HTML SandBox 2013

Free Republic | 01/01/13 | Free Republic

[ShadowAce]

It's time for a new HTML reference so you can make your posts look cool.

HTML means Hyper Text Markup Language. It's a set of simple commands used to format the text of your posts, add images, or links, or change the appearance.

URL is Uniform Resource Locator. It's the name of the page or the picture that you see, the www.http:// stuff. You'll need to use the URL to make links and post pictures.

Quotation Marks Quotes have to be used around the URLs for web pages and images on Free Republic. Some systems do not require this. Ours does.

Once the Free Republic software detects an HTML tag in your post, it will assume the entire thing was written for HTML. This means it will eliminate paragraphs and line breaks that you used to clarify your writing. In order to prevent that, I'll start with the two simplest tags, <br> and <p>. When you use html tags, they disappear when the post is pasted to the board, so don't worry if they look funny or if your post seems to run on.

This is the break tag. <br>
It tells the computer to end the line and start a new one. <br>
Just type it where you want the line to end. <br>

This is the paragraph tag. <p>

It tells the computer to end the line, insert a blank one, then start a new line.

The rest of the tags have to be used with an on tag and an off tag. This is simple enough. One of the most commonly used tags is the italic tag <i>. This tag turns the italics on. When you want the italics to end, turn them off by using the forward slash with the appropriate command, in this case, </i>.

Commonly used tags:
<p> paragraph
<br> line break
These tags are not used in pairs.

Commonly used pairs:
<i> </i>italics
<b> </b>bold characters
<u> </u>underline
<font color = red>This makes the font red.</font color = red> Orange,blue,green,purple,and yellow also work.
<center> </center>

This will put whatever is between the tags in the center of the page
and center justify the margins.

Headline fonts
Headlines add emphasis to an important point.

<h1> SIZE 1 </h1>

<h5> SIZE 5</h5>

You can use 1,2,3,4, or 5. The tags automatically insert a blank line between the headline and your next paragraph.

Font Face
<font face="helvetica, georgia, courier, arial">
what you are reading now will be rendered in the helvetica, georgia, courier or arial font. Your computer will search for each of the fonts and render this text in the first one it finds installed on your computer. If non of the fonts are installed, your computer will render this text with whatever you have installed as your default font
</font>

Lists
I use <blockquote> a lot;

as you know it indents the following text like this.

I also like to use lists:

numbered list:<OL>

<LI>
1. first item<LI>
2. second item<LI>
3. third item

</OL>end of list.

Bullet point lists:<UL>

<LI>
• first item<LI>
• second item<LI>
• third item

</UL>end of list.

definition lists:<DL>

<DT>

term </DT> <DD>

meaning </DD> <DT>

next term </DT> <DD>

meaning </DD>

</DD>
</DL>

Sarcasm tag
</sarc> This is the sarcasm tag. It is not a real HTML tag. It is used to mark your witty repartee so that everyone will know you are making a funny. Type an ampersand - & then lt; then /sarc. An & and gt makes the other carat >.

How to create a link:
<a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm">www.Free Republic.com</a>
A means anchor. H ref means horizontal reference. It's called horizontal because the computer is going across the web to a different page. There are also vertical links that can go to specific points on the same page. What comes after the a href= is where the computer will go. The horizontal reference is the complete URL of the page you want to link. It's in the navigation bar at the top of your web browser. Highlight it and copy it. Make sure you get all of it. Some URLs are surprisingly long, and if you miss some of the URL, the link might not work.
You can type anything between the <a href=></a> parts.
www.Free Republic.com
Click here.
abc12345
All of these links go to the same page, I just typed different things between <a href=></a> tags.

How to add images to your post:
<img src=></img>
The img tags tell the computer to find and insert a picture.
These tags insert this wonderful image from Free Republic's website:
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Free_Republic_logo.jpg/200px-Free_Republic_logo.jpg" "height=218" "width=285"></img>

You need to know the URL of the picture to do this. You can see the picture's URL when you put your cursor on the picture and right click the mouse. You see a small box with "properties" at the bottom. Left click on "properties" and you get a dialog box with the image URL and dimensions. It says Address: next to the URL, with (URL) underneath. Copy the URL and paste it after your img src= tag. Make sure you get all of the URL for the picture. There isn't a lot of space for the URL and sometimes they are very long. The image Size and Dimensions are beneath the URL. Free Republic allocates memory for each image, and if it doesn't know the dimensions of the image, it will allocate more memory than needed. It tells you the width, then the height of the picture.

This is called a hotlink. The picture is actually on another computer, but we see it here. This causes the other computer to use it's memory and machinery to provide the image. Some sites prevent it, or object to it. You can't hotlink an image from any of Yahoo's GeoCities pages, for example. Yahoo prevents it.

Do Not Cut And Paste List.
Some websites have forbidden us to copy and paste their material, including images. There have been lawsuits over this. The software will mostly prevent you from using the material that has been blocked, but not always. There are also some image sources that are not allowed on the list. Please don't use them. Lawsuits suck.
Link to the Do Not Cut And Paste List

Help With Creating HTML Tables

Basic Table Tags

The three most important tags for tables is the opening table tag, <table> and the table row and table data tags - <tr> and <td> respectively.

The <tr> tag represents a row for the table

The <td> tag represents a cell (or column) inside the row.

Now, with that in mind, let's create a simple table:

<table>

<tr>  
<td>A</td>
<td>B</td>
<td>C</td>  
</tr>

<tr>  
<td>X</td>
<td>Y</td>
<td>Z</td>  
</tr>

</table>

And this is what the table would look like published:

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

Notice that by looking at the code, you can tell how many rows and columns are included just by looking at the code.  The two opening <tr> tags indicate two rows and the three opening <td> tags on each line represents three data cells (or three columns).

So if you wanted to add another row, you would just start with another <tr> and so forth....

Adding Table Borders

Adding a border simply involves inserting the border attribute to the opening table tag. So in the above table the code would be adjusted accordingly:

<table border="2">

<tr>
<td>A</td> 
<td>B</td> 
<td>C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>X</td> 
<td>Y</td> 
<td>Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

Notice the "2" represents the thickness of the border. If you had set it to "0" then there would have been no border at all. If you wanted it very thick then you could set it to 8, for example.  So now your table will look like this:

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

Changing a Table's Border Color

(Does not seem to work on FR)

You can change the color of a table border by simply adding the bordercolor attribute.

<table border="2" bordercolor="red">

<tr>
<td>A</td> 
<td>B</td> 
<td>C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>X</td> 
<td>Y</td> 
<td>Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

And here's what it would look like...

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

Adjusting Table Cell Spacing and Cell Padding

You can increase the space within the table cells and the space between the cells by using the cellpadding and cellspacing  attributes.

The cellspacing attribute adjusts the space between the cells and cellpadding adjusts the space within (around) the cell.

<table border="2" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="3">

<tr>
<td>A</td> 
<td>B</td> 
<td>C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>X</td> 
<td>Y</td> 
<td>Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

This is what the table would look like now...

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

See how setting the cellspacing attribute to "10" drastically increased the spacing between the cells, and the cellpadding attribute set to "3" added a little of space within each individual cell.

If you want a table to have a single border (with no border around the letters), simply set the cellspacing to "0" and your table will look like this....

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

Specifying a Table Width

You can specify the width of a table by using either a percentage or a pixel width.

<table width="100%" border="2">

<tr>
<td>A</td> 
<td>B</td> 
<td>C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>X</td> 
<td>Y</td> 
<td>Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

Since the width is set to 100% that means the table will take up 100% of the screen and the columns in the table will be adjusted evenly.  Here's what it would look like.

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

As we mentioned, you can also set the table width using pixels instead of percentages.  So instead of setting it to 100%, you could set it to 300 pixels:

<table width="300" border="2">

<tr>
<td>A</td> 
<td>B</td> 
<td>C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>X</td> 
<td>Y</td> 
<td>Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

The table would look like this:

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

Setting Column Widths

Sometimes you may not always want your columns to be the same width.  If this is the case, you need to set values on your table data <td> cells.  Again, you can set them by using percentages or pixel widths.

<table width="300" border="2">

<tr>
<td width="70%">A</td>
<td>B</td>
<td>C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td width="70%">X</td>
<td>Y</td>
<td>Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

This is what this table would look like.
 

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

See how the column width for the first column in both rows is set to 70%.  Notice there is no value set for the other 2 columns.  If you do not set a value for the remaining columns, their width will automatically be adjusted to take up the remaining space and they'll share it equally.

Since the table width is set to 300 pixels, and the first column is instructed to take up 70% of those 300 pixels (roughly 210 pixels), the other 2 columns divide the remaining 30% of the table equally (roughly 45 pixels a piece).

You could also have expressed the column widths of this table in pixels instead of percentages.  The code would have looked like this:

<table width="300" border="2">

<tr>
<td width="210">A</td>
<td width="45">B</td>
<td width="45">C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td width="210">A</td>
<td width="45">B</td>
<td width="45">C</td>
</tr>

</table>

 

A	B	C
A	B	C

 

See how the width of the columns in each row add up to 300 (210 + 45 + 45) -- which is the width of the table.

What's the Difference Between Using Percentages and Pixel Widths?

Many people prefer to express their table width and column widths in percentages because that will ensure that the table takes up the same amount of screen no matter how big or small the screen resolution is. 

If someone is using a 21 inch monitor to view your site and you have a table width set to 300 pixels, the table will show up very small on their screen.  However if you set the table width to 70%, it will take up 70% of the screen no matter what size monitor the person is using. 

Or, let's say you create a table that is 760 pixels wide and someone has a 15 inch monitor set to a 640x480 resolution, then that person will have to scroll left and right just to see the entire table. 

On the other hand, if you set the table width to 100%, the table will fit the screen no matter what resolution the browser is set to.

So it's really up to you to decide what's the best layout for your tables. Personally I prefer to use percentages.  That way the table takes up the same amount of screen no matter what size monitor/resolution people are using.

Specifying a Table's Height

You can also set the table height by adding the height tag to the table code.

<table height="250" width="300" border="2">

<tr>
<td width="210">A</td>
<td width="45">B</td>
<td width="45">C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td width="210">X</td>
<td width="45">Y</td>
<td width="45">Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

Which will produce the following table:

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

Horizontally Aligning the Content Inside Tables

The content inside a cell is left aligned by default, but you can also center or right align the text as well by using the align attributes.

<table width="300" border="2">

<tr>
<td width="210" align="center">A</td>
<td width="45">B</td>
<td width="45">C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td width="210" align="center">X</td>
<td width="45">Y</td>
<td width="45">Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

 

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

See how the first column is aligned to the center?  You can also right align the columns by using the align="right" inside the <td> cells.

Vertically Aligning the Content Inside the Table Cells

So far we've kept the table cell alignment at the default, which is the middle.  Notice in the above table that the A, B, and C are all three aligned in the middle of their cells.  Well you can change their alignment to either top, bottom, or middle by using the valign (which stands for vertical align) tag:

<table height="250" width="300" border="2">

<tr>
<td valign="top" width="210">A</td>
<td width="45">B</td>
<td valign="bottom" width="45">C</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td valign="top" width="210">X</td>
<td width="45">Y</td>
<td valign="bottom" width="45">Z</td>
</tr>

</table>

 

A	B	C
X	Y	Z

I've set the table height to "250" so the alignment would be more noticeable. Notice that the A in both rows are aligned to the top.  You can also align to the "bottom" or the "middle".

Creating a Left Navigation Layout With Tables

As we mentioned earlier, most left and right navigations are created using tables.  All you do is create a table with one row, two columns and no border.  Then align both of your columns to the top (using the valign tag) so your text will start in the top of the columns, not the middle.  Then depending on if you're going to have a right or left navigation, you'll make one column significantly smaller than the other.

Here's a simple left navigation layout:

<table width="100%" border="0">

<tr>
<td valign="top" width="25%">Left Nav Links Here</td>
<td valign="top" width="75%">Body Here</td>
</tr>

</table>

And here's what it would look like: 

Left Nav Links Here

Body Here

 

Notice I set the border to "0" but it's still showing in the example.  I just did that to show how the layout would look. If you set your border to "0" you won't see any lines around your table.

---

So there ya have it!  That's a general overview of tables.  There's so much more you can do with them, but if you can understand the basic layout, you'll be able to do so much with the design of your web site.

[Bikkuri]

Thank you for the update ping :^)

Will update my bookmark now.

[Blue Highway]

oh ok. I never venture outside of the News/activism section. I have no idea what the centeen or religion section is like. I have no idea what other places like Banglist is either.

[zeugma]

Well done! Of course, proper HTML still doesn't help us with typoes, which are sometimes some of the funniest things on FR. With the way things are now, we need all the humor we can get!

I'd like to suggest for folks that aren't HTML experts, that if you're using Firefox, you can download an Add-on called "Write Area". What it will do is allow you to have a WYSIWYG HTML editor available in any text box on your screen. You can download it from Mozilla's Add-on site. Search for "Write area".

Once you have it installed it works like this:

When you click "reply" to a message, you get a blank box where you would normally put your HTML for your reply. Instead of just typing away, click your right mouse button within the text box. You should then see a menu item called "edit in a Write Area". Select that. Now type anything you want. It has all the normal editor functions built in for things like Bold, Italics, and underline, and it works just like any other text editor. You'll notice it has other things too, like unsertiing 'special' characters that aren't normally on your keyboard, like ® or §.

If you click the "source" button, you'll see the html that will be produced when you save. It has buttons for adding links, images, and even flash (yuck) and javascript.

Rather than just typing, if you have a webpage that you'd like to copy text from, just copy that text directly from the webpage (you might have to be careful about some of the formatting from the page, but you will get the hang of it with a little practice). When you paste it into your WriteArea, you'll see that it maintains all the formatting!  There is a button to remove formatting which is especially useful if what you paste in has some really weird text blocks, that you don't want.

Once you're all done, click the 'save' icon, and you'll see that your text box now has all the HTML markup to properly display the text you'd entered. Hit FR's 'preview' button and make sure it's going to display as you like it. IF you need to change things, after you've already exited 'text area', but before you Post, you can just right-click the text box again, and edit your changes.

Hope this is useful for some folks. I've been doing HTML for a long time, and I find Write Area creates nice clean HTML without a lot of work.

Below is a screen shot of what Write Area looked like while I was editing this post...

Enjoy!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

definition lists:<DL>

<DT> term </DT> <DD> meaning </DD> <DT> next term </DT> <DD> meaning </DD> </DD> </DL>

IMHO the definition list is underutilized. I like to add underlining and/or boldface to emphasize the term I am defining or describing:

definition lists:

term

meaning or description. I like the effect, especially when the description is wordy enough that it runs to multiple lines, as I'm deliberately causing now with this bit of "filibustering." I don't know any other way to get this effect.

next term

meaning

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

definition lists:<DL>

<DT> term </DT> <DD> meaning </DD> <DT> next term </DT> <DD> meaning </DD> </DD> </DL>

IMHO the definition list is underutilized. I like to add underlining and/or boldface to emphasize the term I am defining or describing:

definition lists:

term

meaning or description. I like the effect, especially when the description is wordy enough that it runs to multiple lines, as I'm deliberately causing now with this bit of "filibustering." I don't know any other way to get this effect.

next term

meaning

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

definition lists:<DL>

<DT> term </DT> <DD> meaning </DD> <DT> next term </DT> <DD> meaning </DD> </DD> </DL>

IMHO the definition list is underutilized. I like to add underlining and/or boldface to emphasize the term I am defining or describing:

definition lists:

term

meaning or description. I like the effect, especially when the description is wordy enough that it runs to multiple lines, as I'm deliberately causing now with this bit of "filibustering." I don't know any other way to get this effect.

next term

meaning

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

It goes without saying that I didn’t intend to triple post, even if I did try to emphasize my point with some red font.

It goes, without saying, but of course I’m saying it anyway . . .

[Blue Highway]

I	will	check	out	that	thread	but
still	don't	see	what	this	is	useful	for	.

IIRC there was HTML for even the color of the cell padding AND cell spacing. What are the tags for those?

[Blue Highway]

the [/font color="red"] does not need the ="red" part to cancel the tag.

[Bikkuri]

Wow.. didn’t know about that one.. will save me a lot of extra typing :)

Thank you :D

(Will still need to practice every once in awhile so I don’t forget ;))

[Blue Highway]

testing this border color

and border color does not work here

[Pajamajan]

BOOK MARK

[Bikkuri]

Ok.. I added it.. but, HOW do I get it to work now? (I am usually not one to be baffled over something on the PC :p)

Did a restart, but it is not showing up here... I checked and it IS showing up on extensions..

[wildbill]

Do we really want more freepers to know how to post a picture of Helen Thomas?

I feel like we have just been exposed to the honest mistake of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

[firebrand]

How do you do accents on letters?

[Fast Moving Angel]

This is most way cool ... works great --  thanks for the great tip!!

[Fast Moving Angel]

When you hit "post reply", right click your mouse in the reply area and then click on Edit in a Write Area on the popup menu. 

[21stCenturion]

...

[Fast Moving Angel]

When you hit "post reply", right click your mouse in the reply area and then click on Edit in a Write Area on the popup menu. 

[Bikkuri]

AH!

Now I see it!! :D

 

Thank you!