This month, the focus of On the Web is basic information on the creation of Web pages.
There are a number of excellent resources for people interested in creating pages on the World Wide Web. Web pages consist of text, graphics, sound, or images, marked up in HTML - the Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML is closely related to SGML - the Standard Generalized Markup Language.
There are many sources of information regarding HTML. See for example the Web sites HTML Documentation ,and
HTML pages can be created using any text editor or word processor capable of generating an ASCII file. In addition there are HTML editors for most computer platforms. Many of these editors include tools which greatly simplify the markup procedure and include built-in parsers which check the text to make sure the markup is valid. Information about editors, many of which are freely available via FTP, is on Yahoo.
The best style guide for the creation of Web pages is the product of Yale's Patrick Lynch. His Yale Center for Advanced Instructional Media WWW Style Guide , recently described in the Chronicle of Higher Education, is invaluable and should be consulted by anyone contemplating the creation of WWW pages. This style manual focuses primarily on interface and page design; it is not a guide to HTML. It does, however, link to several guides to HTML and many other useful sources of information for the creation of Web pages. The Yale University Library Web site was created without the guidance of this style guide; as the site is revised, many of Pat Lynch's suggestions will be incorporated.
The Web Site of the Month for May is the
The Electric Postcard
Paul Constantine is Director of the Electronic Text Center at the Yale University Library. He can be reached by e-mail at <Paul.Constantine@Yale.Edu>.
Back to May 1995