HTML Help Features Page

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Getting Started
You Want to Create a Web Page; Where Do You Begin?

Where do you start? Now that you've decided to create your own web page, how the heck do you get started? Well, most experienced web page authors have discovered that the best way to learn about web page creation is to study what other people have done.

For example, if you're curious about how this page is done, you can take a look at the source code I used to create it. To do that, simply select View, then Frame Source from the menu bar of the browser. A window will pop up that shows you the HTML code I used to create this page. If you'd like to save it to your hard drive so that you can study it at your leisure while offline (not connected to Prodigy), select File then Save As from the menu bar of the browser. When the Save As... window pops up, navigate to the directory on your hard drive where you'd like the page to be stored, enter a File Name, then click OK to save the page to disk.

Once the page is saved to disk, you can use your browser offline to view the page. To do this, open up your browser, select File, then Open from the browser menu bar. When the Open window pops up, navigate to the directory where you saved the page and double click on it to bring it up in the browser. Please note that when the page you saved is displayed in the browser, you will not see any images that were displayed on the page when you were viewing it online. Saving a page to your hard drive saves only the HTML code used to create the page, and does not save any images that were originally displayed on the page.

The pages of this Interest Group, however, have been designed to look pretty much the same when saved and viewed offline as they did when viewed online. When you save one of these pages and go to view it offline, you'll find that with the exception of not having backgrounds and images, the page will look as it did online.

Important Note!

While I encourage you to save web pages to disk in order to study what other web page authors have done, do not copy the entire page and use it for your own. Nor should you copy any text from the page (unless you have permission from the author). If you do, you open yourself up to potential copyright problems. Instead, copy and paste only those bits of HTML code that interest you, and incorporate those into your own creation.

How do you create your page?Okay, so now you've been looking at other pages and studying the HTML code on them, and you're ready to venture forth and start experimenting. How do you go about creating your own pages? You'll need an editor. Web pages are simply text (ASCII) files that can be created using a text editor like Windows Notepad, or an HTML editor like Hippie (by Trout Software) or one of the editors that can be found on my HTML Editors links page. The advantage of using an HTML editor over a text editor is that when using an HTML editor, most of the HTML tags needed to create your page can be inserted by either clicking on a button or selecting an option from a menu. Not only can an HTML editor save you keystrokes, but it also allows you to quickly begin creating pages without having extensive knowledge of HTML tags. In other words, an HTML editor can simplify your web page creation efforts and ease your learning curve.

An additional advantage to using the Hippie editor is that it's a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSWIG) editor. Hippie provides one window where you enter all your HTML tags and text, and another window that immediately displays your page as you're creating and adding things to it. This feature provides you the ability to see right away what your page looks like, and also to experiment with the various HTML tags to see what effect they'll have on the page you're creating.

Where do you learn more about HTML? You've looked at the HTML code on other pages; you've got an editor; and now you're ready to jump in and start creating web pages. So where can you learn more about HTML? You can start by viewing the pages I've provided here. While not a complete discussion of HTML, the information I've provided here will help you learn more about the most common issues regarding web page creation, and most of the basic HTML tags. For more complete listings, tutorials, and discussions of HTML tags than what I've provide here, check out the HTML links that are available on the Where to learn about creating web pages page of my PWP, Nuthin' but Links. With a little research and a lot of reading, you should be able to start creating web pages very quickly.

Have fun! Enjoy your web page creation efforts, and have fun! If you run into any problems or have any questions, come visit with me and other web page authors in the HTML Help topic on Prodigy Classic's Internet Support BB, or right here in Prodigy Internet's HTML Help newsgroup, prodigynet.computing.htmlhelp.

Important Note!
While I encourage you to save web pages to disk in order to study what other web page authors have done, do not copy the entire page and use it for your own. Nor should you copy any text from the page (unless you have permission from the author). If you do, you open yourself up to potential copyright problems. Instead, copy and paste only those bits of HTML code that interest you, and incorporate those into your own creation.