Guestbook HTML Primer

Okay, there are lots of little things you can do to change the look of your entries. Want to emphasize what you're saying with some italics? Maybe you want to make a word boldfaced (like most of my lies). Maybe you're just really anal and want to make your list look like a list... I hope that I'll be able to help you out by having some of the HTML codes needed defined here. Let me know if there's something you wanna know...

NOTE: It seems that my version of Netscape is unwilling to display the 'less than' or the 'greater than' symbols... ):^(
So, if you are seeing a bunch of question marks, the format of the HTML commands is: 'less than symbol', tag, 'greater than symbol'.

Your Favorite Commands
Basic Rules
Font Stuff
Linking Other Pages and Stuff
Lists

Your Favorite Commands

I think that the things you'd like to do most would be to put in a Carriage Return in a specific place and/or put a space between two paragraphs. This is an amazingly simple task.

To start/continue typing on the next line, add in a ' ' at the end of the previous line.
So, if you type in:

This is the first line. And this is the second.

You get:

This is the first line.
And this is the second.

To start a new paragraph, lead it off with a ''.
So, you would type in:

...I'm finishing the previous paragraph. And starting a new one.

You get:

...I'm finishing the previous paragraph.
And starting a new one.

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Basic Rules

HTML is basically a computer language, so, you can now consider yourself an apprentice computer programmer by using these codes in your entries. =^) The basic rule is that for each tag (the HTML code), there is a starting tag, and a matching ending tag. The ending tag is just like the starting one, but with the addition of a '/'. So, if you were going to italicize a word, you would put a "" before the word, then a "" after it. Some of the codes don't require a closing tag. If you start a new paragraph (), the computer can pretty much surmise that the old one ended.

If you put in a tag that the computer doesn't understand, say, <blah>, the tag will be ignored. And, if you put in a tag that uses quotation marks ("), but forget to use the closing quotes, a good bit of your message will disappear... So, be careful. I give you great power, you must use it only for good!

If you want to use multiple tags, you need to close each in the opposite order from which you declared it. So, you would want to do: (bold italics), and not, (bold italics) which may or may not work.

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Font Stuff

Let the fun begin! You can do all sorts of things...

Italics: put '' before the word, and '' after.

Poopie! results in: Poopie!
Bold: put '' before the word, and '' after.

Grrr!! results in: Grrr!!
Underline: put '' before the word, and '' after.

What a pain! results in: What a pain!
Colors: put before the word, and after it. "xxx" can be most any generic color: white, black, red, blue, etc. Also, do be careful when using this as we have the quotation marks in use...

Big Red results in: Big Red
Sizes: put before the word, and after it. (Note: I wouldn't go any higher (or lower) than +/- 2.)

I want a Big word. results in: I want a Big word.
Blinking Text: (This only works if someone is using Netscape. Internet Explorer ignores this tag) put '<blink>' before the word, and '</blink>' after.

<blink>Annoy me!</blink> results in: Annoy me!

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Linking stuff:

This is pretty easy to do. You add in a tag, an 'anchor', that has the address of the page/website in it before the word(s) that will make up the link, and then the closing of the 'anchor'.

Here's the syntax:
<a href="http://www.your_web_page_here">Go Here</a> results in: Go Here

You can also make a link that starts an e-mail message. Instead of 'href="http://www.yaddayaddayadda"', simply put in 'href="mailto:your_name@your.address.com"'
Like this:
E-mail <a href="mailto:eric@jeneric.ws">Me</a> will give you: E-mail Me

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And finally...

Lists

There are two kinds, Ordered (1, 2, 3, ...; a, b, c, ...) or Unordered.

An Ordered List:

Start the list with <ol type="x">
Each successive element begins with a <li> (List Item)
You don't need to use a </li> after an item.
Then put </ol> after the list.

Entering: `<ol type="1"> <lh>My favorite place names that sound dirty, but aren't: <li>Big Bone Lick State Park <li>Beaver Lick Convenience store <li>Lake Titticaca <li>Hooker, Oklahoma (Home of the Horny Toads) </ol>`	Results in: My favorite place names that sound dirty, but aren't: Big Bone Lick State Park Beaver Lick Convenience store Lake Titticaca Hooker, Oklahoma (Home of the Horny Toads)
You can use different types of counters, just change the "x" in type="x" to: "1" for numeric (1, 2, 3, ...), "A" for capital letters (A, B, C, ...) "a" for lower-case letters (a, b, c, ...) "I" for capital Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, ...) or "i" for lower-case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, ...)

An Unordered List:

Just like an ordered list, start with <ul>
Each element of the list begins with a <li>
You can change the shape of the preceding mark from the default disc by adding "type="xxx"" to the <ul> tag.
- The disc (default). Enter "disc"
- A circle. Enter "circle"
- And a square. Enter "square"

Entering:

<ul type="square">Things about Eric: <li>Big Softie <li>Can Juggle <li>Loves skiing <li>Can make homemade Spätzle </ul>

Results in:

Big Softie
Can Juggle
Loves skiing
Can make homemade Spätzle

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That's pretty much it. There are a few special characters you can use too, but, for the sake of this environment, I'll only list ä (ä) and ü (ü).

If you have questions, or troubles, let me know. Have fun!

Contact me: eric@jeneric.ws