HTML is an acronym which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a standard markup language used to create web pages and web applications.
Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist who was also the inventor of the World Wide Web, created Html in the early 1990s.
Hypertext Markup Language, HTML is the foundation of every website and is responsible for the structure, content, and design of web pages or websites.
It allows web developers to add a set of common elements, such as headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, images, videos, and other elements on a web page.
HTML document is basically a text file with codes that tell the browser how to display the information on the web page. It is a simple and easy to learn language, making it an excellent choice for beginners who want to create a website.
When the web browser like Chrome, Firefox, etc. loads the web page on the browser, it interprets HTML code line by line and displays the content or information and structure of the page.
Important Terminology
Let us understand Hypertext Markup Language, web page, and website means what.
HyperText:
The term HyperText in HTML simply means “Text within Text”. A text that contains links to other texts is called hypertext. It provides a way to connect two or more web pages with each other in a website.
We can access it by clicking on the links. When you click on a link, you go to a new web page. Actually, you have clicked on a hypertext.
Markup language:
A markup language is a computer language that creates web pages (also called HTML document). It uses a set of tags to annotate the information in a document. In the HTML document, tags indicate how content should be displayed.
For example, when a web browser reads the and HTML tags in a web page, the browser bolds the text between those tags because and tags are used to bold the text.
Web Page:
A web page is a simply document commonly written in HTML and interpreted (i.e. read) by a web browser. It can be of static or dynamic type. We can identify by entering an URL. With HyperText Markup Language, we can only create a static web page.
Website:
A website is a collection of related one or more web pages that are connected together and organized into a hierarchical structure. We host it on a web server and can access it through the internet using a web browser.
In website, each web page contains text, images, videos, and other digital content presented on a specific format and style using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. A website can be a static that contains a simple information or can be dynamic such as a blog or social media, etc.
How does HTML work?
HTML is a markup language, not a programming language which is used for creating attractive web pages. An HTML document consists of several HTML tags. Each HTML tag contains a different content.
HTML uses a set of tags to mark up text and other elements on a web page. For example, the
and
tags are used to create a paragraph, while the tag is used to add an image to a web page.We enclose HTML tags in angle brackets (). The opening tag starts with the tag name, and the closing tag contains a forward slash (/) before the tag name. For instance, the opening
tag is followed by the closing
tag.HTML tags also use attributes to provide additional information about an element. For example, the tag can use the attribute “src” which specifies the URL of the image file.
Features of HyperText Markup Language
Hypertext Markup Language is the standard markup language used to develop web pages. It has emerged over time and has various significant features that allow web developers to make web pages with rich content and functionality.
Here are the following key features of hypertext markup language that you should keep in. They are:
(a) Hypertext links: This feature allows us to create links between web pages so that users can navigate between different web pages with ease.
(b) Structural elements: This feature provides a wide range of elements that allow web developers to structure the content of a web page, such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, tables, etc.
(c) Media embedding: This feature allows us to embed (i.e. insert) various types of media, such as images, audio, video, and graphics on a web page.
(d) Forms: HTML provides a set of form elements that allow us to create input fields, radio buttons, checkboxes, and other form elements that facilitate programmers to submit data.
(e) Accessibility features: HTML offers such several features that make web pages accessible to people with disabilities, such as the facility to add alt text to images and to provide decent heading structure.
(f) Style and formatting: This feature provides a wide range of attributes and styles. It allows programmers to control the appearance of a web page, such as font size, color, symbols, emojis, layout, etc.
(g) Scripting language: It facilitates programmers to insert JavaScript code in a web page, which adds interactivity and functionality to a web page or website.
(h) Platform: Hypertext markup language is a platform-independent because we can display it on any platform like Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc.
(i) Case-insensitive: HTML is a case-insensitive language, meaning we can write tags either in lowercase or uppercase. We recommend you write all tags in lowercase for consistency, better readability, and understanding.
Overall, HyperText Markup Language is a powerful markup language that provides several significant features to web developers to create rich and dynamic web pages. It makes the web page accessible for a wide range of users on the browsers.
With the help of other technologies, such as CSS and JavaScript, we can build complex and interactive web applications.
Basic HTML Structure Example
Here is a simple example of a basic HTML structure with a brief description.
Web Page Title Write your Heading
This is a paragraph of text.
Description of HTML Structure:
Let us understand the brief description of the above HTML structure example.
1. The declaration of defines the document type that instructs the browser about the latest version of HTML5.
2. The element is used to enclose the entire HTML document. It is the root element of the HTML web page and informs the web browser about the HTML document.
3. The
element contains metadata that gives the information about the document, such as the title, which is displayed in the browser’s title bar. You must close it before the body tag opens.4. The
6. The
element is used to define a top-level heading of the web page. We mainly use it for the main heading of the page.
7. The
element is used to define a text paragraph of the webpage.
This is the simple example of basic HTML structure that is the foundation for all HTML webpages. We can expand it to build more complex web pages and applications. With the help of appropriate HTML tags and attributes, we can build structured and semantic content that web browsers can easily understand and read.
HTML Invention and Released Version
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, invented Hypertext Markup Language in 1989.
He, with his team, developed HTML as a simple markup language to create hypertext documents that users could easily access and view on the different platforms.
Over time, HyperText Markup Language emerged and quickly gained popularity. It became the standard markup language for building web pages on the World Wide Web.
HTML Released Version
Since the invention of HTML, it has undergone several major revisions. Each revision added new features, and abilities for web developers as well as improves over the previous version. Following are the versions released over time that are as follows:
(1) HTML1.0: It was the first version of HTML, released in 1991. This version was very basic and supported a few sets of elements, such as headings, paragraphs, and lists.
(2) HTML2.0: This was the second version released in 1995. This standard version added some more elements and attributes, including tables, images, buttons, and forms.
(3) HTML3.2: This version of HTML was released by W3C in 1997. It included some new features, such as creating tables, extra options for form elements, etc. This version supported style sheets, which allowed programmers to separate the content and presentation of a web page.
(4) HTML4.01: This was the fourth version of HTML, released in Dec 1999, that is a very stable version of HTML language. It is a current official standard version and introduced many new features, including frames, scripting ability for many multimedia elements, and improved support for internationalization.
(5) XHTML 1.0: XHTML (stands for Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) was released in 2000. It is a stricter, XML-based version of HTML. It needs a well-formed and valid HTML code which provides a more consistent handling of elements and attributes.
(6) HTML5: HTML5 is the newest version of HTML, released in 2014. This new version has introduced many new features, including new semantic elements, such as article, section, and header. HTML5 also introduced playback for video and audio, as well as improved support for mobile devices.
Each HTML version has played an important role in the web’s development and has provided several new features and capabilities for web programmers.
The latest version of HTML is HTML 5.3, released on 28 Jan 2021. HTML5.2 version is now the standard for web development and is widely supported by major modern web browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc.
In this tutorial, you have known about what is HTML and its basic structure example with a brief description. Basically, HyperText Markup Language is a fundamental computer language that is requisite for the creation of web pages. It is a simple and easy-to-learn computer language that is perfect for beginners who want to develop a website.
By using appropriate HTML tags, web developers can add texts, images, links, lists, audios, videos, and other elements to a web page. Hope that you will have understood the basic points of basic HTML structure.
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