Derek and Melissa’s Family

<a href="URL"> click here </a>

URL can be a full location ( http://www.mysite.com/path/to/page.html ) or a relative location to the page ( page.html ).

<a href="http://www.derekandmelissa.com/"> click here </a>

<a href="URL" target="_blank"> click here </a>

Adding the target attribute to the link tells the link to focus on a specific window. You can name the target anything you like, but _blank is a reserved word which will always open a new window. If you name the target, you can have new links always open in the same window, since it has been named.

<p> Text surrounded by the "p" tag will be part of the paragraph </p>

<br />

If you want to create a break, soft return, or new line in a paragraph, use the <br /> tag.

<h1> This is a heading </h1>

There are seven different headings: h1, h2, h3, h4, and so on. The largest heading is h1. Use headings to create a heirarchy for your text.

<img alt="add a comment" src="URL" />

URL can be a full location ( http://www.mysite.com/path/to/image.jpg ) or a relative location to the page ( image.jpg ).

<img alt="Photo of Derek" src="derek_face.jpg" />

You can use other attributes in addition to alt and src for your images, including width, height, and border

<img alt="Photo of Derek" src="derek_face.jpg" width="100" height="200" border="0" />

You should not need to specify the height and width of the image if you scaled it to the correct size in your photo program.

<ul>
<li> Item One </li>
<li> Item Two </li>
<li> . . . </li>
</ul>

<ul> stands for "Unordered List".

<ol>
<li> Item One </li>
<li> Item Two </li>
<li> . . . </li>
</ol>

<ol> stands for "Ordered List".

JPEG (pronounced "Jay-Peg") is an image commonly used on websites. JPEG images are best suited for photographs, or images with lots of gradiations of color. JPEG's compress the images, making the file size smaller for quick downloading. JPEG's can compress with different quality---the smaller you compress the image, the more distorted it appears. JPEG file names look like this: my_image.jpg

GIF (pronounced like "GIFT") is a common web image format. GIF's are best for images with solid colors, like single-color logos. GIF's can also do simple animations. GIF's compress the image based on how many colors you use: more color means a larger file size. GIF file names look like this: my_image.gif

PNG (pronoucned "PING") is a common web image. PNG's support transparency, letting you "see-through" the image into the background. PNG's support both photographic images and single-color images. PNG file names look like this: my_image.png

RGB is used in reference to a color spectrum. It is an acronym meaning Red, Green, and Blue. RGB is the color spectrum used in computer monitors and is an "Additive" color spectrum, meaning when you combine, or add, all three colors (red, green, and blue) you get white. RGB is the color mode used on web pages and web images (JPG, GIF, and PNG). When you create images for the web, make sure to save them in the RGB color spectrum.

All images created for display on the web should be 72 dpi, or dots-per-inch.

One common mistake is to force a large picture into a small frame. This is done by taking a large image (e.g., 800x600) and "lying" to the browser by typing a false height and width (e.g., width="320" height="240"). When you create an image for the web, ALWAYS use the actual size of the image. If you need a smaller image, shrink the image in a photo program and resave it. When you force a big image into a small frame, you are still downloading the big image, even though it "looks" smaller.