Using Afordable Tools for Creating Multimedia—Using World Wide Web Clients and HTML to Produce On-line and Off-line Multimedia

Using Afordable Tools for Creating Multimedia–Using World Wide Web Clients and HTML to Produce On-line and Off-line Multimedia

Peter Webster, Northwestern University and Dave Williams, Illinois State University

Basic HTML Commands

Structure Tags

<HTML> ... </HTML>

Encloses the entrie HTML document.

<HEAD> ... <HEAD>

Encloses the head of the HTML document.

<BODY> ... </BODY>

Encloses the body (text and tags) of the HTML document.

Title and Headings

<TITLE> ... </TITLE>

Indicates the title of the document.

<H1>

A first-level heading.

<H2> through <H6>

A second-level heading etcetera.

Other Common Commands

<P>

A plain paragraph.

<A> ... </A> ex. HREF="..." or NAME="..."

With the HREF attribute, creates a link to another documet or anchor; with the NAME attribute, creates an anchor which can be linked to.

<OL> ... </OL>

An ordered (numbered) list.

<UL> ... </UL>

An unordered (bulleted) list.

<MENU> ... </MENU>

A menu list of items.

<LI>

A list item for use with <OL>, <UL>, <MENU>

<HR>

A horizontal rule line.

<BR>

A line break.

<ADDRESS> ... </ADDRESS>

Used for signatures or general information about a document’s author.

<IMG>

Insert an inline image into the document.

Attributes: SRC="..." The URL of the image. ALT="..." A text string that will be displayed in browsers that cannot support images.

Character Formatting

<EM> ... </EM> Emphasis (usually italic)

<STRONG> ... </STRONG> Stronger emphasis (usually bold)

<B> ... </B> Boldface text

<I> ... </I> Italic text

HTML Web links

http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html Beginner's Guide to HTML

http://www.island.net/help/faq/www_faq/ World Wide Web FAQ

http://www.webcom.com/~webcom/html/tutor/ Web Communications HTML Guide: Quick Access Menu

http://bookweb.cwis.uci.edu:8042/Staff/StyleGuide.html Elements of HTML Style

http://www.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~boom/guide/ Lots of tips for getting started doing Web activities from a Mac

ORAT Web Resources at Illinois State University

http://www.orat.ilstu.edu/ Main home page for ORAT

http://www.orat.ilstue.edu/public/oratClasses/WebDevelopers/WebDevelopers.html Web Developer's Tip from ORAT

http://www.orat.ilstu.edu/public/oratClasses/ORAT389.88Seminar/InternetModels/InternetModels.html Internet Models for Artistic Expression Seminar at Illinois State

http://www.hpl.hp.co.uk/people/dsr/html3/CoverPage.html HyperText Markup Language Specification Version 3.0

http://web66.coled.umn.edu/ Web66: A K12 World Wide Web Project

USENET News Groups

comp.infosystems.www

comp.infosystems.www.authoring

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html

comp.infosystems.www.browsers.mac

comp.infosystems.www.browsers.ms-windows

HTML Books

Morris, Mary. HTML for Fun and Profit. Sunsoft Press, 1995.

Tittel, Ed and Steve James. HTML for Dummies. IDG Books, 1995.

Aronson, Larry. HTML Manual of Style. Ziff Davis Press, 1994.

File Types and File Conversion Notes for a User on the Internet

Caution: The file suffix you use is critical on the Internet; the application which a client uses keys off of the suffix.

Beginning Set of Internet Helpers (Mac/Windows)

StuffItExpander/unzip or pkunzip

SoundMachine/Wplany or Wham

JPEGView and GraphicConverter/LView Pro

SimplePlayer/MediaPlayer

Sparkle/MPEGPlay

SimpleText/NotePad

Software Compression

.cpt Mac compaction format from CompactPro; use Stuffit Expander.

.sit Mac compaction format from StuffIt; use Stuffit Expander.

.zip IBM PC compaction format; use MacZip or UnZip or Stuffit Expander.

.arc IBM PC compaction format; use ArcMac.

.z Unix compaction format; use MacCompress or Stuffit Expander.

.hqx Binhex conversion of a file to a text format; use StuffItExpander.

.sea Self-extracting compact file; just double click on it.

Note: You may find a file that was first compacted as a .sit file, for example, and then BinHex’d to convert it to a text document (e.g., shareapp.sit.hqx). Stuffit Expander will automatically unBinHex the file and then unStuff the file.

Graphic Images

.gif Universal compressed graphics format used throughout the Internet; use GifConverter or GraphicConverter.

.jpg Industry standard, compressed graphic format called "jpeg" used for many Internet graphic files; use JPEGView.

.tif Scanned, bitmapped graphic image format used on PCs and Macs; use any paint graphics program.

.mov Apple Quicktime digital video format; use any Quicktime movie player like SimplePlayer. A common Internet movie format; can be played on PCs with Quicktime for Windows.
.avi Microsoft Video for Windows digital movie file.
.mpg Industry standard, "mpeg" digital video format; use Sparkle to play on a Mac.

Audio Images

.au Universal Internet audio file format (originally from Sun workstations); use Ulaw or Soundmachine.

.snd Macintosh sound file format; just double click on sound file.

.wav IBM sound file format

.voc another IBM sound file format

.mid MIDI music file format

Others

.txt Universal Internet ASCII text file format; use any text file editor or word processor (I like BBEditLite).

.ps Postscipt file; use Drop•PS to print to a postcript printer.

.html Hyper Text Markup Language used to create Web documents; use Mosaic or Netscape.

.bin MacBinary file