The HTML Skeleton
The HTML skeleton refers to the basic structure of an HTML page.
At its very basic, it might look something like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
<title>My title here!</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
</head>
<body>
<p>My content here!</p>
</body>
</html>
<!DOCTYPE html>
tells the browser reading it that it is an HTML file. While a site missing this part will still work, it can trigger some strange behavior in how the browser displays the site.
Then comes the opening <html lang="en">
tag. The “en” specifies that my webpage is in english.
The next area is the <head></head>
section. Inside of here are two basic meta tags recommended for every site. <meta charset="UTF-8">
is important to display certain special characters, like ♥ in certain browsers. The other meta tag assists in displaying your website properly (sort of) on mobile.
The <title></title>
tag is the text that shows up in the tab of a browser.
The <link></link>
tag links to your external stylesheet, if you have one.
Last comes the final and most important section, the <body></body>
tag. This is where the bulk of your site will go, more HTML tags. Everything is wrapped up with </html>
.
This is only the very basis of a webpage and is meant to be built upon, like a foundation.