It's always useful to get someone else's point of view, or an alternative explanation of a topic. For that reason, I've listed some books and web sites that I think give good information of HTML and related issues. Also, this tutorial is intended to get you up and running in HTML; to learn about some of the topics in greater depth, you'll find these references helpful.

There are a number of excellent books available on HTML; sadly there are some real stinkers too. Here's a couple that I think do a good job:

HTML 4 Unleashed

by Rick Darnell, et al.

Embracing HTML 4, all of the tags and attributes we've dealt with in this tutorial are covered in the book, which additionally provides an introduction to Cascading Style Sheets and Dynamic HTML.

As well as giving a thorough coverage of the language aspects, the book also provides an introduction into web page design techniques, and includes some good examples. A CD-ROM with examples, sample code and some shareware or demonstration software packages is bundled with the book.

Published by sams.net, 2nd edition. ISBN 0672313472

 

Effective Web Design : Master the Essentials

by Ann Navarro and Tabinda Khan

The principal author Ann Navarro is on the governing board of the HTML Writers Guild and runs her own web site design business (WebGeek Communications). Incorporating HTML 4.0, this book is good at covering cross-browser compatibility issues, and comes bundled with a CD-ROM with web design tools.

Published by Sybex, March 1998. ISBN 0782122787

 

Web Pages That Suck

by Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis

Less about pure HTML and more about design, this book should be on every budding webmaster's list of essential reading. As the cover says, "Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design". Still think blinking text, brightly coloured backgrounds and animations are really cool? Read this, and learn the error of your ways...

Published by Sybex, March 1998. ISBN 078212187X

You'll find a wealth of useful sites on the web for learning everything there is to know about HTML, web design and programming. Here's a few to get you going, beginning with the prime source for HTML.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

http://www.w3.org/

Responsible for the development of the HTML specifications and related matters, it's worth getting to know your way around this site.

You'll find the latest version of the HTML 4 specification at http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/

 

The HTML Writers Guild

http://www.hwg.org/

A membership association for people involved in and interested in HTML authoring, with many resources and training courses for HTML and web programming.

 

The Webmaster's Reference Library

http://webreference.com/

A good source of tutorials on HTML and other web-related material.

 

HTML Goodies

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

Another good source of tutorials on HTML and web-related material.

 

HotWired: Webmonkey

http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/

Yet another source of tutorials on HTML and much other stuff!

 

The WebDesign Group

http://www.htmlhelp.com/

The WDG promotes the creation of non-browser specific web sites and provides a range of material on HTML related topics, including guides to the HTML specifications and HTML validation tools.

 

Web Pages That Suck

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/

The companion web site to the book, with real, live web examples. See the Sucker of the Day, and pray it's not your site!

 

Yale C/AIM Web Style Guide

http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/index.html

A more advanced and complete work on web site design, considered by many to be definitive (in as much as anything can be definitive in this field!).

 

Remember that every single site on the Web is a "learning opportunity". If you see a well-designed site, or an interesting feature that makes you think "How did they do that?" then take a look at the source code for the page and find out! Most browsers give you an easy way to examine the source code for the page; for example in the Windows versions of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, all you have to do is right-click your mouse on the page, and choose "View Source" from the pop-up menu. Netscape displays the source code in its own viewer; Explorer usually opens up Notepad or WordPad to view the file.

I learned a lot of tricks and techniques by doing exactly this. Once I was a little more experienced in HTML, whenever I had one of those "How did they do that?" moments, I'd pause to try and figure out a method for myself first, then I'd look at the source code to see if the site designer did it the same or a similar way.

Copyright © Keith W Bell, 1999 - 2001
This page last updated 1 February 2001
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