Webpage Coding Using "The Yahoo! Style Guide"

"The Yahoo! Style Guide" is for anyone writing for
the Web needing a good tool for making text easy to scan, compelling copy,styling with consistent punctuation and numbering, and avoiding commonpitfalls. A little technical know-how is handy in writing for the Web which Ihave found to be the case quite often. Next is webpage coding, using "TheYahoo! Style Guide."

Basic
Webpage coding

In becoming familiar with basic Webpage coding, a
little HTML and XHTML is recommended. Most contributors for Associated Contentuse the built-in text editor and the HTML and XHTML is taken care of behind thescenes. If you need to know basic HTML and XHTML, Webpage coding is covered inthe "Resources" section of "The Yahoo! Style Guide" quick-reference guide.

http://styleguide.yahoo.com/resources/basic-webpage-coding/html-and-xhtml-quick-reference-guide

HTML
and XHTML Webpage coding

HTML, HyperText Language, has element tags with angle brackets around them. An
example is a paragraph element:

XHTML
is Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, a XML markup language that extendsHTML. The latest version of HTML is HTML5 and the latest XHTML is XHTML5. Anexample of paragraph in XHTML is:

Notice
the closing bracket. It is one of the important differences between HTML andXHTML. Elements must always be closed. Another difference is elements need tobe in lowercase. Earlier when Webpage coding in HTML, I could have an imagereference with "WIDTH" and "HEIGHT" but now in XHTML, it has to be "width" and"height." Here is an example:

src="images/YahooStyleGuidejpg" width="300" height="225" alt="Picture of YahooStyle Guide cover">

XHTML
is a cleaner and more consistent form of Webpage coding. For example, suppose Ihave a title that I would like to have bolded and in italics. Earlier in HTMLcoding you might have this:

Title will be bold
and italic

With
XHTML, here is what it should be:

Title will be bold
and italic

Notice with XHTML, the elements are
properly nested. The <b> is the opening and ending element and the nestedelement, , is closed off properly.

Tip: Webpage coding - reference link that opens in
new window

The magic bullet is:
target="_blank"

So if the URL is:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5637082/biking_in_manhattan_along_the_hudson.html?cat=16"

Use the following HTML or XHTML code for your
reference link to open in a new browser window:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5637082/biking_in_manhattan_along_the_hudson.html?cat=16" target="_blank"> Your link text

Here is a link sample to test:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5637082/biking_in_manhattan_along_the_hudson.html?cat=16" target="_blank"> Link test - Biking in Manhattan

What this does is allows the reader to
easily come back to your article page. Otherwise, the reader is taken from yourarticle to a new Web page with no back button. The reader will have to findtheir way back or will abandon your article because it is too much trouble.

References

The Yahoo! Style Guide