Taking HTML Further

HTML is quite a simple language for the creation of web pages. However, a deep knowledge of HTML helps you to take HTML one step further.

Insertion of Multimedia Content
Most of the designers now want to include multimedia content such as Flash or a video or audio file in their websites. Browsers require plugins to use these contents. So, before you use them in your site, you need to have proper knowledge about the codes that are required to activate these plugins.

There are two ways to perform this function. For new browser, it goes like this:

Similarly, for insertion of Windows Media player or Real Player, all you require is to find out their codebase URL and classid. Also, find out the parameters that are needed for them. Most browser support this tag, but few of them use embed tag.

It is even better to insert the embed tag within the object tag. Also, add a 'Plugin not found' message along with a link to download it. But, it is better if the browsers do the downloading automatically.

In Internet Explorer, object tags can be used to call plugins from the server. This is called 'ActiveX'. It is used for installation of programs like Instant messengers without the need to download an install program.

Tables
Tables are no longer used for creation for layouts but for the creation of information tables. However, they are not so simple to make. In fact, the rows and columns have to be created separately using <tr> and <td> tags. An example of tags for making tables is:

<table>
<tr> <td> Year </td> <td> Sales </td> </tr>
<tr> <td> 2005 </td> <td> 15000 </td> </tr>
<tr> <td> 2006 </td> <td> 20000 </td> </tr>
</table>

However, this is quite confusing, specially in case the data is organized in columns instead of rows. The data will be displayed according to their order in the tr. For instance, Sales, 15000 & 20000 will appear in one column as they are all in the second td tag. To make one td to fill more than a single column 'colspan' tag is used. An example of this tag is: