HTML for beginners
Lesson 3
New Tags

Did you expect to see "This is my first web page." and "My page is getting bigger." on 2 separate lines? That is how we typed them right? Browsers need to be told when to go to a new line. On the old typewriters we used a carriage return. On browsers it's called a line break, or <br>. This tag tells the browser to go to a new line.

Now open your file if it's not open, and add the new tag as shown below, then save and launch your page and see what you get.

<html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
This is my first web page.<br>
My page is getting bigger.
</body>
</html>

The new "br" tag told the browser to go to a new line. Another tag similar to it is the <p> tag. This one, instead of a new line says it's a new paragraph which adds a blank line. Add the red text below and see what happens.

<html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
This is my first web page.<br>
My page is getting bigger.
<p>This is a whole new paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>

If you understand how this all works so far, you've passed the first hurdle. The rest gets easier. Believe it or not, when I first wanted to learn html, it took me a couple weeks to get this far. From there it was easier.

Do you remember the opening and closing tags note in lesson 1? Where is the "br" closing tag? In html there isn't a closing tag for br since it doesn't actually say to do something until it's told not to. It's just a one time command. In the new language, the closing tag for it would be part of the same tag. It would be put like <br /> instead, but unless you plan to be a pro web designer, forget what I just said. :) In html the "p" tag doesn't really need a closing tag either because browsers automatically know it's finished when it gets to the next "p" tag. It's a good idea to use the closing paragraph tag so when the new language comes out you will be used to it.

When will this new language take over?
I don't know for sure when, or even if it will take over. Here is a nice quote I found:
Staying Power
I think that many people underestimate the staying power of HTML. It's the standard at the moment, without it you can't make a web page. Because of that all web developers use HTML. Because of that, all future browsers that are intended to show traditional web pages must continue to support HTML as we now know it. Because of that all web developers will continue to use HTML, so WWW pages will continue to be written in HTML, so browsers will have to continue to support it, etc.
If you are curious about this new language, the site I found the quote on is here

Ready for the next lesson?

Bigger and bolder


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