Recommended HTML Usage
These constructs should work even on pretty broken implementations.
Text Elements
Most text elements consist of a start tag, some content,
and an end tag. A start tag is an identifier surrouded by angle
processing instruction >
brackets. An end tag is an open angle bracket, a slash, an
identifier, and a close bracket.
An identifier should be a letter followed by up to 7 letters
or numbers.
No spaces are allowed between the tag open bracket
and the identifier. Space is allowed between the identifier
and the close bracket.
Some elements are "empty" and consist of only a start tag.
Paragraphs are separated by the "P" element.
Six levels of headings are supported:
Level three heading
Level four heading
five
six
Unordered lists:
- This is the first item of an unordered list.
- This is the second item. It's kinda long, and should wrap around
on most screens.
- This is the third item. It's only one paragraph, but it's got
a paragraph tag at the end.
- This is the fourth and final item.
Ordered lists:
- This is the first item of an unordered list.
- This is the second item. It's kinda long, and should wrap around
on most screens.
- This is the third item -- you know, the one with the P element.
- This is the fourth and final item.
- term
- definition
- another term
- and its definition
The address element indicates the author or source of the document.
DWC
connolly@convex.com
Normal Text: PCDATA
Normal text is represented in HTML as parsed character data, #PCDATA.
The characters '<', '>', and '&' should be represented as
"<", ">", and "&" respectively, lest they
be interpreted as markup. Lines should not
exceed 72 characters. Line breaks have no significance except to
separate words.
Literal Text: RCDATA
Sections of literal text are represented in HTML as replaceable
character data. Line breaks are significant, and characters are
rendered in a fixed-width font to preserve horizontal formatting.
This is literal text. THIS word
should line up under THIS word.
There should be exactly three blank lines between here
and here.
The '&' character should be represented as "&".
The character sequence "</" must be represented as "</".
The character sequence "]]>" must represented as "]]>".
SGML tags look like and </end>.
The marked section close delimiter looks like ]]>.
But ]] is just two close square brackets, and
> is just a greater-than sign.
Document Description Elements
The TITLE element names the document.
The content of the TITLE element is just character data, CDATA.
It should be less than 72 characters, and it should contain
no linebreaks, '<', '>', or '&' characters.
The ISINDEX tag appears at most one time, and it precedes all tags
but TITLE and NEXTID.
Elements with Attributes
Some elements have associated named attributes. The values of
the attributes of an element are specified in its start tag.
Attribute values are represented as RCDATA surrounded by double
quotes. The character '"' must be represented as """ in an
attribute value literal.
The NEXTID tag appears at most one time, after the title and before
the text elements.