Conventions Used on This Website

For the purposes of clarity and convenience, certain conventions will be used on this website. These are outlined below:

Hyperlinks

All hyperlinks will be underlined and the text will be colored as in the following example: Iron Spider Home Page. Links to pages on this website (hereby referred to as 'internal links') will open in the same browser window. Links to pages outside of this website (hereby referred to as 'external links') will open in a new browser window.

Menu-button Paths

Some text will be specially formatted to help translate the written text into actions you are required to take in various programs such as Internet Explorer, Windows NotePad, and a number of web authoring and graphics editors. Hence all text written in black bold italics will indicate one or more menu and sub-menu buttons you are required to click on in order to arrive at the specified part of the program. Each indicated menu or sub-menu button will be separated by a double arrow like this ». Hence the syntax will be:

Menu button » Sub-menu button » Sub-menu button

Unless otherwise specified, the first menu button or the first in a series of menu buttons indicated will always begin in the File menu bar that generally runs across the top of most computer programs (e.g., the File menu bar that runs across the top of Internet Explorer typically contains the following: File, Edit, View, Favorites, Tools, Help).

To illustrate, in the What is a Web Page? tutorial, this description appears:

"For example, if you're using Internet Explorer then you can view the source code of this very page by clicking on View in the File menu bar that runs across the top and then scroll down the drop down menu and click on Source."

Throughout the rest of this website, a description like this will be abbreviated to:

"For example, if you're using Internet Explorer then you can view the source code of this very page by clicking on View » Source".

Example Code Boxes

Throughout this website you will find numerous examples of HTML, CSS and Javascript source code. These examples of source code will normally be displayed in a box and will appear in "code" font. To further differentiate, the source code of a web page can be generally divided into two categories:

1. That which actually constitutes HTML, CSS or Javascript coding such as <font face="times new roman"></font>.
   
   
2. That which constitutes the text which will actually be visible on your web page. This is, in effect, the content of your web page and will be hereby referred to as the 'visible text'.

Unless otherwise specified, the example code boxes will display all HTML, CSS or Javascript coding in blue "code" font and all visible text in black "code" font.

Example:


At times, it may be necessary to call attention to a certain part of the source code presented in the example code boxes. Unless otherwise specified, these parts will be highlighted in red.


(In the above example, the reader is directed to focus his or her attention on face="times new roman".)

In some (but not all) cases, the visible text appearing in example code boxes may be formatted to show you how it will actually look on the web page itself. You should bear in mind that this is for demonstrational purposes only. Most text editors and HTML editors display all source code -whether it be HTML coding or visible text- in a uniform text style.

Start and End Tags

At times throughout the text, the start and end tags of an element will be referred to as a singular unit and will be formatted as in the following example:

<font>...</font>

So, in practice, the text might say something like:

"The <font>...</font> tags are used to display different typefaces, sizes and colors."

It should be noted that the "..." symbol appearing in between the start and end tags is intended to represent the content (usually visible text) that would normally fill this space. In these instances, the content is omitted for the purposes of brevity.