Now let's get started by learning a little bit more about HTML, what exactly is it? And how do we use it to 1
create websites? 2
Now, no matter what browser you like to use, Chrome or Safari or Brave, even all of these applications 3
do the same thing. 4
They take different files such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and they render them into a website. 5
But even though most modern websites are created using these three different file types combined together, 6
you can't create a website with just a CSS file or just a JavaScript file. 7
However, you can have just an HTML file. 8
And in fact, that's exactly what the first websites were created with, HTML. 9
Now HTML defines the content and structure of the website. 10
So for example, in this case, all that my HTML file does, is it renders a heading that says, "My website." 11
And when this file is opened by the browser, it will display that heading saying my website. 12
Now what exactly is HTML? 13
Let's break it down. 14
So HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. 15
If we look at the first part, Hypertext, what does that mean? 16
Well, it refers to the pieces of text which can link to other documents in the website. 17
So these pieces of text are hypertext or hyperlinks, and they are the foundation of how an HTML website 18
works. 19
Now, if we take a look at the world's first website created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who also happens 20
to be the inventor of the Internet, then you can see it's filled with these hyperlinks marked in blue. 21
And exactly as you would expect, 22
if you click on any of these hyperlinks, it takes you to another document, another HTML file. 23
So if we go back, you can see that we were on Project.html. 24
And if I click on one of the hyperlinks like, "How can I help?" it will take me to another HTML file, and 25
this is how hypertext works. 26
And there's even a link on this website explaining exactly what hypertext is. 27
So now that we know what hypertext is, what about the other part, the Markup Language? 28
What is a markup language? 29
Now, if you look at the English language, we often see little bits that function very similar to markup, 30
like these double quotes. 31
The presence of these quotation marks is what tells a reader that this part is a quotation. 32
And as you'll find, this is going to be really similar to what you see in the editor's review of manuscript. 33
So used to mark them up and show different things, such as, for example, which parts need to be bold 34
by adding a squiggly line underneath it, and which parts need to be underlined by adding a straight line 35
through it. 36
So how do you do markup with HTML? 37
Well, it's done through what's called HTML tags. 38
Now, in the early days of the Internet, there were only very few HTML tags. 39
These days there are loads more, but realistically, you're only going to be using some of the most 40
important ones such as headings, h1 through to h6, or the paragraph tag, the p tag. 41
So here you can see all of the HTML tags, but when we narrow it down to the ones that you actually 42
need to know, then it makes it a lot more approachable. 43
And in the rest of the course we're going to be covering some of the most essential tags, 44
and so don't worry about learning them. 45
So don't worry about memorizing all of them or learning them, 46
we're going to cover them as we need them in our projects and in our exercises. 47
So in the next lesson, we're going to get started by learning about the heading tag (h), one of the most 48
OG HTML tags that ever existed. 49
So for all of that and more, I'll see you on the next lesson.