HTML Tutorial
This tutorial will teach you the very basics of HTML coding. For more info on each individual tag, click the help icon in that tag's insert window.
HTML, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language, is the language which websites are made from, and is actually fairly easy to learn. HTML instructions are called "tags", and are enclosed in "less than" and "greater than" symbols, looking like this: <tag>. Most html tags require that you use both opening and closing tags so that the browser will know where it begins and ends. Closing tags are exactly the same except for a forwared slash which comes after the less than sign. For example <b>some text</b> will make the words "some text" bold. Without the ending tag the bold effect would never be turned off and all text after the initial <b> would be bold. Things which don't necessarily have a beginning and an end, such as an image or a linebreak, don't require closing tags. A simple <br> will create a linebreak.
When writing an html document you may space the tags out in any manner which you like, to make it the most readable for you. For example you could write all of your code onto one line, and even though it would still display the same in the browser, it would be very difficult to read and edit.
Now that you understand the basic format that you use in writing HTML, let's begin an html document. There are a few basic html tags which all webpages need. First you use the <html> tag to signal the beginning of the document, followed by the <head> tag where you can place descriptive information for search engines, or other special code such as CSS properties and javascripts (which will be explained later). Next you use the <title> tag to give your page a name, closing it with a </title> tag. Then you use the <body> tag which is where most of your code will go. When you are finished coding your page, you should end it by closing any open tags, so you will need to use </body> and </html> to signal the end of the file. Therefore an html page in it's most basic form is as follows:
My Website
The majority of your code goes here.
Now that you have the basic framework of your html page, you can begin designing it. Use the Insert menu and click the help icon in each object's window when you need an explination of a tag's use or syntax.
Along with HTML there are several other languages and methods you can incorporate into your pages, below are the most common.
CSS
CSS, which stands for Cascading Style Sheet, is used to set attributes which are not exposed by standard HTML. With CSS properties you can hide underlines from your links, add colors or images to form objects, change the border style on objects, and much more. There are a few different ways in which you can set CSS properties, which are explained under the "General Info" tab of the CSS window.
Javascript
Javascript is a language used to perform functions on a webpage. You can use javascript to create effects and show popup windows or message boxes, among many other things. Like CSS, you can either place the script in your <head> section or save it to a seperate file (usually .js) and refer back to it. Unless you really need to write your own custom javascripts, you will most likely just use a script written by someone else, because javascript is much more complex than html and requires more time to learn.
Flash
Flash is used to create interactive websites and display complex animations at very small filesizes. With Flash you can create anything from menu systems to fancy intros to web-based games. Flash accomplishes small file sizes by mostly using vector graphics, instead of raster images. A vector graphic is drawn from a set of instructions rather than being already saved to a file. For example the image of a square saved to a raster image (such as bmp, gif, or jpeg) contains color information for every single pixel (a 100x100 pixel image has a whopping 10,000 pixels), but that same square drawn with vector graphics only needs the one color of the entire square and the square's dimensions. For more information visit the Macromedia website at macromedia.com.
CGI
CGI, which stands for Common Gateway Interface, is used to process information. You can use scripts to process forms, redirect users, or create hit counters. CGI scripts are usually written in Perl and to use them you will need a host that supports them. Most free webservers do not allow custom CGI scripts to be installed. As an alternative, you can use remotely hosted CGI scripts offered by some websites. To find CGI scripts, simply do a search on Google, or try this site, but know that a lot of the scripts provided there are not free.