The end of a paragraph that will be formatted before it is displayed on the screen.
. . .Identifies text that has already been formatted (preformatted) by some other system and must be displayed as is. Preformatted text may include embedded tags, but not all tag types are permitted. The
tag can
be used to include tables in documents.
. . .
Example computer listing; embedded tags will be ignored, but embedded
tabs will work. This is an archaic tag.
. . .
Similar to except no embedded tags will be recognized.
Similar to <pre> except no embedded tags will be recognized, and since
there is no end tag, the remainder of the document will be rendered as
plain text. This is an archaic tag. Note that some browsers actually
recognize a </plaintext> tag, even though it is not defined by the
standard.
<blockquote> . . . </blockquote>
Include a section of text quoted from some other source.
Hyperlinks or Anchors
<a name="anchor_name"> . . . </a>
Define a target location in a document
<a href="#anchor_name"> . . . </a>
Link to a location in the same document
<a href="URL"> . . . </a>
Link to another file or resource
<a href="URL#anchor_name"> . . . </a>
Link to a target location in another document
<a href="URL?search_word+search_word"> . . . </a>
Send a search string to a server. Different servers may interpret the
search string differently. In the case of word-oriented search engines,
multiple search words might be specified by separating individual words
with a plus sign (+).
An anchor must include a name or href attribute, and may include both. There
are several optional attributes, but they are rarely encountered.
The structure of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be expressed as:
resource_type://host.domain:port/pathname
where the possible resource types include: file, http, news, gopher, telnet,
ftp, and wais, among others, and each resource type interprets the pathname
in its own way. (Strictly speaking, the anchor_name and search_word
information included in the name and href attributes in the examples above
are part of the URL. They are presented as separate entities for
simplicity.) Note that each resource type relates to a specific server type.
The colon followed by an integer TCP port number is optional, and is used
when a server is listening on a non-standard port.
A more complete description of URLs is presented in
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/Addressing.html
Headers
<h1> . . . </h1> Most prominent header
<h2> . . . </h2>
<h3> . . . </h3>
<h4> . . . </h4>
<h5> . . . </h5>
<h6> . . . </h6> Least prominent header
Logical Styles
<em> . . . </em>
Emphasis
<strong> . . . </strong>
Stronger emphasis
<code> . . . </code>
Display an HTML directive
<samp> . . . </samp>
Include sample output
<kbd> . . . </kbd>
Display a keyboard key
<var> . . . </var>
Define a variable
<dfn> . . . </dfn>
Display a definition (not widely supported)
<cite> . . . </cite>
Display a citation
Physical Styles
<b> . . . </b>
Boldface
<i> . . . </i>
Italics
<u> . . . </u>
Underline
<tt> . . . </tt>
Typewriter font
Definition list/glossary: <dl>
<dl>
<dt> First term to be defined
<dd> Definition of first term
<dt> Next term to be defined
<dd> Next definition
</dl>
The <dl> attribute compact can be used to generate a definition list
requiring less space.
Present an unordered list: <ul>
<ul>
<li> First item in the list
<li> Next item in the list
</ul>
Present an ordered list: <ol>
<ol>
<li> First item in the list
<li> Next item in the list
</ol>
Present an interactive menu: <menu>
<menu>
<li> First item in the menu
<li> Next item
</menu>
Present a directory list of items: <dir>
<dir>
<li> First item in the list
<li> Second item in the list
<li> Next item in the list
</dir>
Items should be less than 20 characters long.
Entities
&keyword;
Display a particular character identified by a special keyword. For
example the entity & specifies the ampersand ( & ), and the entity
< specifies the less than ( < ) character. Note that the semicolon
following the keyword is required, and the keyword must be one from the
list presented in:
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Entities.html
-or-
The ISO LATIN I character set
&#ascii_equivalent;
Use a character literally. Again note that the semicolon following the
ASCII numeric value is required.
HTML Forms Interface
The HTML forms interface allows document creators to define HTML documents
containing forms to be filled out by users. When a user fills out the form
and presses a button indicating the form should be "submitted," the
information on the form is sent to a server for processing. The server will
usually prepare an HTML document using the information supplied by the user
and return it to the client for display.
The following tags implement the forms interface:
* <form> . . . </form>
* <input>
* <select> . . . </select>
* <option>
* <textarea> . . . </textarea>
The last four tags can only be used within a <form> . . . </form> element.
Define a form
<form> . . . </form>
Define a form within an HTML document. A document may contain multiple
<form> elements, but <form> elements may not be nested. Note that non-form
tags can be used within a <form> element. Attributes and their arguments:
action:
The URL location of the program that will process the form.
method: One of get or post
The method chosen to exchange data between the client and the program
started to process the form. post is preferred for most applications.
Example:
<form action="http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/cgi-bin/register" method=post>
. . . </form>
Define an input field
<input> (there is no ending tag)
Defines an input field where the user may enter information on the form.
Each input field assigns a value to a variable which has a specified name
and a specified data type. Attributes and their arguments:
type
Specifies the data type for the variable.
o type="text" and type="password" accept character data
o type="checkbox" is either selected or not
o type="radio" allows selection of only one of several radio
fields, if they all have the same variable name
o type="submit" is an action button that sends the completed form
to the query server
o type="reset" is a button that resets the form variables to their
default values
name
"textstring" where textstring is a symbolic name (not displayed)
identifying the input variable as in:
<input type="checkbox" name="box1">
value
"textstring" where the function of textstring depends on the argument
for type.
o For type="text" or type="password", textstring is the default
value for the input variable.
o If type="checkbox" or type="radio", textstring is the value of the
input variable when it is "checked".
o For type="reset" or type="submit", textstring is a label that will
appear on the submit or reset button in place of the words
"submit" and "reset".
checked
No arguments. For type="checkbox" or type="radio", if checked is
present the input field is "checked" by default.
size
width where width is an integer value representing the number of
characters allowed for the type="text" or type="password" input fields.
maxlength
length where length is the number of characters accepted for
type="text" or type="password". This attribute is only valid for single
line "text" or "password" fields.
Define a select field
<select> . . . </select>
defines and displays a set of optional list items from which the user can
select one or more items. This element requires an <option> element for each
item in the list. Attributes and their arguments:
name
"textstring" where textstring is the symbolic identifier for the select
field variable.
size
The argument for size is an integer value representing the number of
<option> items that will be displayed at one time.
multiple
No arguments. If present, the multiple attribute allows selection of
more than one <option> value.
Define a select field option
<option>
Within the <select> element the <option> tags are used to define the
possible values for the select field. If the attribute selected is present
then the option value is selected by default. In the following example all
three options may be chosen but bananas are selected by default.
<select multiple>
<option>Apples
<option selected>Bananas
<option>Cherries
</select>
Define a text area
<textarea> . . . default text . . . </textarea>
Defines a rectangular field where the user may enter text data. If "default
text" is present it will be displayed when the field appears. Otherwise the
field will be blank. Attributes and their values:
name
"textstring" where textstring is a symbolic name that identifies the
<textarea> variable.
rows and cols
Both attributes take an integer value which represents the lines and
number of characters per line in the <textarea> to be displayed.
Miscellaneous
<!-- text -->
Place a comment in the HTML source
<address> . . . </address>
Present address information
<img src="URL" alt="Alternate Text">
Embed a graphic image in the document. Attributes:
src
Specifies the location of the image.
alt
Allows a text string to be put in place of the image in clients
that cannot display images.
align
Specify a relationship to surrounding text. The argument for align
can be one of top, middle, or bottom.
ismap
If ismap is present and the image tag is within an anchor, the
image will become a "clickable image". The pixel coordinates of
the cursor will be appended to the URL specified in the anchor if
the user clicks within the ismap image. The resulting URL will
take the form "URL?m,n" where m and n are integer coordinates.
<br>
Forces a line break immediately and retains the same style.
<hr>
Places a horizontal rule or separator between sections of text.
Additional Information
For a tutorial introduction to HTML see:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/demoweb/html-primer.html.
For an introduction to forms within HTML see: An Instantaneous Introduction
to HTML Forms.
For general information about HTML, see
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/MarkUp.html
Michael Grobe
Academic Computing Services
The University of Kansas
grobe@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
February 14, 1995