If you've reached this page without it being in a "new window", you can go
back using your browser back key, or to my home page at:
http://bassett.net

I've been asked how I make my simplistic web pages. I've done this
page in text instead of html so that I can show some html codes instead
of the browser thinking it's actually code I want to use.

My first rule is the KISS principle. I prefer simplicity for two reasons: 1)
it's not as difficult when getting into native html, and 2) some people
out there still don't have the technology to see things like frames and
java scripts etc. I use a combination of automatically generated stuff,
with an html editor.

First a note about language. I think that learning new languages is a
right brain/left brain thing. Either you have the knack or you don't. I
don't! I barely passed with a D- the required semester of high school
Spanish. I've tried hard to learn Morse code and just can't get it. I've
tried learning sign language, again nada. However, even though html is
a language of sorts, there is a lot of logic about it that can be analyzed
like genealogical facts. "Learning" html is much easier because of its
logic. For this reason, I've plunged in, instead of using something like
Front Page or the other WYSIWYG page makers. It's not that hard to
figure out that <b> means to begin bold print and </b> means end bold
print; and <center> is begin centering, and </center> means end
centering. I've learned a lot by looking at the code on pages that had a
layout I liked. I learned the table stuff I've incorporated strictly by
looking at other pages. In case you don't know, you can look at the
source code of any page you come across. In Internet Explorer, you
choose View, then Source. I don't know about Netscape, but it probably
is under the View menu as well.

Though you can type in all the codes yourself, using WordPad, there
are several html editing programs out there. I like the one called
Arachnophilia. You can highlight a phrase and then click on the center
command and it will put the <center> before the phrase and the
</center> after the phrase. And when you want to see how it looks, you
just click the internal browser button and see what it looks like in IE (or
Netscape). The editor is also color coded, so you can see the
commands as blue, the URLs as green, your text as black, etc. Makes
it easier to see the begin and end codes. Lots of other stuff I haven't
even explored. Arachnophilia can be found at:
http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/index.html
(Because this page is text, you will have to copy/paste addresses
found on this page).

I use TMG (The Master Genealogist, by Wholly Genes) for my
database, and it is capable of printing to an html file. The majority of
the family group sheets and the pedigrees have been done in this way.
However, if you save any genealogy program report as a text file, you
can use it too by using the <pre></pre> command in html. <pre> stands
for preformatted and it makes it default to a fixed space font (though
you can specify others) .With the <pre> command, you can put in
multiple spaces which non <pre> eliminates. One example of using the
<pre> command is:
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.com/~kathryn/ped8.htm
There are html commands for hard spaces, but since the point of this
page is simplicity, I won't get into describing them here.

Once I have the basics of my page, I then use Arachnophilia to do the
editing. As you see, I have a basic "header" that I put at the top and
bottom of each page - for general navigating. I have this info in a
separate file from which I can make changes once, then copy/paste
into each new or revised page.

As for linking, there are a three types that I use. The simplest link is for
when the other file is at the same level as the file you are now on. For
instance, both abc.htm and def.htm are files at www.test.com (fictitious
URL of course). If abc.htm calls for a link to def.htm, then it looks like
this:
<A HREF="def.htm">Text describing link</A>
(Text describing link would be like the person's name you are linking
to)

If def.htm is at a different site, ie www.rootstest.com, then the link
would look like this:
<A HREF="http://rootstest.com/def.htm">Text describing link</A>

And if you want the new item to open in a new window, then you add
the phrase target="_new"
like in this example:
<A HREF="def.htm"target="_new">Text describing link</A>
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ to open in new window

By the way, from what I've seen, case of the codes (like <B> vs <b>)
doesn't seem to make a difference.

Here is a sample of an extremely simple table that will give you the
idea of using them (like I did on my home page).

<table>
<tr><td>Item in first cell<td>Item in 2nd cell<td>Item in 3rd cell<br>
<tr><td>Item in first cell<td>Item in 2nd cell<td>Item in 3rd cell<br>
<tr><td>Item in first cell<td>Item in 2nd cell<td>Item in 3rd cell<br>
<tr><td>Item in first cell<td>Item in 2nd cell<td>Item in 3rd cell<br>
</table>

I'm not sure what tr and td stand for, but one separates the cells and
one the rows.

Here is a list (in no particular order) of sites I've bookmarked in the
category Html Helps

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

http://www.cyndislist.com/construc.htm

http://snowwhite.it.brighton.ac.uk/~mas/mas/courses/html/html.html

http://www.2kweb.net/html-tutorial/

http://www.nashville.net/~carl/htmlguide/

http://www.htmlhelp.com/

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

http://www.jmarshall.com/easy/html/

http://www.werbach.com/barebones/

http://www.tips-tricks.com/index.shtml

There are many different ways to format your genealogy on the web.
There is no right or wrong way, this is just the way I have chosen to do
it. Hope this will help you in getting started on your own pages. 

Have fun!

kathryn@bassett.net