next Steps
Now you have learnt what HTML is and how it helps us interact with the web we will show you how to write and edit to make basic WebPages.
What you need to get started writing HTML and make your website
To get started with HTML and also to interact with the tutorials on this site you will need some basic tools, which you’ll be pleased to know are free. If you chose to read the tutorial first, just give this page a quick glance to understand the tool requirements and that you fulfill them before continuing (Don’t worry 99.9% fill the requirements).
Hardware
As we have mentioned you will need a PC and an internet connection. These tutorials are aimed at people running Windows based software so anything from win2000 and upwards (XP, Vista etc) should be sufficient.
Your internet connection can be any speed in reality as website files are normally very small and we will be showing you how to optimize your website for speedy downloads, but to avoid frustration, it's always better to have a faster connection than say a dialup modem.
Software
The easiest way to edit a HTML document is with the default program from windows called "notepad.exe". You can find this on your windows operating system by going to:
"Start-Programs-Accessories-Notepad"
or alternatively you can
"Start-Run" and typing "notepad.exe" and clicking on "OK"
There are other packages online you can download and one of these we would suggest is Programmers Notepad which is freeware (which means you pay nothing for) and is a little more advanced than notepad and has the added bonus of markup color coding which helps when you are writing or editing HTML and helps highlight errors in your markup.
See how easy it is to start to make a website in this video
Additional requirements
You may also require an unzip program to open some of the test files windows normally comes with a default zip program installed, but if not we recommend to download winzip or winrar.
So now you have an idea of how easy it is to start you should move on to the basic structure of HTML.
Off the shelf Solutions
If you want to get a head start in making your website, there are also professional HTML and CSS editing packages available at economic prices. We will not go into in these in the first HTML tutorial but some of them are listed on the website and may be worth the investment depending on your time restraints and complexity of the website you want to build.
Whatever your final choice is, we recommend you read the first basic tutorials and evaluate what is the best path for you, either by doing it by yourself, with the help of a commercial package or even freelancing as a project.
WYSIWIG
As we have said there are a number of ways to make or edit your website pages and even though in this tutorial we will be editing manually, one we feel worth mentioning is the WYSIWYG system (What You See Is What You Get).
The difference between WYSIWYG and manually editing website pages is that in a WYSIWYG system the information you are editing and observing on the screen appears exactly the same as in the output of the finished website page, hence the term “What You See Is What You Get”.
In contrast, with manual editing the website page or document is normally prepared using a text editor, manually writing the special layout commands known as tags and elements and after you open and view it in your browser. Whereas WYSIWIG will automatically put in the tags and elements for you and all you have to do is edit text and tell it where you want the contents positioned.
Although the fastest and best way may be WYSIWYG, we feel that a basic understanding of the tag markup system is required before you attempt to build directly with a WYSIWYG editor and that’s what we will explain in the following chapters.
Also by understanding the way HTML is structured you will also see how hypertext can be used to optimize your website for Search engines like Google and Yahoo to find your website easier, which is generally not shown in the WYSIWIG system.