Basic HTML

From FIRSTwiki

HTML, or hypertext markup language, is used by web developers to display content on the web more advanced than simple text files. HTML allows the web designer to create pages with colors, fonts, tables, images, and numerous other elements that make the site aesthetically pleasing. Along with CSS, this is the tool by which information is presented on the World Wide Web.

To create HTML files, all that is needed is a simple text editor (such as Notepad for Windows users) that allows the user to save files with a extension of either ".html" or ".htm". To view the files rendered, it is necessary to have a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer. There are many more advanced tools available, but for many purposes they are overkill.

[edit]

Syntax

HTML markup follows a basic pattern: it is enclosed between less-than and greater-than symbols (<>) and can include fields within the "tags". For instance, <span>, specifies a span tag, which can change text color. The end of a tag is specified with a forward slash, like this: </span>. Putting it all together:

<span style="color:green;">Text to be colored green.</span>

This renders as:

Text to be colored green.

There is markup to create italicized text, bold text, to include links, images, and a wide host of other formatting. For a comprehensive review of available markup, see the W3C HTML 4.01 specification.

[edit]

Creating a Team Website

Main article: Designing a team webpage

Websites for FIRST Robotics teams are like all other websites: they should be colorful, aesthetically pleasing, functional, and most of all, informative. Remember that content is more important than a pretty design, and that most of all, the content should be easily accessible.

However, other important factors must be taken into consideration when designing a FIRST team webpage. There are specific items that FIRST judges will be looking for when judging a team's website, and there are certain elements that a team will want to include in order to make the webpage useful for other FIRSTers.

[edit]