Workshop

The popular browsers Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator both have options that let the user view the HTML code used to generate a Web site. Other browsers provide similar options.

For Internet Explorer:

1. Visit your favorite Web site. Take a good look at how the site appears to the user.

2. Select the View menu from the Internet Explorer menu bar and choose Source.

3. The HTML source code that generated the Web page appears in a text editor window. The HTML for the site probably contains tags that weren't discussed in this hour. See an HTML text for additional information.

For Netscape Navigator:

1. Visit your favorite Web site. Take a good look at how the site appears to the user.

2. Select the View menu from the Netscape Navigator menu bar and choose Page Source.

3. The HTML source code that generated the Web page appears in a secondary window. The HTML for the site probably contains tags that weren't discussed in this hour. See an HTML text for additional information.

Most people think of a browser as a tool that interacts directly with a Web server, but a browser can also open a file on the local computer as a word processor or a spreadsheet application would do. You can create your own HTML page using the tags described in this hour and view that page using your Internet browser.

1. Start a text editor on your computer. On Windows systems, start the Notepad accessory (don't use WordPad!). For Unix/Linux systems, start any text editor, such as vi or Emacs.

2. Build your own HTML page using the techniques described earlier in this hour, in the section "Understanding HTML."

3. Save the HTML file you created in step 2.

4. Start your Web browser.

5. Open the HTML file you created in step 2. For Internet Explorer, choose the File menu and select Open. Enter the directory path and filename of the HTML document. In Netscape Navigator, choose the File menu and select Open Page. Enter the directory path and filename and click Open in Navigator.

6. See if the page turned out as you expected. Experiment with editing the HTML and viewing the changes in the browser. (Don't forget to refresh the browser view after you make a change to the HTML document. In Netscape, click the Reload button. In IE, click the Refresh button.)