BUFFALO FREENET USER HOME PAGES / HTML FAQ                      JULY 7, 1995
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* This is the first edition of this FAQ.  Please send corrections,
comments, questions or critisms to Lawrence Puente (ba177@freenet.buffalo.edu).

* This FAQ contains only the most commonly needed information, many other
more detailed sources of information on HTML are available online.

* This document assumes that you have read the "How to create your own
Home Page" and have at least glanced at the "Example User Home Page".

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CONTENTS

A. Most Asked Question
B. SECTION I.   BASICS TERMINOLOGY
C. SECTION II.  HTML AND TEXT FORMATTING
D. SECTION III. LINKS AND OTHER HTML FEATURES

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#1 QUESTION/ANSWER:

HOW DO I DO WHAT THAT PERSON DID?
If you are viewing a web page and you want to know how a certain feature
was created, tap the '\' key.  In Lynx, this is the command to view the
source document.  It shows you the actual HTML document without applying
any of the formatting tags.  In this way you can see all the tags which were
used to create the web page.

(N.B.  You are currently viewing the text-only version of this document.  This
is a regular text file, not an HTML document.  Pressing \ now will have no
effect.)
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SECTION I.  BASICS TERMINOLOGY

1) WHAT IS HTML?
Hyper-Text Mark-Up language is a collection of commands and symbols called
tags.  These tags are interpreted by a browsing program such as Lynx,
NetScape or Mosaic to create the screen which you see.  The syntax for the
tags is that of keywords enclosed by '<' and '>'.  For example <b> turns on
bold text and </b> turns it off.  Tags may be in upper or lower case, i.e.
<STRONG> is the same as <strong>.  The scope of HTML is much greater than
what is described here.  More information can be found at the sites listed
at the end of this document.

2) WHAT IS LYNX?
Lynx is the program used on the Buffalo FreeNet to view Gophers and World Wide
Web pages.  FAQ's on these topics are found elsewhere (type 'go help' or
'go faq').

3) CAN MOSAIC, NETSCAPE, ETC. BE USED ON THE BUFFALO FREENET?
No.

4) WHAT IS A URL?
A Uniform Resource Locator specifies the location in 'cyberspace' of a
particular document.  Think of it as an address to a web site and the
documents that it contains.

5) WHAT'S THE URL OF THE SITE I'M BROWSING?
Press the '=' key.  Lynx will tell you where you are.

6) HOW DO I JUMP TO ANOTHER URL / ANOTHER WEB SITE?
In Lynx, press 'G' and type in the URL.

7) WHAT'S THE URL OF MY HOME PAGE?
<A HREF="http://freenet.buffalo.edu/~your_user_id

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SECTION II.  HTML AND TEXT FORMATTING

1) WHY DON'T SPACES, TABS AND LINE BREAKS APPEAR WHERE I PUT THEM?

Web browsers use html tags to format text.  They place spaces, carriage returns
and tabs wherever they think is most appropriate.  You can force a line break
with the tag <br>.  The <p> tag formats the preceding text as a paragraph.
This usually also adds a blank line after the paragraph.  Notice that there is
no </p> or </br> tag.  You can also force a block of text to appear exactly as
you typed it by surrounding the text with <pre> and </pre>, which stands for
preformatted.


2) HOW DO I INCLUDE THE < OR > SYMBOLS IN MY TEXT?

Usually the web browser interprets these characters as forming an html tag.
To include these as an actual character, substitute these codes.  Some
characters have an alternate code which is easier to remember.  Using <pre>
and </pre> does NOT eliminate the need to use these codes.

              or
&       ámp;    £38;
<       ìt;     £60;
>       çt;     £62;

You may also need to use these codes, in some situations.

"                       £34;
TAB                     £9;
space                   £32;
Line Feed               £10;
Carriage Return         £13;


3) HOW DO I CREATE DIFFERENT TEXT ATTRIBUTES?

Not every web browser will display these attributes in the same way!
Here are the main ones:

<b>bold text</b>
<i>italic text</i>
<em>emphasized text</em>                often shown as italic
<strong>strong emphasis</strong>        often shown as bold
<kbd>keyboard font</kbd>                monospace font used to indicate typed
                                        text


4) HOW DO I CREATE DIFFERENT HEADINGS?

Use <h1></h1> or <h2></h2> and so on, usually up to <h6></h6>.  <h1></h1> is the
largest, most emphasized font and is usually centered; successive headings
use smaller fonts and are successively indented.  Headings are not displayed
identically on different browsers and different systems.


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SECTION III.  LINKS AND OTHER HTML FEATURES

1) HOW DO I ADD A LINK TO ANOTHER SITE OR ANOTHER FILE OR DOCUMENT?

Say you want to add a link to the Yahoo web site:
<A HREF="http://www.yahoo.com">Click here for yahoo</a>

The text in-between the tags can be anything you want.  It is this text which
will appear highlighted when you use the arrow keys to select the link.  If
your web page is not working, check that you have matched all of the quotes
and <>'s.

Links can be to a site, or to a specific page on a site:
<A HREF="http://wings.buffalo.edu">U of Buffalo</a>
contains the URL of a site, whereas
<A HREF="http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/WWW/Servers.html">Index</a>
connects you to a specific document within the file system at www.w3.org.

If you want to add a link to to another page of your own web site, simply use
<A HREF="mydocument.html">Some Text</a>
In this example mydocument.html is simply another HTML document that you
create in your workspace, just as you created index.html.  You can create as
many html documents as you want in your work directory (within your alloted
disk quota).


2) HOW DO I ADD A LINK TO A GOPHER SITE?

Do the same thing as for a web link but use gopher:// instead of <A HREF="http://
<A HREF="gopher://ftp.cica.indiana.edu">Windows Archive</a>


3) HOW DO I ADD A LINK TO AN FTP SITE?

Do the same thing as for a web link but use ftp:// instead of <A HREF="http://
<A HREF="ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu">Washington University Archive</a>


4) HOW DO I ADD GRAPHICS TO MY PAGE?

If you have a graphics file in your work directory called photo.jpg, use:
<img src="photo.jpg">

You can also specify where to place the picture, for instance:
<img align=right src="photo.jpg">

Text will wrap around the picture if you specify the "align" parameter.  Right
left and center alignments are relative to the current text line.
Remember that you have a disk quota and that large, color graphics take up
a lot of space.  Graphics with fewer colors take up significantly less space
than those with many colours.  The jpeg or .jpg file format is usually the
most compact and most graphical web browsers will be able to display graphics
stored in this format.


5) HOW DO I MAKE THE GRAPHICS DOWNLOADABLE?

Surround the image with an 'href':
<A HREF="photo.jpg"><img src="photo.jpg"></a>

This will produce the text ' [link] ' which can be selected and downloaded.
On a graphical browser, the actual graphic will appear and clicking on it
will permit downloading.

Notice that you can use a picture as a link to another site, for instance:
<A HREF="http://www.yahoo.com"><img src="photo.jpg"></a>
causes the user to be connected to Yahoo when the graphic is clicked on.


6) HOW DO I MAKE SOMETHING OTHER THAN [link] APPEAR?

If Lynx encounters an image it will display [link], or the text specified
by the ALT parameter.  Example:

<img src="photo.gif" alt="text">

will print the word 'text' instead of '[link]'.  On a graphical browser, the
actual image would still appear.


7) HOW DO I MAKE LINKS APPEAR BOLD?

When you use <A HREF="reference">some text</a>, the text between the tags
is automatically given the appropriate attributes.


8) HOW DO I ADD A SEND-MAIL LINK?

For instance, a link which sends me mail:
<A HREF="mailto:ba177@freenet.buffalo.edu">Mail Me</a>

This invokes your editor and places the text of the current document as the
quoted message (similar to when you use the 'reply' feature in e-mail).


9) HOW DO I CREATE THE HORIZONTAL LINE?
<HR>


10) HOW DO I ADD MOVIES, AUDIO CLIPS, ETC.?

To add a link to any type of file, use the <A HREF="reference">Link Text</a>
tag.  Examples:

<A HREF="QuickTimeMovie.mov">View a movie</a>
<A HREF="AudioClip.au">Hear sound recording</a>
<A HREF="ATextFile.txt">Read a story</a>

If your browser does not have the capability to view that file type, you
will be given the option to download the file.