Setting Up a Web Page - Part 2

If you haven't read part 1, click here to go back.

STEP 2 - Writing your pages. (continued)

Okay, so I promised that in this section, I'd cover pictures, pictures which link to bigger pictures and/or other pages, lists, and preformatted text (for those long stories that you don't want to bother going through and putting in all the <P>'s and <BR>'s. I'm going to start with preformatted text and lists, finishing up the text stuff, then move on to the graphics.

Preformatted Text

So Sexy Sandra's written a long poem, and wants to include it in her pages, but doesn't want to bother with complicated formatting. Easy fix. With the word <PRE> at the head of the text, and </PRE> at the end, the browser will display the text exactly as you put it in. For example:

God, the way you<BR>
touch me there and <BR>
there and rub my<BR>
oh, and it's so <BR>
very wet and hard <BR>
and yes yes yes<P>

Will display as:

God, the way you
touch me there and
there and rub my
oh, and it's so
very wet and hard
and yes yes yes

That's the 'if you're willing to take the trouble' route. Or, Sandra could have just typed:

<PRE>
God, the way you
touch me there and
there and rub my
oh, and it's so
very wet and hard
and yes yes yes
</PRE>

which would have shown up as

God, the way you
touch me there and
there and rub my
oh, and it's so
very wet and hard
and yes yes yes
In most browsers, type inside the PRE headings will show up differently. It's not a big deal, and I use it for many of my long pieces, but it's not QUITE as elegant as doing all the formatting in detail, and I vaguely intend to fix all mine at some point. It's great for slapping up a lot of information in a hurry, though.

Lists

Lists are great. I use them all the time. There are basically two kinds -- numbered and unnumumbered. Unnumbered lists use the flag <UL>, logically enough, while numbered ones use <OL>, don't ask me why. To quickly demonstrate, typing this:

Today I added three new stories:<BR>
<UL>
<LI>Sandra Sleeps with Stan<BR>
<LI>Stan Sees Sandra and Suzannah!<BR>
and finally,<BR>
<LI>Suzannah Sings (oh, Baby yeah!) for Stan<BR>
</UL>

will give you:

Today I added three new stories:

As you can see, anything preceded by <LI> is considered part of the list, and is bulleted automatically (and indented). There are ways to use fancy colored graphical bullets instead, but I don't advise it, as it just slows down your load time for very little reward. Also note that anything within the list but not preceded by <LI> is still indented automatically. And the lists can be staggered, so that lists within lists produce outline format. Experiment -- it's fun.

If you want a numbered list, just substitute <OL> and </OL> into the list, and you get:

Today I added three new stories:

  1. Sandra Sleeps with Stan
  2. Stan Sees Sandra and Suzannah!
    and finally,
  3. Suzannah Sings (oh, Baby yeah!) for Stan

    Easy, huh? Also keep in mind that you can use the list function to automatically indent anything you like -- it's not really intended for that, but it's another neat formatting trick.

    So that finishes text, and since this section's really quite long, I'm going to put graphics in a separate page. Just click here to continue.

    - Mary Anne

    P.S. Feel free to write me with comments on this page or suggestions for improving it.

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