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July 1997 |
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Hi Club WebTV members! About a month ago, WebTV Networks added some subtle software changes in the dead of night. This software laid the foundation for the Summer Upgrade, but also included a tidbit that could be used before the big upgrade. Club WebTV members now have an e-mail reader that can translate HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language), the language used for creating most web pages. This means you can now include HTML in your e-mail to enlarge, center, italicise or boldface text. Furthermore, you can now include graphics and links to web pages! Some of you have found chat sites in which people are able to italicize, use bold or large print, or include graphics. This is done with HTML as well. So, in the interest of expanding your skills, this issue of Speakeasy will be a short lesson in HTML. Some of the following may be a little confusing to newbies. You may want to read earlier issues of Club WebTV, particularly the WebTV Tips columns. Address a letter to yourself so you can practice. First, let our e-mail system know you intend on writing this message in HTML. Begin your letter with <HTML>. The pointed brackets surround a command known as a tag. Now, let's write a sentence in bold. The <B> tag means: begin bold type. The </B> means: stop bold type. Everything you write after <B> will be bold until you type </B>. Type: <B>Hi Everybody I'm writing in bold!</B> Now I'm writing normally. Now send the letter to yourself. When it arrives, it will look like this. Hi Everybody, I'm writing in bold! Now I'm writing normally. In the same way, you can use <I> </I> for italics, and <CENTER> </CENTER> for centering text in the middle of the screen. You can even use them all together. Try it again. Address a letter to yourself and type in <CENTER><B><I>Look at me, I can use HTML!!</I></B></CENTER> Send it to yourself and watch it appear as: Look at me, I can use HTML! To change font size (the size of the text), use the tag <font size="+1">text</font>. You can go as big as "+4" or as little as "-2". One thing to keep in mind with HTML is that it ignores line breaks you type. You must use the <P> command at the end of a paragraph to begin a new one, or the <BR> command to begin a new line. Without these commands, your message, including signature, will simply be one big paragraph with line breaks at the end of the screen. This means if you type: <HTML> Hi! This will appear as: Hi! Second line! Third line! But if you type: <HTML>Hi Mom, <P>I'm learning to use <I>HTML</I>. It's not as hard as I thought.<P>Say hi to Dad. <P>Love, <BR>Bobby It will appear as: Hi Mom, I'm learning to use HTML. It's not as hard as I thought. Say hi to Dad. Love, Your signature will be affected the same way. So if you begin a letter with <HTML> be sure to include HTML tags in your signature as well. If you would like HTML in your signature only, write <HTML> at the beginning of your signature. Another fun feature of HTML is the ability to include links to pages and e-mail addresses. To include a link to a page, use this tag: <A HREF="http://www.hotbot.com">Click here to search!</A> Everything in quotation marks is the exact URL. In this example, "Click here to search!" will appear as a link, and will take you to the Hot Bot search engine. If you want to include your e-mail address in your signature use this tag: <A HREF="mailto:clubwebtv@webtv.net">Choose here to e-mail Club WebTV</A>! This time, instead of a URL, you use the command mailto: followed by the exact e-mail address.With this example, "Choose here to e-mail Club WebTV!" will appear as a link and when chosen, will take you to the mail screen with a message addressed to ClubWebTV@webtv.net If you would like to really delve into HTML, check out Case Western Reserve University - Introduction to HTML. It's a great tutorial. If you pass the quiz at the end of each chapter, it lets you test out some HTML commands and shows you the results. Note: Not everyone on the Internet has a mail reader that can translate HTML. This is a special feature that all Club WebTV members have, but there's no way to be sure that your friends using computers have this feature. Ask them before you send them messages, because if they don't have an e-mail reader that can decipher HTML, the message will include all the HTML tags, and be a bit hard to read! | |||||||||||||||||
