Roles of Web Browsers and Web Pages in a glance

To keep up with the changing market, and to make the Internet available to all, Microsoft and
Netscape have made versions of their Web browsers for all commercially available computer

platforms and operating systems. Because the Web browser must interpret the HTML code in order
to display the Web page onscreen, the brand and version of browser used by visitors to your Web
site determine which features in HTML will work for them. In short, the version of the browser used
determines what the visitor will see onscreen. Therefore, using HTML’s latest, most advanced features
and page formatting capabilities in your Web page design does not guarantee that everyone viewing
the page will be able to see everything that HTML lets you put on the page.
When you design a Web page, keep in mind that not all your site visitors will be using the latest
version of Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Stick with the basic HTML you will learn in this
chapter for the majority of the content you place on your Web pages. Then, use some of HTML’s more
advanced features to add pizzazz and keep site visitors coming back for another look. By combining
basic and advanced HTML capabilities on the same page, you make it possible for everyone to access
the important information you want to publish and for those with the latest browsers to have a truly
memorable experience.
A Web page consists of a series of HTML instructions that you can enter into a file using any text
editor. As mentioned previously, Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer follow
the instructions in the text document you create to display the Web page content onscreen. (Web page
content is the text, graphics, and other things [such as video and sound] that you use HTML to place
on a Web page.)
If you think creating a Web page document is easy, you are right. In fact, Web site creation began
with the simplest of intentions. The original HTML standard described an uncomplicated, easy-to-learn
language that let you create text-only documents, which were viewable by anyone who had access to
the Internet. Although the HTML standards committee, the World Wide Web Consortium (or W3C),
has added many new instructions (called tags and attributes) to the HTML language, you can still
create even the most feature-rich Web page by typing simple HTML commands into a document
you create with a text editor (such as Windows Notepad). You can visit the W3C’s Web site at
http://www.w3.org/ for a complete description of various Internet technologies including HTTP,
HTML, Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML),
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and so on.

Now that you know what a Web page is and (in general terms) how to create one, let’s
take a quick look at some Web page HTML. If you do not have a permanent (that is, always-on)
connection to the Internet, establish a dial-up connection through your ISP. Next, start your Web
browser and display your favorite Web page by entering the URL (Uniform Resource Locator;
that is, the Web page address) into your Web browser’s Address field. For example, you might
type http://www.Osborne.com in the browser’s Address field. Then, press ENTER.
The Web browser, in turn, will send an HTTP request to the Web server for the Web page whose
address you entered. After the Web server responds by sending the Web page to your browser, the
browser will display the page onscreen and request any embedded objects (such as graphics images)
inserted on the page. After your browser has retrieved and displayed all the page content, select
View | Source to display the HTML used to describe the page. (If you are using Netscape Navigator,
select View | Page Source.) Internet Explorer, in turn, will use Windows Notepad to display the Web
page HTML, whereas Netscape Navigator simply displays the HTML statements in a new window
onscreen. Do not worry about what the individual HTML statements mean; you will learn all about
them as you read this book. For now, the important point to remember is that you can view the source
of any Web page.