learning HTML

[Earl Young]

     There are Web ways of skipping the course.  I use a Pentium and 95 - 
     but I imagine that Mac browsers offer the ability as the 95 and 3.1 
     versions do of bringing up a page from your hard disk.  This means you 
     can test HTML without having a local server available.  Very handy if 
     you are working from home, for instance.
     
     Hit the Yahoo site and look for HTML.  The "Bare Bones Guide to HTML" 
     is a good one, and sites with that will typically link to others with 
     HTML information.  Netscape also has a number of HTML tutorial files - 
     especially good ones exist for frames on the Netscape site.  You 
     should be able in about three days of reasonable hacking to print the 
     materials from a couple of the HTML tutorial sites and then begin to 
     experiment on your machine.  It won't take long.
     
     If you are building a smallish-to-mid size site, look at Net Objects 
     Fusion.  The price with the educational discount is under $400, and it 
     does a fast job of building sites.  The Backstage Designer from 
     Macromedia is about $300, and it also is a good site building tool.
     
     The folks at Hot Metal Pro have an Internet Publisher that is also 
     worth a look.
     
     The Fusion and Backstage products can be downloaded (they are 10 and 
     14 megs as I recall, respectively) and used for 30 days.
     
     Fusion is at netobjects.com and Backstage is at macromedia.com.  I 
     forget the URL for the Hot Metal Pro Internet Publisher.
     
     You will move a lot faster with the tutorials on the Web and with 
     tools like these than you will in a CC course.  Nothing against the 
     colleges, but they are unlikely to be using beta-level software, and 
     that is where the real time saving tools are these days.  They are way 
     better than Front Page, in my opinion.
     
     Hope this helps.
     
     


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: learning HTML
Author:  tdowling at OHIOLINK.edu at INTERNET
Date:    1/6/97 4:07 PM


There are also Internet Assistants for Excel, PowerPoint, and 
Schedule+, if not for all the Office components by now.  IMO, the 
Internet Assistants are useful only for small-scale document 
conversion, and not for prime time HTML generation.  In the Microsoft 
World View, you'd be using FrontPage for that(*).  Somewhere recently, 
I saw mention of an small editor from Microsoft called FrontPad; 
basically FrontPad is to FrontPage as WordPad is to Word.  I'm tempted 
to say I saw FrontPad listed as an Office 97 throw-in, but will happily 
concede to anyone who actually knows what they're taking about.
     
To answer the original question, No.  If you're responsible for any 
aspect of your web site's design or content, the best tools in the 
world don't absolve you from needing to know at least the rudiments of 
HTML.  Your definition of "rudiments" might vary from someone else's, 
but I'd offer as a first hurdle the ability to do something like change 
an ordered list to an unordered list without firing up a multi-megabyte 
application like FrontPage--with an impatient boss looking over your 
shoulder requiring it NOW.
     
(*In other cosmographies, replace "FrontPage" with "Claris Home Page," 
"HotDog Pro," "HoTMetaL Pro," etc., etc.)
     
Thomas ("Still happy with vi") Dowling 
tdowling at ohiolink.edu
     
----------
> From: Swanson, Sandy <sswanson at bw.brhn.org>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <diglibns at sunsite.berkeley.EDU> 
> Subject: RE: learning HTML
> Date: Monday, January 06, 1997 2:00 PM 
> 
> 
> There's an add-in for Word called "Microsoft Internet Assistant for 
Word." 
>  Unfortunately you will still need to take the HTML introductory 
course in 
> order to figure out why Internet Assistant didn't do what you 
expected.
> 
> Sandy Swanson, Library Manager, Amberg Library
> Cook Institute for Research & Education, Butterworth Hospital
> 100 Michigan NE, Grand Rapids MI 49503       sswanson at bw.brhn.org 
>  ----------
> Michael Ginsborg wrote:
> 
>  I plan to take a short introductory course on HTML, offered by a 
community
> college, does anyone know whether some of Microsoft's products, such 
as
> FrontPage and PowerPoint, make that unnecessary? 
> 
> Michael Ginsborg, Assistant Librarian 
> California Supreme Court Library
> 415-396-9438
> ginsborg at class.org
>