Build Your Own Web Site

One of the best ways to learn HTML is to get the basics from a tutorial or a book, and then study pages you like to get an idea of great web design techniques (notice that I wrote "study", as opposed to "copy"). Once you have the basics out of the way, the truly best way to learn is by doing - creating your own pages to develop an intimacy with the scripted language and an awareness of the code's own cause and effect.

If you've never built a web page, and you don't know the first thing about HTML, you might like this feature. Naturally, this could never replace actually learning HTML, but for very simple text pages, it's instant gratification.

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• Mix RED, GREEN, and BLUE to get the color you want for your background. Think as though you have full cans of paint at your disposal; "0" means you will use none of that color, and "5" means you will use all of that color. The default is typically WHITE.
  
  [Hint: RED and GREEN make YELLOW. GREEN and BLUE make CYAN. RED and BLUE make MAGENTA. RED, GREEN, and BLUE make WHITE, and a zero amount of each color produces BLACK.]
  
  0 red 1 red 2 red 3 red 4 red 5 red 0 green 1 green 2 green 3 green 4 green 5 green 0 blue 1 blue 2 blue 3 blue 4 blue 5 blue
  

• Mix RED, GREEN, and BLUE to get the color you want for your text. The default is typically BLACK.
  
  [Hint: create a color that will contrast with your background color.]
  
  0 red 1 red 2 red 3 red 4 red 5 red 0 green 1 green 2 green 3 green 4 green 5 green 0 blue 1 blue 2 blue 3 blue 4 blue 5 blue
  

• Choose between LEFT, CENTER, or RIGHT for the alignment of the text on your page. The default is typically LEFT.
  
  left alignment center alignment right alignment
  

• Type in a page HEADING, then choose how big you want it.
  
  [Hint: 1 = biggest size, 6 = smallest size]
  
  1 2 3 4 5 6
  

• Type in any text you want for the body copy. You can even use code to format the text any way that you want.
  
  [Hint: Any text you put in between <b> and </b> will show up in BOLD text. Similarly, any text you put in between <i> and </i> will show up in ITALICS.]
  
  

  put body copy here

  
  

• Would you like to add a link? Type in the full URL of the site to which you'd like to go from the page that you're building.
  
  [Hint: An example of a full URL is http://www.eeggs.com]
  
  
  

• Now that you have all the basic elements, view your creation by clicking on the button.
  
  [Hint: If you like the page you create, feel free to select "File" and "Save As" to save the page to your hard drive for your own use. If you don't like what you see, you can always close the window and start again. Also, if you want to see what makes the page work, select "View" and "Source" to see the HTML at work.]