To learn HTML, you need to learn about a few features in your browser. This section provides help for using Netscape Navigator (NN), Internet Explorer (IE), and Opera (O).

View Source

Activation: Right-click on the window and select View Source (NN, IE) or Frame -> View Source (O).

Ever wonder, "How'd they do that?" The View Source function will show you the way. A new window pops up, displaying the HTML source of the page. This is the fastest way to learn how to code. Cut and paste sections of code... make alterations... see what happens.

Note that in Internet Explorer 4.0+, the web designer can add special instructions to the browser that prevents you from viewing or saving the source code. You should probably respect the web designer's wishes and move on to another site, instead of sneaking around the protection by trying another browser.

View Page Properties

Activation: Right-click on the window and select View Page Info (NN) or Properties (IE).

This brings up a dialog box with information about the page, such as the page size in bytes and the last-modified date. Netscape provides more useful information than IE, including a full list of all images on the page (with height, width, and size in bytes).

Save Image

Activation: Right-click on the image and select Save As... (NN), Save Picture As... (IE), or Save Image (O).

There are numerous free image repositories all over the web, where you can get clip art, backgrounds, and so on. Note that for some reason, Netscape 6 does not properly guess the file type of the image you are saving. You will have to specify whether the image is a GIF, JPG, PNG, and so on.

Validate HTML

Activation: Right-click on the page and select Frame -> Validate HTML (O). If you're not using Opera, go to http://validator.w3.org and manually enter the URL of the page that you want to check.

This free service, provided by the good folks at the W3C, allows you to validate your HTML according to the latest published standards. Validating your web pages is a good thing to do, but it's usually a humbling experience. Persons with brittle egos should validate their pages with extreme caution.