HTML

From OLSEncyclopedia

HTML is an initialism for HyperText Markup Language. It is a simple way to mark up text so that a web browser can display it with effects such as boldface, italics, underline and much much more.

Since the original form of HTML came out, there have been many improvements to it. Most web designers now use a derivative language called eXtensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML), which was created to bridge the gap between HTML and XML (eXtensible Markup Language). The changes are actually mostly transparent, but with a few exceptions:

• Tag names, attribute names, and attribute values are now lowercase.
• Attribute values MUST be quoted.
• All attributes MUST have a value, even HTML attributes such as disabled or checked whose mere presence told the web browser to do something. To accommodate these attributes, simply set the value to the attribute name: disabled would become disabled="disabled", and checked would become checked="checked".
• All tags must have a corresponding closing tag. This also applies to single tags like the line break tag (<br>) and the horizontal rule tag (<hr>).
• There is now a short closing syntax, taken directly from XML, that can be used with single tags so that they stay single. <br> becomes <br />, <hr> becomes <hr />. The space between the tag name and the slash is not required, but is there because people insist on using old browsers that wouldn't know what to do otherwise.

HTML files are simply text files, and can be viewed and edited in any text editor.