YOUR FIRST WEBPAGE

INDEX-----HTML tags-----NEWARTPOTTERY.COM

In order to generate your first web page; I want you to go to the SOURCE of this page (go to the top of your screen and select VIEW>SOURCE) and cut and paste the HTML between the two dashed lines directly onto your SIMPLETEXT file titled index.html. -------------- -------------- After you do that, Your index.html file in SIMPLETEXT (or NOTEPAD) should look like this:

<html>
<title></title>
<body></body>
</html>

What you have there is the basis for all web pages. Those four tags are what make a web page. Now, let us customize that web page and then view it.

Between the title tags, write whatever you want to appear at the top of you home page window. This will also be what the bookmark of that page will read as. Type in something like "MY FIRST WEB PAGE" OR "WELCOME TO NEWARTPOTTERY.COM." If you can't wait to see what you just did, SAVE the file, click on your index.html browser window that has the index.html file, and click the RELOAD icon in Netscape, or the REFRESH icon in EXPLORER that is in the top of that window. You will still have a blank web page, but now it will be titled at the top of the window.

Remember this: every time you make a change in your SIMPLETEXT file and you want to view your changes in your browser, you have to SAVE then go over to the browser window and click the RELOAD or REFRESH icon. If when you are working on your page and you go to the browser to see your progress and click REFRESH and the changes you just made don't appear, it means you did not SAVE your SIMPLETEXT index.html file. You have to save any changes and you have to ask the browser to show the most recently saved version. That's why you have to click the REFRESH icon.

Next we are going to put some information text on the web page. Everything you see on the web page is going to be put between the two <body> and </body> tags. This is where you start to really use tags. We will quickly use about five of them and you will have a web page up and running on your desktop.

Between the open and closed "body" tags is where your web page will reside. So put you curser between the two body tags on your SIMPLETEXT index.html window and hit return four or five times. Everything is going between those two tags. Reposition your cursor under the <body> tag and type in <h1> and then <center> and then type in whatever you want to call your web site. Then close your "h1" tag but not the "center" tag. So you end up with a line of text something like this;

<h1> <center> YOUR WEB PAGE TITLE HERE </h1>
<br> <h3>THIS IS THE HOME PAGE OF JANE DOE</H3></CENTER>

Save your index.html SIMPLETEXT (OR NOTEPAD) file and click your index.html browser window and click REFRESH (OR RELOAD) and your web page now has two lines of text. They have different size text because of th h1 and h3 tags but they are both centered because you did not close the center tag after the first line. Until you close the center tag, all following text will be centered.

On the left hand margin of the next three lines type in:
<br>
<br>
<hr>
Click save and go to the browser and REFRESH. You now have two lines of text of different sizes and then a couple spaces and a horizontal rule across the page. Pretty easy, right?

I have to stop here and explain something. And it might be a little confusing. Bear with me. Right now you have three windows open in front of you. There will come a time when you understand what is happening and you won't need my instruction. My third instructional window (the one you are reading now) will not be in front of you and you will just have your index.html SIMPLETEXT (OR NOTEPAD) and BROWSER windows in front of you. I have been telling you to go to the SOURCE of a given web page to see the HTML tags and to copy and paste the tags from the SOURCE onto your index.html file. However, since for the moment you DO have my instructional window open in front of you, you can copy and paste the tags from it instead of going to the page SOURCE to procure the tags. You can get your tags from any source you want (eventually you will have them in you head), but in general, looking at them on any given web page's SOURCE is the best and quickest way to see and grasp what those tags are doing. Do as you please.

For the moment, you can make it easy and less confusing and copy and paste the tags right off this page and succeeding instructional windows.

You have now used four tags. You have used the text size (<h1> and <h3>:), the center tag (<center>), the break (skip a line) tag (<br>), and the horizontal rule (<hr>) tag. These are the most common tags. I'll give you a fifth one quickly. The BOLD tag is an easy one to remember. It is <b> and </b>. Place any text between those tags and it will be displayed in bold type.

Let's move on and add one more thing to this home page. The "home page" is the first page viewers will see when they hit your site. If you are an individual artist and this site is about your work, I think that the home page should be in the first person. Your home page should fulfill the following needs of the viewer. You should have a sentence or two that briefly describes what the purpose of the site is. The old expression about first impressions applies here. Make the home page inviting, illuminating and teasing. You also want to make it easy for the viewer to find what he or she is interested in. Think of your index page (that is your "index.html" page) as an index to your site. And you want to make that index a series of links that the viewer can click on to instantly access what interests them. Your home page has to be interesting, interactive and logical. Of course, web sites can be many things to many people. I only use the "individual artist" idea because that's how I approach my site. So now, you should use the few tags you know and add some text to your home page that makes it your home page.

Add some information to your home page then SAVE and REFRESH and view your efforts. It will look basic and it is. But it won't be for long. A background, some color and a couple of "hyperlinks" and it will turn into something else. Remember, if you did not close the center tag before you added text, all the text will be centered. All text will default to the left margin unless instructed to do otherwise by a tag.

Save all files for you web site into one desktop folder titled "Website."

Click this link to move on and LEARN THE BASICS OF LINKS

INDEX-----HTML tags-----NEWARTPOTTERY.COM