About these Documents

These documents attempt to document all the HTML (Hyper-Text Mark-up Language) tags recognized by the various WWW (World Wide Web) and HTML browsers.

This information is presented in the form of a Dictionary of HTML listing every known tag and provides examples of its use in a fairly reader friendly manner.

Most of the information you will find here was; discovered accidentally, synthesized through the scrupulous examination of browsers, condensed by filtering of other HTML documents and through the contributions of a few generous people on the net.

I make no guarantees about the quality or accuracy of the information provided to you. These documents were primarily put together for my own use. It just so happens that I think this is important enough to share.

Examples are not always provided. In case of confusion please look at the source of this document.

PS, the artwork is all by me

Contributors

Thanks goes out to the following generous people who have in the past contributed to make this document better.

Eric Hall Ford Motor Co
Roger Binns SCO
Daniel LaLiberte NCSA
Keith Blow Home
Mark Meytin eats.com
Simon north knoware.nl
Andrew Macpherson europen.com

History

Version 3.7

HTML3 moved from ext section. Added netscape4 extensions.

Version 3.6

Guide showing what can be done with java added and available as a separate set of documents. Included as a zip file for convenience.

Some minor reorganisation, hopefully no too many links broken.

Version 3.5.3

Netscape3 isms added - a start at made at learning Java.

Version 3.5.2

example of cellspacing added, html-ised rfc about URLs added

Version 3.5.1

Hidden input fields documented, password protection documented

Version 3.5

The basics of Java script documented with examples, more to follow later

animated GIFs!

new misc book showing interesting effects that can be produced with HTML.

Permission granted for Internet User Magazine (Japan) to include these documents on CD-ROM.

Version 3.4

A set of perl scripts is provided to interface with a free text searching engine. Yet more reorganizing. Java,netscape and perl have their own sub-directories. Maintaining links a big problem as these documents are crafted entirely by hand.. MISC book contains sub books.

Version 3.3

Document no longer need to be on a server, front image-map broken down into discrete images.

Permission granted for a German computing magazine to include these documents on CD-ROM.

Version 3.2

Frame extensions documented. section on tables completely re-written. Still nothing much about Java. Java picture removed.

Version 3.1

minor corrections, some hot Java support, more to follow. a perl primer is added.

Version 3

added details on netscape extensions to HTML plus ISO character set. POST method in form processing was completely wrong.. how come no-one ever pointed it out.

Version 2

split into several document for a more manageable set of documents. Now only server based, but with a nice front-end.

Version 1

The original one-document Complete-ish guide.

Soap-box

HTML is a growing standard. It does the job it was designed to do but until recently was not the stuff for on-line publishing.

Abode has brought forth the Portable document Format™ ( has PDF Files), A slimed-down, beefed-up object orientated version of their legendary Postscript™ language.

Significant advances in the HTML direction are:

Java. A mundane language that has managed to carve a niche that was totally unexpected. Unlike HTML this does need programming prowess. The results are worth the effort.
Netscape plug-ins: only for MSwindows and provides seamless viewing of non HTML documents. This technology is being replaced by Java.
Frames allow you to logically arrange how your documents look.
ActiveX MS windows only, though a microsoft clone I know says this is portable! A competitor to Java sponsored by microsoft, allows legacy code to exist in the dynamic environment of the web.
Hot Java A promising future proof web browser written in Java that claimed to be able to support any tag that came along but stumbled on frames and tables. Used in the Sun Java workshop with disastrous consequences.

While HTML can not compete with PDF for flexibility (or Interleaf or modern word processing document formats) yet, it has it's advantages .. it's human readable, relatively efficient and a user base some megabuck corporations would sell their grannies for.

Copyleft statement

Distributed under the GNU General Public License for documents (any version of your choice). No part of these documents may be printed in any for-profit publication. You must obtain my explicit permission before including these documents on a CD-ROM.