Section 1: About the HTML 4 Specification

link

Table of contents

• How the specification is organized
• Document conventions

How the specification is organized

• Sections 2 and 3: introduction to HTML 4

  • introduction to HTML
  • history of HTML
  • capability of HTML 4
  • brief SGML tutorial
    The Standard Generalized Markup Language, SGML, is a language for defining markup languages. HTML is one such "application" of SGML.

• Sections 4 - 24: HTML 4 reference manual

  • What characters may appear in an HTML document.
    SGML requires that each application (including HTML) specify its document character set. A document character set consists of:
    • A Repertoire: A set of abstract characters, such as the Latin letter "A", the Cyrillic letter "I", the Chinese character meaning "water", etc.
    • Code positions: A set of integer references to characters in the repertoire.
  • Basic data types of an HTML document.
  • Elements that govern the structure of an HTML document (text, list, table …)
  • Elements that govern the presentation of an HTML document (style sheet, font, color)
  • Elements that govern interactivity with an HTML document (form, script)
  • The SGML formal definition of HTML

Document conventions

This document has been written with two types of readers in mind: authors and implementors.

Reading Way

• Read from beginning to end
• Quick access to information

Elements and attributes

• Element names are written in uppercase letters (e.g., BODY).
• Attribute names are written in lowercase letters (e.g., lang, onsubmit).
• Each attribute definition specifies the type of its value (If the type allows a small set of possible values, the definition lists the set of values, separated by a bar (|).)

Notes and examples

• DEPRECATED EXAMPLE: all examples illustrating deprecated usage
• ILLEGAL EXAMPLE: all examples that illustrates illegal usage