by Vivian Neou

Table of Contents i

List of Tables xxv

Acknowledgments xxix

Introduction xxxi

• Why You Need This Book xxxii
• What Is HTML? xxxii
• The HTML Number Jumble xxxiii
• Scripting, Java Applets, and ActiveX xxxiv
• Cascading Style Sheets xxxiv
• Dynamic HTML xxxv
• What This Book Can Do for You xxxv
• Conventions Used in This Book xxxvi
• Contents of the CD xxxvi
• What You Should Know xxxviii

Chapter 1: The World Wide Web and HTML

• What's In This Chapter 1
• HTML and the Internet 2
• Terminology Tour 4
• HTML Evolution in a Capsule 5
• The HTML Version Games Begin 6
• Deprecated Elements 7
• Vendor-specific Elements and Attributes 8
• Cascading Style Sheets 9
• Java and ActiveX 9
• Scripting 11
• Dynamic HTML 11
• Browsers 12
• HTML and Browsers 14
• Getting Browsers 18
• Screenshots in This Book 19

Chapter 2: HTML Quick Start

• What's in This Chapter 21
• Creating an HTML Document 21
• HTML Document Organzation 22
• Document Type: DOCTYPE 23
• Document Structure: HTML, HEAD, and BODY 23
• Document Title: TITLE 24
• Document Body: BODY 24
• Headings: H1 through H2 25
• Paragraphs: <P> 25
• Logical and Physical Style Elements 25
• Horizontal Lines: HR 26
• Preformatted Text: PRE 26
• Center: CENTER 27
• Lists 28
• Images: IMG 29
• Line Breaks: BR 30
• Addresses: ADDRESS 30
• Comments: <! --> 30
• The Quick-Start Document 30
• Quick Review 31

Chapter 3: Document Framework

• What's in This Chapter 33
• Document Type: DOCTYPE 33
• Document Structure 35
• Document Heading: HEAD 37
• Document Title: TITLE 38
• Document Body: BODY 41
• Background Color: BGCOLOR (deprecated) 42
• Default Text Colors: TEXT, LINK, ALINK, VLINK (deprecated) 43
• Background Images: BACKGROUND (deprecated), BGPROPERTIES (IE) 43
• Choosing a Background Image 44

Chapter 4: Basic Body Elements

• What's in This Chapter 47
• Common Attributes 47
• Presentation through Style Sheets: STYLE 48
• Headings: H1 through H2 48
• ALIGN Attribute (deprecated) 49
• STYLE Property: text-align 50
• Paragraphs: P 52
• ALIGN Attribute (deprecated) 53
• STYLE Property: font-family 55
• Logical and Physical Style Elements 55
• BIG and SMALL 59
• Logical versus Physical Styles 60
• Subscript and Superscript: SUB, SUP 61
• Font Settings: FONT (deprecated) 62
• SIZE Attribute 62
• Color Attribute 63
• FACE Attribute 64
• Netscape Attributes: POINT-SIZE, WEIGHT 64
• WebTV Attributes: EFFECT, TRANSPARENCY 66
• Default Font Size: BASEFONT (deprecated) 67
• Special Characters 68
• Horizontal Lines: HR 70
• HR Attributes (deprecated): SIZE, WIDTH, ALIGN, NOSHADE 70
• Preformatted Text: PRE 71
• Quotations: BLOCKQUOTE and Q 72
• Line Breaks: BR 73
• CLEAR Attribute 74
• No Break: NOBR 75
• Word Break: WBR 76
• Addresses: ADDRESS 77
• Center: CENTER (deprecated) 78
• DIV and SPAN 78
• Comments: <! --> 80
• Common Attributes Revisited 81
• ID Attribute 81
• CLASS Attribute 82
• TITLE Attribute 82
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 82

Chapter 5: Lists

• What's in This Chapter 85
• Creating a List 86
• Specifying Items in Lists: LI 87
• Unnumbered Lists: UL 87
• TYPE Attribute (deprecated) 88
• Numbered Lists: OL 89
• OL Attributes: TYPE and START (deprecated) 89
• LI Attributes: TYPE and VALUE (deprecated) 91
• STYLE: list-style-type 93
• Directory List: DIR (deprecated) 95
• Menu List: MENU (deprecated) 95
• Definition Lists: DL 96
• COMPACT Attribute (deprecated) 97
• Multiple-Paragraph List Items 98
• Nested Lists 100
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 102

Chapter 6: URLs, Links, and META

• What's in This Chapter 103
• Uniform Resource Locators 104
• URLs without a Filename 104
• Anchor Element: A 105
• TITLE Attribute 106
• TARGET Attribute 107
• JavaScript: onClick and Window Properties 107
• JavaScript: Focus 109
• JavaScript: onMouseOver 110
• Relative Links 111
• Specific Locations in Other Documents 112
• Specific Locations within the Current Document 113
• References within a Document 114
• Special Characters in URLs 114
• Other Ways to Use Links 115
• FTP 116
• File 117
• Mailto 118
• Telnet 121
• Gopher 121
• News 122
• Link Trivia 123
• Document Relations: LINK 124
• Meta Information: META 125
• Forcing Document Reload: HTTP-EQUIV="EXPIRES" 127
• Automatic Document Refresh: 127
• HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" 127
• BASE Element 128
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 129

Chapter 7: Tables

• What's In This Chapter 131
• Tables: TABLE 131
• Table Attributes 132
• Captions: CAPTION 140
• VALIGN 141
• Rows and Cells: TR, TD, TH 142
• Cell Attributes 143
• Row Groupings: THEAD, TFOOT, TBODY 145
• Column Groups: COLGROUP and COL 146
• COLGROUP 146
• COL 147
• Attribute Precedence 148
• Designing with Tables 149
• Page Layout with Tables 150
• Bar Graph Example 151
• Making Lists with Tables 153
• Groupings and More 154
• Fonts in Tables 157
• Tables in Browsers without Table Support 158
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly 159

Chapter 8: Frames

• FRAMESET 162
• Frames: FRAME 167
• Frame Navigation: TARGET and BASE 171
• BASE 172
• TARGET Attribute 173
• Predefined Targets 173
• Frame Navigation Guidelines 174
• Updating Multiple Frames: onClick 175
• Content for Browsers without Frame Support: NOFRAMES 176
• Frame Tips 178
• IFRAME 178

Chapter 9: Color and Images

• What's in This Chapter 185
• Color Values 186
• RGB Color Values 186
• Color Depth and Dithering 187
• Browser-Safe Color Palette 188
• Check Your Color Depth 189
• Text Color Guidelines 190
• Images in HTML Documents 190
• Graphics Formats 190
• Choosing an Image Format 191
• Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) 192
• Interlaced GIFs 193
• JPEG 193
• GIF vs. JPEG 194
• Other Image Formats 194
• Progressive JPEG 194
• PNG 195
• Image Tips and Tricks 195
• Transparent Backgrounds 196
• Reducing Image Size 198
• Thumbnails 198
• Gamma 199
• Image Element: IMG 200
• Aligning Images: ALIGN Attribute 201
• Additional Extensions to ALIGN 202
• Images and Text-Only Browsers: ALT Attribute 204
• BORDER (deprecated) 204
• WIDTH and HEIGHT 205
• HSPACE and VSPACE 206
• Low-Resolution Image: LOWSRC 208
• Image Maps, Images with Clickable Spots 209
• Choosing Images for Image Maps 210
• Server-Side Image Map Formats 210
• Server-Side Clickable Images: ISMAP 212
• Client-Side Image Maps 212
• Client-Side Image Map Format: AREA and MAP 213
• Client-Side Clickable Images: USEMAP 214
• Supporting All Users 215
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 216

Chapter 10: Animations, Sound, and Video

• What's In This Chapter 217
• Animation 218
• Server Push Animations 218
• Client Pull: META Refresh 219
• GIF89a Animations 221
• Creating a GIF Animation 222
• Installing GIF Construction Set 222
• Starting a Image 223
• Header Block 223
• Loop Block 224
• Image Import 224
• Tips and Techniques 227
• Interactive Animation 227
• Java Applet Animation 228
• 1 Cool Button Tool Pros and Cons 233
• Macromedia Flash 233
• Sound 234
• Sound Issues 236
• Internet Explorer Sound Support: BGSOUND 237
• Macromedia's Shockwave 238
• Embedded Objects: EMBED 239
• Alternate Objects: NOEMBED 240
• Background Sound Example 241
• Video 242
• QuickTime 243
• MPEG 243
• Streaming Video 244
• Incorporating Video 244
• IMG DYNSRC Attribute 245
• Viewing and Serving Video 246
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 246

Chapter 11: Forms

• What's in This Chapter 249
• Introduction 249
• Forms: FORM 250
• METHOD Attribute 250
• ACTION Attribute 251
• ENCTYPE Attribute 253
• Form Input: INPUT 254
• TYPE Attribute 256
• CHECKBOX Type 256
• RADIO Type 258
• HIDDEN Type 259
• TEXT Type 260
• PASSWORD Type 260
• SUBMIT and RESET Types 261
• IMAGE Type 262
• BUTTON Input Type 263
• FILE Input Type 266
• TEXTAREA Input Type 267
• Textarea: TEXTAREA 268
• TEXTAREA Attribute: WRAP 268
• Pulldown Menu: SELECT, OPTION, and OPTGROUP 269
• SELECT 269
• SIZE Attribute 271
• MULTIPLE Attribute 271
• OPTION Element 272
• Menu Groupings: OPTGROUP 273
• Navigation with SELECT 275
• BUTTON Element 275
• Label, Fieldset, and Legend 277
• ISINDEX (deprecated) 279
• PROMPT Attribute 279
• ISINDEX Examples 279
• ISINDEX ACTION Attribute 282
• ISINDEX Data Flow 282
• ISINDEX versus FORM 283
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 284

Chapter 12: Cookies and Server-Side Page Creation

• What's in This Chapter 287
• Cookies 288
• Restrictions 289
• Baking Cookies 290
• Browser Gotchas and Cookies 291
• Checking Your Cookies 292
• CGI Scripts 293
• Creating CGI Scripts 295
• Headers 295
• Redirect Script 296
• Environment Variables 296
• Environment Variable Script 300
• Time Stamp CGI Script 301
• Dynamic Document Refresh 302
• Setting a Cookie with a CGI 303
• POST versus GET 305
• GET Method: METHOD="GET" 306
• POST Method: METHOD="POST" 306
• Form Data Format 306
• File Upload 308
• Serving Documents Based on Browser Type 308
• Security 309
• Using Premade CGI Scripts 310
• Sources for CGI Programs and Scripts 310
• Server-Side Includes 311
• Configuration: config 311
• Document Inclusion: include 314
• Command Execution: exec 315
• Other Directives: echo, fsize, flastmod 315
• SSI Pros and Cons 316
• Other Server-Side Options 317
• Active Server Pages (ASP) 317
• LiveWire 318
• HTMLScript and PHP 318
• Secure Servers 319
• Wrapup 319

Chapter 13: Embedded Objects: Java and ActiveX

• Java Applets 321
• ActiveX 323
• VRML: Virtual Reality Markup Language 324
• Including External Objects 324
• Embed Element 325
• Applet Element 325
• PARAM Element 328
• Object Element 328
• What's Next 330

Chapter 14: Cascading Style Sheets

• What's in This Chapter 331
• What Is a Cascading Style Sheet? 332
• Style Sheet Rules 333
• Selectors 334
• Contextual Selectors 334
• Classes 335
• ID 336
• Pseudo-Classes and Pseudo-Elements 338
• Pseudo-Classes 338
• Pseudo-Elements 339
• Using Pseudo-Elements and Pseudo-Classes 339
• Comments 339
• Incorporating Style Sheets 340
• STYLE Attribute 340
• STYLE Tag 340
• LINK and @import 341
• The Cascade 342
• Important 342
• Inheritance 343
• Cascade Rules 343
• Units 344
• Absolute 345
• Relative 346
• Choosing a Unit of Measurement 347
• The Browser Connection 349
• CSS Properties 351
• Font Properties 352
• font-family 352
• font-style 354
• font-variant 354
• font-weight 355
• font-size 357
• font 358
• Color and Background Properties 360
• color 361
• background-color 362
• background-image 363
• background-repeat 364
• background-attachment 365
• background-position 365
• background 366
• Text Properties 366
• word-spacing 367
• letter-spacing 367
• text-decoration 368
• vertical-align 369
• text-transform 371
• text-align 372
• text-indent 373
• line-height 373
• Classification and List Properties 374
• white-space 375
• list-style-type 376
• list-style-image 378
• list-style-position 378
• list-style 379
• Drawbacks to Style Sheet Usage 379
• Style Sheets versus HTML Presentational Elements 379
• Style Sheet Tools 380
• Onward 380

Chapter 15: Positioning with Style Sheets

• What's In This Chapter 381
• Background 382
• Box Properties 382
• margin-top 383
• margin-right 384
• margin-bottom 384
• margin-left 385
• margin 385
• padding-top 386
• padding-right 387
• padding-bottom 387
• padding-left 387
• padding 388
• border-top-width 389
• border-right-width 390
• border-bottom-width 391
• border-left-width 392
• border-width 392
• border-color 394
• border-style 395
• border-top 398
• border-right 399
• border-bottom 399
• border-left 399
• border 400
• Display Properties 400
• width 400
• height 401
• Positioning Properties 401
• position 402
• float 404
• clear 408
• top, left, right (CSS2), bottom (CSS2) 409
• z-index 409
• overflow 413
• clip 414
• display 414
• visibility 416
• Cautionary Notes 417

Chapter 16: Scripting Overview

• JavaScript versus VBScript 420
• JavaScript Versions and ECMAScript 421
• Incorporating Scripts in HTML Documents 422
• Browsers That Do Not Support Scripts 426
• NOSCRIPT Tag 428
• Script Placement 429
• Embedding Script Directives in HTML Tags 431
• External Scripts 431
• Case-sensitivity 432
• JavaScript Variables 432
• Converting Strings to Numbers 433
• Variable Names 435
• Special Characters in Strings 436
• Operators 437
• Assignment Operators 437
• Arithmetic Operators 437
• Concatenation Operator 438
• Logical Operators 439
• Comparison Operators 439
• Operator Precedence 440
• Creating New Objects 441
• Miscellaneous Operators: typeof and void 441
• Comments 442
• Statements 443
• break 443
• continue 444
• delete 445
• do...while 445
• export 446
• for 447
• for...in 447
• function 448
• if...else 449
• import 449
• labeled 450
• return 451
• switch/case 451
• this 452
• var 453
• while 453
• with 454
• Conditional Expressions 454
• Global Functions 455
• escape 455
• isNaN 456
• Number 456
• String 457
• unescape 458
• What's Next 458

Chapter 17: Objects

• Built-in Objects 461
• Date Object 462
• Methods 463
• Math Object 471
• Properties 472
• Methods 473
• String Object 475
• String Methods 476
• Client-side Objects 481
• Window Object 483
• Properties 485
• Window Methods 487
• Location Object 489
• Document Object 490
• Properties 491
• Form Object 493
• Properties 495
• Methods 496
• Frame Object 497
• Image Object 498
• Navigator Object 500
• Methods 502
• MimeType Object 504
• Plugin Object 505
• Methods 505
• Event Handlers 507
• What's Next 509

Chapter 18: JavaScript Examples

• View Source Button 512
• Browser Detection 513
• Checking for Features 513
• The Language Attribute 514
• Checking for Browser Type 516
• Browser Support for Specific Features 520
• Menu Bar Highlights 520
• Animation 524
• Customizing the Script 527
• Color the House Script 527
• The Nightmare: A Tale of Two Positions 531
• Simple Database Lookup 535
• Customizing the Database 541
• JavaScript Forms Calculator 541
• Printing the Form 542
• Order-Total Calculator 543
• Required Field Checker 547
• Adapting the Form 549
• Customized Web Pages with Cookies 549
• Retrieving Cookies 551
• Removing a Cookie 552
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 553

Chapter 19: On the Internet

• What's In This Chapter 555
• Criteria for Choosing a Provider 555
• Publicizing Your Web Pages 557
• Personal and Hobby Home Pages 558
• Search Engines 558
• Indexing Tips 559
• Indices of Meta Web Search Engines 561
• Hiding Your Site 561
• Checking Your Site Status 562
• Making an Even Bigger Splash 562
• Getting Mentioned in the News 563
• Places to Go for More Help 563
• The Latest Book News 565

Appendix A: ISO Latin 1 Entities in HTML

Appendix B: Hexadecimal ASCII Character Set

Appendix C: Useful URLs

• General HTML and WWW Information 573
• HTML Bibliographies 574
• Browser Information 574
• HTML Elements 574
• CGI and Cookie Information 575
• HTML Validation 575
• Multimedia 576
• JavaScript and Java 577

Glossary 579

Index 597