XHTML Tutorial #1 - The Beginning - Page 2
Create your first XHTML page
It is very simple to get started with web programming. Your computer probably has a simple text editor like Notepad (Windows systems) or SimpleText (Mac systems). Open it and type in the following line (or cut and paste):
This line represents the best idea I could come up with for a first web page
If you are in a hurry, you could just type in:
Hello, World!
We are using notepad. Our screen looks like this:
Now save the file, naming it example001.html. If you use notepad it will probably try to put .txt at the end of the file name. In the Save As box change the Save as type: box (it’s the next to last box) to All Files.
Type in the name example001.html and click the Save button. Note that we saved the file in a directory named HTML files. We will keep all our files for this tutorial here so we can find them easily.
If your text editor appended .txt to the end of the file name rename the file to example001.html. Open your browser (we recommend FireFox, but use IE if you must!) and open the file.
In FireFox, click on File at the top of the page, then Open File, then browse for the file you just saved. In Internet Explorer, click on File, then Open, then browse for the file you just saved. Double click on the file. That should open and display the file. You should see something like this:
Your first web page! Kind of. Well, not really, there’s a lot more to it. On the next page next page we’ll talk about the basic structure of any web page.
A Little Deeper
Now is a good time to talk about file management. It might be a good idea to save all the web files you create in their own directory so they are easy to find. Keeping files together and separate from other types of files is a great habit to get into.
Later, as the web sites you work on get larger and larger, knowing where you store files for a project and storing files for each project the same way will be very helpful. Actually, this is helpful with ANY program you use on your computer.
Also note that we recommended that you save the filename using lowercase letters. Windows systems don’t really care if it’s uppercase or lowercase, and if you type a web address into a browser it’s probably going to find the file you ask for whether it’s uppercase or lowercase.
Uppercase or lowercase will mean a great deal to things like CSS and PHP files on linux systems. MyPicture.gif and mypicture.gif will not be the same.
You may or may not ever work on a system that cares about uppercase vs. lowercase, but if you get in the habit right now of always using lower case letters for directory and file names it will never be a problem. Just a suggestion!
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