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Colin Fisher-McAllum writes an HTML on a book on HTML writing!

So you want to produce a site for sore eyes?

As you know, I write HTML pages; you are reading one now! Well I wanted to know more about "HyperText Markup Language" so I went surfing... through an array of HTML books in my local store. There is not a shortage of books on HTML creation, but which one would best suit me? I found, at last, there is an advantage to being in a wheelchair; I could sit and spend lots of time surfin' the shelves in comfort!

None of the books were cheap, in fact many of them are very expensive indeed! Some titles caught my eye. "The Idiots Guide To...", for example. This must have been written with me in mind. But on close examination I found it, like many other books didn't inspire me. So I found myself trying to select a book based solely on it's price... Hmmm, this one is cheap... Ah, there's a thin one, but wow, it's expensive!. This is not a good way to buy what I hoped would be a regularly used reference book so I started again. This time I read a paragraph or two of each books Introduction. I had put two books on my lap for further inspection and eight or nine had gone back on the shelves when... "Is that good?", I heard an assistant ask. "Huh?" I said. "You are looking at a computer book and you are smiling", she said. "Am I? I guess it must be good", I replied. As she walked away, I looked at the cover. "Using HTML" by Neil Randall. Returning to the first paragraph of the into, I was surprised to find I had already read three pages. The style of writing was to my taste, Randall has a sense of humour. What made me smile? Well this is a quote from the first paragraph. "Tell your friends you do spreadsheets, and they'll yawn. Tell 'em you write C++ code, and they'll fall fast asleep. Tell 'em you're into multimedia design, and they may say, 'Cool'. But tell 'em you write stuff for the World Wide Web, and then back it up with a live demonstration, and they'll think you're way out in front. Which, of course, you are." OK, it's not actually funny, but it's written in a laid back style and it's light hearted. A definite plus in a computer book.

So here I am with three books on my lap, one of them was nearly œ40, so that could go back on the shelf. Then there were two. Hmmm, œ14 or œ23? Well the œ14 book was very thin. I'll buy the œ23 book, it's the one by Randall... but just because the œ14 book was thin and it didn't make me smile didn't mean it was not the best buy! OK, I'll look up some Body Elements. One book didn't actually have a reference section, so although they were there, they were hard to find. Col goes to Appendix A of the other book... yep, Attributes, Syntax and Usage of more elements than I knew existed, this is the book for me. I paid my œ22.99 and bought the book that made me smile.

What did I get for my money? 374 pages, each one measuring 185mm by 230mm bound in a paperback style. Before the Introduction are 16 pages of Contents info. "Contents at a Glance" lists the seven sections of the book and the "Table of Contents" goes into more detail of each section and it's chapters. This is followed by an alphabetical listing of the HTML Elements reference [Appendix A]. Then there is a listing of the WWW Bibliography [Appendix [B]. At the back of the book is a complete 12 page alphabetical Index. You won't get lost in "Using HTML".

Using the sandwich analogy then, the bread is very tasty. Now for the filling... is it margarine or butter?

Chapters one and two take you through why HTML came into being and what HTML actually is and starts to explain the "tag" system. The next chapter is a about HTML editors. Unfortunately we Atari users do not have an editor, we must rely on creating our pages manually in a text editor. An HTML editor is just like a DTP package. That is you place your text and pictures where you want them on the page and it is saved as an HTML document with all the correct commands and tags.

We now get to the first tutorial in HTML creation; there are 4 in all. The subject matter for the tutorial page is based around a Canadian band called "Bertha's Attic". They are a real band and have their own WWW page that you can visit. Talking of visiting sites, the book has many addresses throughout the text to point you to examples of the commands being covered. There is also a closed site for owners of the book where the author makes available examples and upgrades. Back to the tutorial. This really does start right from the very beginning and although based around an HTML editor (with plenty of screenshots) there is always a text example and explanation entitled, "For code-only authors". Nearly every section has a "Q&A" and "Tip" section; e.g. in the section on backgrounds there are the addresses of 5 net sites that offer downloadable backgrounds. Although strongly based on the language our Ataris can understand, HTML 2, the book points out the convention changes that are needed to make the pages compatible with the new HTML 3. Each set of commands and tags are followed by examples that you implement in your tutorial page. There are, unfortunately, many HTML commands that are not recognised by CAB (Crystal Atari Browser) but the program is under constant development with new commands added with each release.

The author tries to warn against going OTT. We all did it with our DTP packages but only a few people had to put up with our garish masterpieces. If your page goes online, and why shouldn't it, it has a potential audience of hundreds of thousands!

There is an excellent section on getting the best from your graphics. As the chapters progress the tutorials get more and more detailed including, font size control, lists and form, linking to other sites, creating a link to ftp sites and gopher servers, you can even link to newsgroups. Bare in mind, as I said earlier, many commands are not available to Atari users, but it is very interesting to see what can be done and, we hope, will be available to us as time goes on.

Finally, the reference section at the end of the book is an invaluable source of information. I have enjoyed the time I've spent reading Using HTML and I recommend you give it a try either from your local library or if you regularly write HTMLs it's well worth having in your collection of computer reference books.

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