HTML is the official language recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and is generally adhered to by all major web browsers, including desktop and mobile web browsers.
What is HTML language?
HTML is an acronym for Hypertext Markup language, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is made up of the tags and commands that web designers use to create websites.
Hypertext is text with links that readers can click to go to another page or part of the page. Meanwhile, markup language uses tags or plain text with special tags to identify page sections, such as headers and footers, and other elements, including tables and images.
HTML is one of the three primary tools in creating web pages: HTML provides the structure or the way that text, images, etc. will appear on a website. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) defines the visual properties of these elements, such as colors, formatting, and layout. Meanwhile, Javascript makes these elements behave in certain ways depending on user action. For example, the font size of text can increase when users hover over their mouse or click a button on a page.
To write HTML, you will need a text editor, such as Notepad, Brackets, or Atom. HTML editors make sure your coding is clean and efficient. It helps reduce errors by automatically inserting tags (autocomplete) and other common elements or by correcting errors.
What do we use HTML for?
HTML is the default language for websites and web-based documents. The browser helps in understanding the structure and style of the document or files for viewing online. It allows your web pages to host audio, videos, and other applications. It also facilitates navigation within web pages or between websites through hypertext.
Furthermore, website makers can use HTML to design forms for ordering products, making reservations, or searching for information. Therefore, HTML is the basic building block for building your brand and running an e-commerce site or online subscription-based business.
How does HTML work
HTML is a text file with specific syntax, file, and label rules that show the computer and web server that it is in HTML and should be read as such. By applying these HTML conventions to a text file in almost any text editor, a user can write and design a basic web page, then upload it to the Internet.
The simplest HTML convention is to include the document type declaration at the beginning of the text file. This always comes first in the document, because it's the part that tells the computer for sure that this is an HTML file. Usually, the document title looks like this: It should always be written this way, without any content inside or fragmentation. The computer will not recognize any content that comes before this ad as HTML.
Doctypes are not only used with HTML, they can be applied to creating any document that uses SGML (Standard General Markup Language). SGML is a standard for defining a specific markup language to be used. HTML is one of several markup languages that SGML and DOCType ads apply.
Another prerequisite for creating an HTML file is to save it with the .html file extension. Whereas the DOCTYPE declaration sends HTML signals to the computer from within the file, the file extension sends the HTML to the computer from outside the file. By having both, the computer can tell it's an HTML file whether it's reading the file or not. This becomes especially important when uploading files to the web because the web server needs to know what to do with the files before it can send them to a client computer to read the internal contents.
After writing the document and saving it as an HTML file, the user can implement all the other HTML syntactic tools to customize a web page. Once done, they will likely have several HTML files corresponding to different pages of the website. The user must upload these files in the same hierarchy in which they are saved, as each page points to the file paths specified for the other pages, allowing links between them. Loading them in a different order will cause links to break and pages to be lost because the specified file paths will not match the pages.
What are tags in HTML?
Tags are symbols that express the way the text inside them is displayed, and a tag is the basic component of any HTML file. We may know them as words written in the form of <tag name>.
There are tags for you and they allow you to display all kinds of cool things like images, and tables..., just by telling your browser what to display on the page, using the appropriate tag for what you want to display.
Meaning that using different tags will create different jobs. The tags themselves do not appear when viewing your page through a browser, but their effects and functionality.
Each HTML tag consists of an opening tag and a closing tag.
Each tag has one role and no more than one formatting is allowed to be applied to some text, as follows:
<b>These words will be bold and bold</b>, and these will not be.
In the above line, the opening tag is <b> and the comment tag is <b/> .
When this text is displayed on a browser, the above line will be displayed as These words will be bold and bold, and these will not be.
In the example above, the <b> tag was wrapped around some text, and its effect would be that the text contained would be bold and bold as you would notice when viewed through a normal web browser.
If you'd like to see a list of the most commonly used HTML tags, check out our guide to the HTML tag reference.
Will it take too long to learn HTML?
Well, it depends on what you want from it and how often you learn, learning HTML will only take a few days of reading and learning the code and applying it. You can have the basics in one hour. Once you know the tags, you can start creating HTML pages.
However, using HTML and designing websites are different. Knowing and saving tags and their roles is not enough. Designing a good website is half the skill and half the talent and not just knowing everything as some people might think.
Some of the techniques for using and using tags correctly will greatly improve your skills and the intensity of your work, and a good understanding of the overall design and audience you are trying to reach will improve your website's chances of success.
Fortunately, these things can be researched and understood, as long as you are willing to work with them so that you can produce better websites.
The set of skills you will learn as a result of running your website is impressive. You will learn about aspects of graphic design, typography, and computer programming.
Your proficiency with computers, in general, will increase. You will also learn about promotions and your writing skills will likely improve as well, as you adapt to writing for a specific audience.
What is the structure of an HTML document?
The basic components of an HTML document are tags and elements. They tell your browser how to display your content. The signs begin and end in angle brackets or with “less than” and “greater than.” The letters between them are called element contents.
The following elements make up the basic structure of an HTML page (in the order they appear):
- Document type declaration
The <!DOCTYPE html> symbol appears at the beginning of the top of the HTML document. It tells the browser which version of HTML was used to produce the page.
- HTML root element
<html>, written below the DTD, works like the "main container" that contains all the other elements. It can specify the language of the HTML document.
For example, <” Html lang=”ar-AR> means that the page is written in Arabic.
- head
The <head> , which you'll find between <html> and <body> , contains metadata describing information about the page. They include:
- The <title> tag expresses the general theme of the web page. It is separate from the title tag that appears in the body but must match it.
- The <style> tag defines how elements appear in the browser. This includes title color, text alignment, text background color, etc.
- <link> refers to the resources (ie, another web page or external style sheet) that are linked to the HTML page.
- The <meta> contains the keywords, author, and description of the page.
- <base> points to the default URL.
- The <body> is the main part of the document that contains the information that the browser displays on the screen. It can include the following:
- The header consists of the site title, logo, main navigation menu, and search bar.
- main-content covers article title or title, article content, publication date, author, etc.
- Sidebars display widgets and secondary navigation, such as archives by category or date.
- The footer provides contact information, social links, copyright, and related articles.
What are the most popular HTML editors?
HTML text editors are used to create web pages. HTML code can be written in any text editor including Notepad. One just needs to write the HTML in any text editor and save the file with the “.html” extension. Some of the popular HTML text editors are listed below:
- Notepad
- Notepad++
- Sublime Text 3
- Atom
History and Evolution of HTML
In the early days of the World Wide Web, coding text documents using HTML syntax was more than enough to make it easier to share academic documents and technical notes. However, with the expansion of the Internet beyond the walls of academia and into the homes of the general population, the demand for web pages has increased in terms of format and interaction.
HTML 4.01 was released in 1999, and HTML5 was not standardized until 2014. During this time, HTML markup deviated from the function of merely describing the document structure of web page content to the role of also describing how it should The content appears when viewed by a web page.
As a result, HTML4-based web pages often include information within a tag about which font to use when displaying text, what color to use for the background, and how to align the content. The description within the HTML tag of how the HTML element is formatted when rendered on a web page is an anti-HTML. HTML in general should describe how the content is organized, not how it is designed and displayed within the browser. Other markup languages are more suitable for this task.
One of the main differences between HTML4 and HTML5 is that the Separation of Interests style is enforced more strictly in HTML5 than it was in HTML4. With HTML5, bold and italic tags are deprecated. For the paragraph tag, the alignment attribute has been completely removed from the HTML specification.
HTML versions
Below is a list of HTML versions and their years of creation. Several updates have been released for each version over time. This list is intended to focus on important duplicates.
- HTML 1.0 - released in 1992 - has a very limited capacity and about 20 elements.
- HTML 2.0, released in 1995, began incorporating elements related to math functions.
- HTML 3.2 - released in 1996 - dropped the Math function initiative altogether and established the overlap between different proprietary extensions.
- HTML 4.0, released in 1997, introduced three variants that differed in the number of deprecated elements allowed.
- HTML 4.01 - released in 1999 - is pretty much the same as 4.0.
- HTML 5 - released in 2014 - came after a long hiatus from updates because the organization that developed it - the W3C - was focusing on another parallel language called XHTML.
- HTML 5.1 - released in 2016 - aims to more easily accommodate different types of media embedded with new tags.
- HTML 5.2 - released in 2017 - aims to be equally understood by humans and computers.
- HTML 5.3 - Not yet released - W3C is collaborating with WHATWG on a new version. The cooperation began in 2019.
Do I have to be online all the time?
Absolutely. You can design or change your entire website offline, store it all on your computer, and then transfer all the files to the web when you're ready to go public.
In case you want to modify the design again, you can do so, just add the new components to the online version of your site. It is very simple.
Is there anything HTML can't do?
Of course, but since websites have become more popular and in need, many other supporting languages have been created to allow new things to happen, plus HTML is modified every few years to make room for improvements and the addition of new features.
Style sheets (CSS or cascading stylesheets) are used to control how your pages are displayed, make them beautiful and consistent, and make pages more accessible.
Basic effects and interactions are provided by JavaScript, which adds a lot of power to basic HTML.
Most of these support languages are considered basic, but after learning HTML of course because everything on the internet is based on it, when you use all of these techniques together, you have a lot of power at your disposal.
The pros and cons of HTML
The advantages of using HTML include:
- It is widely adopted with a large number of resources available.
- It runs natively on every browser.
- Relatively easy to learn.
- It has clean and consistent source code.
- Open source and free to use.
- It can integrate with other back-end programming languages such as PHP.
Some of the negatives to consider are:
- It does not have very dynamic functionality and is mainly used for static web pages.
- All components must be created separately even if they use similar elements.
- Browser behavior can be unexpected. For example, older browsers may not be compatible with newer features.
Frequently Asked Questions About HTML
How can HTML be defined?
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) can be defined as a text-based approach to describing how the content in an HTML file is structured. This markup tells the web browser how to display text, images, and other forms of multimedia on a web page.
How long does it take to learn HTML?
Most programmers recommend 2-4 hours per day for newcomers to start learning HTML. YOU can learn the basics of HTML within a week or two. However, daily practice is essential to master the language and understand its full potential.
Can I learn HTML on the same day?
Yes, you can learn HTML in just one day. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the main markup language for web pages. HTML is easy to learn. In the early days, I used HTML to arrange documents, project files, etc.
Is HTML harder than Python?
PYTHON is generally used for back-end software development. If you give 5-6 hours a day to Python, you will learn a lot of things in a month, and then you will know to develop different applications. HTML is much easier than Python.
Should I learn HTML or Python first?
No, You don't have to learn HTML before python or java. HTML is one of the easiest programming languages because it is a markup language. It is recommended that it be learned first for beginners because it is easy.