3.02B Authoring Languages

3.02B Authoring Languages

3.02 Develop webpages.

Authoring Languages

Used to control the appearance and functionality of webpages when displayed in a browser Examples include:

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) XML (eXtensible Markup Language) XHTML (eXtensible HTML)

HTML

HyperText Markup Language

First and still primary language for developing webpages/sites.

Uses codes, or tags, to instruct the browser how to display text and images.

Is platform independent.

Example of HTML code

<html>

<title>Student Website</title>

<b>Welcome to my website!</b>

</html>

XML

eXtensible Markup Language

Describes data types to facilitate data processing

Designed to carry data, not to display it

Allows the author to define tags to identify each data entry so that the data can be easily imported into other applications

Metadata—data about data

Example of XML code<weather>

<city>Atlanta</city>

<state>Georgia</state>

<temp>75</temp>

</weather>

XHTMLeXtensible HyperText Markup Language Combination of HTML and XML

Allows the designer to mix HTML and XML so that browsers can display and manage data correctly

Originally intended to replace HTML as dominant authoring language

Places restrictions on HTML tags so that code is cleaner and can display data as the author intended

Requires all HTML tag sets be closed

Requires lowercase tags

Many devices can’t interpret bad HTML code (mobile phones, PDAs)

Style Sheets

Describe how browsers should present or display information on a webpage.

Give web developers more control over layout and page formatting.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a popular style sheet language.

CSSCascading Style Sheets

Separates content from appearance and gives web authors more control over layout and page format

CSS code instructs the Web browser how to format each item.

<html>

<head>

<style type="text/css">

h1 {color: #00ff00}

h2 {color: #dda0dd}

p {color: rgb(0,0,255)}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<h1>This is header 1</h1>

<h2>This is header 2</h2>

<p>This is a paragraph</p>

</body>

</html>

Pros and Cons of CSS

Advantages One style sheet can

control the formatting for multiple webpages.

An entire website can be reformatted by editing one CSS file.

Styles can also be set internally. The CSS code is keyed in the header section of the html document.

Disadvantages May alter the ability of

some devices to accurately read and display information.

Text Editors

Allow developers to write code in plain text. Examples:

Notepad Notepad2 Wordpad

Microsoft Word should not be used to create webpages.

Documents

3.02B Authoring Languages