Web Publishing for Genealogy

Creating the Pages
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Finding Genealogy on the Internet The Genealogist's Internet
© 2003 Peter Christian.
3rd November 2003
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A Skeleton Page

Regardless of the content of a Web page, there are certain basic minimum requirements:

  • The page must start with an <HTML> tag, and end with an </HTML> tag.
  • The page must have a pair of <HEAD>…</HEAD> and <BODY>…</BODY> tags to mark out the two main components of the page (and they must be in that order, head before body).

  • Inside the <HEAD> area, there must be a pair of <TITLE>…</TITLE> tags.

  • The entire visible content of your page must go in the <BODY> section; the <HEAD> is only used for the <TITLE> and for other information not displayed on the page.

    If you don't observe these requirements you will get unpredictable results. For example, if you type some text in the <HEAD> instead of the <BODY>, some browsers will ignore it, others will display it on screen.

    Here's a basic, minimal page:

    
<HTML>
    <HEAD>
        <TITLE>This where the page title goes</TITLE>
    </HEAD>
    <BODY>
        This is where the contents of your page go
    </BODY>
</HTML>

    I've used indentation and made the tags bold here simply to make the structure more obvious. Since all page design is done with tags, any line breaks, tabs, indents, extra spaces, etc., that you add do not have any effect on the final appearance of the page. The following example will produce exactly the same page as the previous one:

    
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>This where the page title goes</TITLE> </HEAD><BODY>
This is where the contents of your page go</BODY></HTML>

    To Create a Basic Page

    1. Start your text editor.
    2. Type in the text as it is in the first example above (ignore the indentation).
    3. Save the text with a filename such as test.html
    4. To view the page: start your browser and open the file (in Netscape and Explorer this option is on the File menu; for other browsers see the on-line help if you do not know how to load a file from disk).

    View the skeleton page

    --> NEXT: Understanding Tags

    Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

    Chapter: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 A

    • 0. Contents
    1. Introduction
    2. Web Publishing Software
    3. Genealogical Tools
    4. Designing Your Web Site
    5. Creating the Pages
    6. Going Public
    7. Advanced Web Facilities
    A. Appendices