What does HTML stand for?
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. We use this markup language to design a web page. Web browsers use this language to showcase text, videos, images, audio and other mediums through which people can understand things.
HTML is a coding language that we use to construct the structure of websites. We use this language for structuring. Any website, such as Google, Facebook, etc., will have HTML. For example, if you open facebook.com and right-click on the screen, then a dialog box will appear as shown below; the dialog box consists of many options; click on the view page source, and you will see a big code.
The large code is the source code shown below, which contains the HTML code. The code in the blue colour is the HTML code.
In such a way, you can see the source code of any webpage.
The HTML language has many tags and attributes used to display the web page's text, images, videos, links, etc. The tags in HTML are written inside the angular brackets,'<' and '>'. HTML tags occur in pairs, such as <html> </html>, <h1> </h1>, <style> </style>, etc.
Syntax of HTML Tag
<tag_name> content goes here </tag_name>
The first tag, <tag_name>, is known as the opening tag, and the second tag, </ tag_name >, is known as the closing tag. Some tags do not need a closing tag. Those tags are known as self-closing tags. For example, <input>, <br>, etc. These tags are also known as empty tags or unpaired tags, which means these tags that do not have a pair.
HTML tags also have properties that are used to provide additional properties to the element. Attributes are always defined inside the opening tag. Attributes are always defined inside an opening tag that contains a name and value pair, such as <input type="text">, where input is the tag name, type is the attribute name, and text is the value of the type attribute.
When the user opens any web page, the user will only see text, images, videos, etc., but not the HTML code.
History:
The inventor of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is Tim Berners-Lee who invented HTML in Geneva in the year 1990. HTML is a continuously developing language. The organization that works on HTML regularly updates new versions.
Tim Berners-Lee also developed the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989; HTML is maintained, created, modified and updated by an organization, the World Wide Web Consortium, also known as the W3C.
Different Versions of HTML:
- HTML 1.0
HTML 1.0 was a basic version of HTML and a form of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The text can be structured in this version. This version has fewer features. It does not provide support for tables, styles, etc. - HTML 2.0
This version of HTML was released in 1995 under the name Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). This version has several new features. The concept of forms was introduced but only with basic tags like input text fields, buttons, etc. The most important feature of this version was the HTML image tag, which is used to insert images in web browsers.
The World Wide Web Consortium organization was established prior to the release of the HTML 2.0 version. The W3C was developed to maintain the standard across various web browsers so that web browsers can understand HTML tags. - HTML 3.0 (Never Released)
At that time, both the Internet and HTML were spreading rapidly. HTML was becoming popular. As the number of Internet users increased, more people began to use the Internet to search for information, so HTML was the only language that produced web pages.
People were reading information on web pages; hence, internet users were growing. Web developers were creating web pages, so the number of web pages was growing. All this caused complications, so the HTML 3 version came, but it was never published because there were no modifications, new features, etc. - HTML 3.2
This edition was published in 1997 by an organization called the World Wide Web Consortium. They included many features compared to the previous versions. HTML 3.2 introduces many attributes. Attributes are in the form of key-value pairs.
The number of visitors to web pages on the Internet was rising. Another feature in this HTML 4.01 version is CSS, whose full form is Cascading Style Sheets. This feature helps in styling the web page and making the web page attractive so that the reader feels interested in reading the content. Browsers were very slow, so updates were coming back-to-back to match the requirements of the browser. - HTML 4.01
The Internet was becoming more and more prevalent. The number of Internet users was expanding. Web developers need more features to build the best web pages, so HTML 4.01 version was published to make up for this shortcoming.
Some new features included in this version are as follows:- Style sheet
- Client-side scripting
- Advanced tables
- Separation of structure and presentation
- Accessibility
With the update of HTML versions, it was also essential to update the web browser. Web browsers must also be updated to understand the new tags introduced in HTML. Hence, both HTML and web browsers were getting updated regularly to meet the requirement of the user.
HTML 4.01 introduces external style sheets to separate HTML and CSS codes. This feature helps in maintaining the code. CSS can be attached to an HTML document to use the CSS property.
- HTML5
HTML5 has come up with clean markup and clean code, which makes it more accessible to both the user and developer. It allows web developers to use clean code, remove tags, and replace them with new HTML5 elements.
Some new features are as follows:- Video and audio are new tags included in HTML, which allow us to embed video on a web page we are designing. This feature enhances our website and attracts people to the video and audio of the web page.
- Header
- Canvas
- Footer
Nav tag, which is used to link different pages to one another. We can place the links of all the web pages of our website inside in the nav tag.
Here are some of the new features added in the HTML5 version:
Audio Tag: The <audio> tag is used to add audio to an HTML document. This tag helps in embedding the audio on the web page. We can play audio on the web page.
Video Tag: The <video> tag is used to add videos to an HTML document. This tag helps in embedding the video on the web page. We can play videos on the web page.
Email Tag: The <input> tag of email type was added in the HTML5 version. An email tag is a <form> tag used to add an email. This tag is used to check whether the input entered is a valid email or not.
Semantic Tags: These are called structural tags because they define the structure of the HTML document. The semantic tag defines that the particular element should be used for the specific function, which means that we use a heading tag to describe the heading, not to define a paragraph. This tag divides the page into different parts.
Password: This is the <input> tag of the type password. The user uses this tag to type the password. The password typed by the user is not visible to the user but is represented by special symbols.
Section tag: This tag represents the section on the web page.
Canvas: This tag is used to create graphics, combine photos, etc., using JavaScript.
An example below demonstrates the basic HTML code we use to create web pages.
<!Doctype Html>
<Html>
<Head>
<Title>
Example of HTML
</Title>
</Head>
<Body>
Hello World!
</Body>
</Html>Output:
The output below shows the HTML page created using the above tag. Without these tags, we cannot create web pages.
In the above example, the first tag <!Doctype html> denotes the type of document which is HTML5.
The second tag <html> is mandatory because it is the root element of the HTML page.
The <head> tag consists of meta information such as the title of the web page. It also includes the <style> tag, which is used to add CSS code to an HTML document. <javascript> tag adds functionality by adding JavaScript code to a web page.
The <title> tag determines the title of the web page. This title appears in the title bar of the browser.
The <body> tag contains the body of the document. It consists of elements such as titles, images, paragraphs, tables, forms, lists, etc., that appear on a web page.
Browser Support:
- It supports the following browsers:
- Google Chrome
- Internet Explorer
- Microsoft Edge
- Mozilla Firefox
- Opera
- Safari