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A FEW HELPFUL HTML CODING TIPS
from UNKNOWN NEWS

If you like what we do,
please help us do it.

For submissions to Unknown News, please don't use , , , or any other commands we haven't listed below.

Please check your code.

Please don't use any coding you don't quite understand.

These are the commands you can use, to code pages for Unknown News:

  (not )
for new paragraphs

<BLOCKQUOTE> and </BLOCKQUOTE>

 and  for bolding

 and  for italics

<A HREF= ... > and </A>
for links

<A NAME= ... > and </A>
for anchors

There are several relatively rare symbols that can come in handy. If you include any of these '&-codes' in your text, the reader's browser will (if all goes well) translate it into the appropriate symbol:

 for a long dash (—)

 for the trademark symbol (™)

© for a copyright mark (©)

® for a registered trademark (®)

° for the degree symbol (°)

¼ for 1/4 (¼)

½ for 1/2 (½)

¾ for 3/4 (¾)

< for less-than (<)

> for greater-than (>)

& for an ampersand, or 'and' sign (&)

• for a cute little dot (•)

  for an extra space ( )

¢ for the US cents sign (¢)

£ for British pounds (£)

and € for the Euro (€) ... a symbol which won't work on browsers older than the European Union.

There are several other symbols you can use, too.

Popeye's Guide to HTML is another very helpful guide for HTML beginners.

With some browsers, the command interferes with or interrupts other commands, such as and . Please use instead on Unknown News submissions, to avoid these potential problems.

The command, for underlining, makes plain text look like a link. Please don't use on Unknown News submissions.

 commands, for changing the text's color, size, or et cetera, give your words an unfair advantage. On the dialogue page, we consider that a bit unfair, and a bit of a distraction. Please don't use commands on Unknown News submissions. If you want your words to stand out, write better words.

We prefer that our pages maintain a straightforward, rather low-tech approach. For Unknown News submissions, please don't use HTML commands that aren't explained on this page.

HTML stands for hypertext markup language — the coded commands that determine what this (and every) web page looks like.

Yes, HTML may be included in your submissions to Unknown News, provided it's close enough to correct that it doesn't explode the page, and provided it's limited to the commands listed here.

We also ask nicely that HTMLers don't screw with our general styles, 'cuz screwing around makes the page confusing to readers.

Our general format, for dialogue, is:
^. What you're saying appears in plain text, with occasional italics or bolding for emphasis
^. Lengthy quotes appear in italics, with indenting
^. Our responses appear in bolded italics.

Coding to generate graphics, animation, sound, or change font color or size, etc., is not allowed, and it'll get your email automatically deleted.

HTML-coding is optional when sending us an email or article for publication. You're not required or even encouraged to HTML-code your submissions, but you may (if you wish) use HTML to add hyperlinks, use boldface or italics to emphasize brief sections of text, etc.

Warning: HTML is not too tricky but it is tedious, and the slightest error can uglify a whole paragraph or a whole page. And we publish emails exactly as they're received: If your email is HTML-coded, we won't fix any errors.

Email with HTML errors won't be published. It screws up the whole page, so it will be rejected and returned, probably with a two-word response: "Bad HTML". We're sorry if this sounds harsh, but our 1½-person unpaid "staff" is already swamped with the work of keeping this site going while living our 1½ lives.

Check your code by saving it in your word processor as a text-only document with an .html extension. You should then be able to open that document in your browser. If it looks wrong, fix it — or simply take out the coding — before sending it.

If we reject your email for bad HTML, you're welcome to fix and re-submit it. If you can't figure out what's wrong, feel free to ask us one or two quick questions (and allow plenty of time for an answer 'cuz we're frickin' swamped here). If you need more help than that, we'll be happy to HTML-code your material or provide intensive tutoring: Our rates are $10 p/hour with a $20 minimum, paid in advance. She said, sweetly.

Remember, HTML-coding is optional, so if you don't know it or can't figure it out, skip it. It's extremely error-sensitive: One mistyped character can make an entire page look like Dali did it. If you do it wrong it's a pain in our ass, and you know what happens to ass pains: They get scratched.

If you want to use HTML-code in your email:

First: Make sure your email is set to send only plain text. If you send HTML-coded messages, it may simply translate your HTML into an email that looks like our dialogue page (your coding, however, will be lost). If your email is sent in a specialized font, it may include characters HTML won't recognize (rendering some or all of your coding moot, your links inoperative, etc.).

HTML won't recognize some routine typing commands, like a 'carriage return' or new line, so start every paragraph with . The 'BR' stands for line BReak (pretty easy, eh?), and like all these commands, it doesn't matter whether it's upper-case or lower-case.

Bold and italics together is the convention we use when editorially responding to dialogue for publication. It helps readers know at a glance who's speaking, so please don't use both bold and italics at the same time for more than a few words.

When you use two line BReaks ( ), you'll be skipping a line, just like two carriage returns on a typewriter. This is excellent for readability and breaking between paragraphs. For lists, poetry, or other times when you don't want that blank line, use just one .

To create a link to another website, type <A HREF=" and the URL (web address) of the page you want to link to. After the URL, type "> and the visible command (whatever you want underlined as the link), and then close it with </A>. A link to Unknown News, for example, would be coded: <A HREF="http://www.unknownnews.net/"> Here's a cool website</A>.

In links, the quotation marks around the URL are optional, but they must be a matched set: Either a double quote ("), single quote ('), or no quote at all directly before and again after the URL.

And here's something important: The URL will only show up on screen if you use it as the visible command, between > and </A>. We recommend that you don't use an URL as the visible command, because URLs can sometimes be very, very long. A very, very long URL offers no empty spaces, and empty spaces are where your computer inserts a break on the screen and continues the text on the next line. So without any spaces, an URL that goes on and on will take the page's right margin with it, completely off the screen. That's why we recommend that you don't use the URL as the visible command, or if you do, we recommend that you add spaces in the visual command. If you don't understand this rule, read it again. If you violate this and we have time to spare (a big if) we'll fix it. If we don't have time to spare or if you violate this more than once in the same email, we'll probably delete your email. Sorry to seem like such a bitch, but if you don't have time to read the guidelines, we can't take much time to babysit you.

Want us to have more time for babysitting? Send money.

Most of these commands work like an on-off switch: Typing a command in brackets (like <A ..., above, or , below) switches a function on. Typing the same command in brackets but with a slash (such as </A> or ) switches that function off. Forgetting to switch something off is a common and ugly mistake.

If you want something in bold print, turn bolding on with , and turn bolding off with . Everything between and will be in bold print. If you forget to turn bolding off with the command, everything till the end of the page will be in bold print.

If you want something in italics, turn italics on with , and turn italics off with . Everything between and will be italicized. But if you forget to turn italics off with the command, everything till the end of the page will be in italics.

If you want an entire paragraph to be indented, it's called 'blockquotes.' just paste in the commands (in red, below).

Turn blockquotes on with <BLOCKQUOTE>, and turn blockquotes off with </BLOCKQUOTE>. Everything between <BLOCKQUOTE> and </BLOCKQUOTE> will be blockquoted (indented), like these paragraphs are. And again, if you forget to turn blockquotes off with the </BLOCKQUOTE> command, everything till the end of the page will be indented.

While blockquotes are on (<BLOCKQUOTE>), you can use any command you'd use while they're off (</BLOCKQUOTE>). Start a new paragraph with , and so forth. Same rules apply.

When you open and close blockquotes, a line skip will be generated, just like the command skips a line. So it's not necessary to use before the first text in blockquotes, or immediately after closing blockquotes. If you do use at these points, it'll create a skip twice the normal size — two blank lines instead of one. But you'd have to be pretty anal to care much about that.

It's OK to use more than one command at the same time, but you must turn each command off in the opposite order they were turned on.

For example, if you want a few words both bolded and italicized, start with , and end with . Or start with , and end with . It doesn't matter what order you turn these commands on, so long as you turn them off in the opposite order, so the inner command's on-and-off takes place entirely with the outer command's on-and-off. That's called nesting, and some readers' browsers will have big problems if your commands are not properly nested. The rule is: All commands which are turned on within other commands, must also be turned off before the other commands are turned off.

Or, in the immortal words of The Blue Rajah: "First you puts on your underwear <UNDERWEAR>, then your pants <PANTS>, then you takes off your pants </PANTS>, then your underwear </UNDERWEAR>." If you don't understand this, please don't use more than one command at a time.

Extra spaces disappear, because HTML allows only one space between words. If you need to insert extra space between words or letters, type these six characters:  . That's an ampersand, non-breaking space, and a semi-colon. The reader's browser will (usually) translate that into an extra space.

When writing for Unknown News, please don't use HTML beyond what we've explained here. Don't insert graphics or sounds, make your text bigger, make it 21 shades of purple, etc. If you want your material to stand out, work on the writing. Good writing stands out anywhere — without special effects.

If you have any questions, or if any of the above doesn't make sense, just ask. We rarely bite.

Our email address is unknownnews at myway.com. Please do not send attachments.

There's much more than this at Unknown News.

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