Designing and Writing HTML
This section contains information on how to help make your pages look better in both a
text-based and a graphical browser.
HTML file name conventions:
- start with an lowercase letter
- continue with mixed case letters, digits, dashes (avoid other punctuation)
- acronyms should be all uppercase
- abbreviations should be mixed case
- the name should be descriptive
- the name should end with .html
HTML content:
- documents should start with a title
- the title is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the screen in Lynx for every
page of the document and in a separate box at the top in Netscape or Explorer
- documents also have at least one heading, which is usually a repeat of the title
- the heading is centred and displayed all uppercase in Lynx and in a large bold font in
graphical browsers (try not to enter the heading in all uppercase).
- do not try to (mis)use HTML to get a particular visual effect -- HTML is used to specify
the structure of a document and it is up to the particular browser (Lynx, Netscape,
or Internet Explorer, etc.) to decide on the presentation of that document
- when creating tables, they may not turn out the same way in Lynx as they would in
a graphical browser
HTML writing:
- try to test all your pages in both a text-based and a graphical browser
- remember to use your browsers refresh function so that you get the current state of your
work
- leave some space between major topics on a page so it is easier to read