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