Netscape Communications Corporation is the premier provider of open software that helps people and companies exchange information and conduct commerce over enterprise networks and the Internet.
This book is a reference for Netscape's implementation of HTML--it's not intended to be a tutorial on basic HTML or a design guide. However, it does provide some basic information on structuring and writing HTML documents.
This book discusses the basics of HTML, then briefly discusses simple graphics, frames, forms, image maps, and dynamic documents before providing a complete, alphabetical reference to all the HTML tags recognized by Netscape Navigator, and all the attributes of each tag.
This book also includes two appendixes. The first one lists the HTML codes used to insert special characters into HTML files. The second appendix lists color values you can use to set text and background color for your HTML files.
This section explains the terms, type styles, and conventions used in this book.
Documents are files you create. Because most people access HTML documents through the World Wide Web, the term documents usually refers to an HTML file stored on a web server.
Tags and attributes are commands you use in an HTML file that define how text should display. Attributes are elements of a tag.
Client refers to a web browser such as Netscape Navigator.
Server refers to a web server such as Netscape FastTrack Server or Netscape Enterprise Server. A web server stores files that clients can access. The files contain HTML and other material.
You generally refers to the person coding in HTML, whereas the user refers to the person using Netscape Navigator to read the document that you have coded.
Deprecated means that a given tag or attribute is considered obsolete by the standards community, and may not be recognized by some browsers.
HTML tag names and attribute names are listed in all capital letters.
This typeface is used for sample HTML text and any text that you should type.
Sidebar text marks sections of reference information. For example, it marks the beginning of the syntax and examples for an HTML tag.
Attributes for HTML tags appear in italic type. Typically, these attributes are optional. In the syntax diagrams, the required ones will be so marked.
Ellipsis ( ... ) in a syntax diagram indicates that other text would appear there, so <XYZ>...</XYZ> says that there is other text within the scope of the <XYZ> tag.
The pipe ( | ) character in a syntax diagram is a logical OR used to indicate a choice of items, so "YES|NO|MAYBE" says you must choose either "YES" or "NO" or "MAYBE".
In ordinary text, the pipe character signifies a menu selection, for example the phrase "File | Save" means "select File from the menu bar, then select Save from the menu."