Lesson III: Dressing Up A Webpage
Color Values In The Body Tag
In order to display a specific color as a background, a color value must be
included in the body tag. Text color values are also placed in the body tag.
A space must be inserted between each attribute/value command. For instance,
instead of bodybgcolor, it would be body bgcolor="color value" within the
body tag.
The body also includes various text attributes and values. There are a few text
values included in a body tag.
<text="color value"> Text Color
<link="color value"> Link Color
<vlink="color value"> Visited Link Color
<alink="color value"> Active Link Color
These attributes and values would all be in the opening body tag.
It would look something like this:
<body bgcolor="color value" "link="color value" vlink="color value" alink="color value"> body
It in not neccessary to code the visited and active links different colors, it is just a option.
In this case, the color value that is the link color for all of the links.
Remember that unless the color of the background is changed in the html coding,
anyone accessing the website will display whatever their default background setting
is in thier computer's web browser. Therefore it won't
look as it was intended in all computers. Remember that when different color values
are being modified, they must be co ordinated in such a way that the text and link
values can be read against the background.
More About Coding Colors On A Webpage
html color codes are made up of a number sign and a combination
of six letters and numbers. The 0 in a color code is always a zero and never the letter o.
Most browsers can also recognize common color names. In other words, instead of coding
letter and number combinations, a common color name can be used. For example:
body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="blue
Here are some common color codes used in html
Black #000000
White #FFFFFF
Fuchsia #FF00FF
Yellow #FFFF00
Gray #C0C0C0
Light Yellow #FFFF66
Red #FF0000
Blue #0000FF
Green #00FF00
Light Purple #CC33FF
Light Blue #00CCFF
Background Images
A background image can be used as a background rather than just a plain color.
A background color is still necessary even though there is a background.
Not all graphics can be used as web page backgrounds. They are made to tile
in a pattern behind the webpage content. Browser friendly file formats for a
background is either a gif or jpg. Attention must be given to color contrast
Of the text and background so that the text will stand out being easy to read.
A background color also must be included in the body tag as well as a image file.
A background file is inserted between the bgcolor and link attributes/values.
It would be coded as <backgound="image.gif">
A fully coded body tage would look something like this:
<bgcolor="#FFFFFF" background="notebookbac.jpg" text="#0000FF"
link="#FF00FF" alink="#CC33FF" vlink="#00CCFF">
Fonts
The<<font>>font><</font>>/font>tag set:
This is tag set can be used for dressing up a webpage in a variety of different ways.
It is used as an independent tag set separate from the body tag. It can be used to
modify colors and sizes by adding color and size values to the tag. The font style
can also be modified with this tag set. The appearance can be updated by the
font face= attribute followed with the font style value. Keep in mind that
all computers don't have all the fonts installed.
<face="font style">
This can be used to set the font of the whole webpage if placed directly under
the body tag. It is a good idea to use very basic font styles. Common font styles
include "times roman" or "verdana".
Working with images on a web page
There are free public domain graphics and gifs on the internet
There are also a lot of private graphic artists that design thier own page
sets and graphics. Many of them don't mind sharing thier creations but
they ask that you give them credit for their work and link a button to
thier website

