Oracle WebServer User's Guide

What is HTML?

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard language used for creating hypermedia documents on the Web. HTML documents can be viewed by many different Web browsers, of varying abilities, in a simple, portable way. When a document is coded in HTML, a browser. can interpret the HTML to identify the elements of the document and to render it. The use of HTML allows documents to be formatted for presentation using fonts and line justification appropriate for the system on which it is displayed.

Most documents have common elements, such as a title, paragraphs, or lists. Using HTML tags you can label these elements as you are writing. HTML tags provide the browser with a minimum of presentation information, while keeping the integrity of information in the document. All the reader needs is a formatting tool, a Web browser, which interprets the HTML tags and produces an on-screen display that approximates the intent of the document creator.

With most methods of documentation, the writer of a document has strict control over the look and feel of a document. With HTML, the reader (subject to the capabilities of the Web browser) has control over the look and feel of a document. HTML allows you to mark titles or paragraphs with HTML instructions or tags, and then leaves the interpretation of these tags up to the browser. For example, one browser may indent the beginning of each paragraph, and another may leave only a blank line. The user of a particular browser may also have some control over the specific fonts used.

HTML tags can be divided into two main categories:

tags that define how the body of the document is to be displayed by the browser

tags that define information about the document such as the title

Remember, the power of HTML is that your document can be viewed on a variety of browsers, on most platforms, and formatted to suit any reader.

How Are HTML Documents Created?

HTML documents can be created using any text editor (emacs, textedit, or vi on UNIX machines; DOS and Macintosh machines have a variety of simple text editors or HTML-specific programs). Choose the editor you are most comfortable with to write your HTML document.

For example, HTML editors such as SoftQuad's "HoTMetaL" allow the creation of HTML documents graphically in "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) mode. In addition, many traditional word processing packages have add-ons or integrated HTML output capabilities.

To create dynamic pages that retrieve information from an Oracle7 Server, you can generate HTML with the PL/SQL utility packages provided by the Oracle WebServer Developer's Toolkit. See Chapter 5, "Oracle Web Agent," and Chapter 6, "Oracle WebServer Developer's Toolkit,"for more information.