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Basic HTML Primer #5--Images

Basic HTML Primer #5
Images

by Joe Burns, Ph.D.
...Use these to jump around or read it all

[Placing An Image On Your Page]
[Here's What's Happening]
[Image Formats][Where Do I Get My Images]
[Activating An Image]

By now you know enough to write a very nice, text-based, home page, but it is the ability of the World Wide Web to provide pictures, technically called images, graphics, or sometimes icons, that made it so popular. In this Primer, you'll learn how place an image on your page and also how to turn an image into a link to another page.

Placing An Image On Your Page

The command to place an image is constant. You will use the same format every time.

Now might be a good time to talk about where to store everything because now you're starting to call for additional items to fill up your home page. Until now, all you did was put text on the page. Now you're going to place an image.
At this point in your HTML career, it's a good idea for you to place whatever images you are going to use in the same place as your pictures. That means place the image right on the same floppy disc, or in the same hard drive directory as the page that will call for it. There's more on that coming up in Primer #7. But for now, just store everything together in the same place.

Here's the format for placing an image:

<IMG SRC="image.gif">

By replacing "image.gif" with "homepage.gif", one of my own graphics, you get this...

Here's What's Happening

IMG stands for "image". It announces to the browser that an image will go here on the page. Yes, the image will pop up right where you write in the image flag.
SRC stands for "source". This again as an attribute, a command inside a command. It's telling the browser where to go to find the image. Again, it's best for you to place the images you want to use in the same directory as the page. This way you can call for the image by name alone. If you start to place your image all over the place, you'll have to start adding directories and sub-directories to the SRC attribute. And at this point, that way too confusing. Just place the image in the same place as the HTML document that will call for it and then call for the image by name alone. You can get fancy later. Right now, let's just get it to work.
image.gif is the name of the image. Notice it's following the same type of format as your HTML documents. There is a name (image) then a dot and then there is a suffix (gif).

Image Formats

There are three basic formats you will find on the World Wide Web. Each is denoted to the browser by a different suffix. Remember that "name.suffix" discussion from Primer #1?

.gif This is pronounced "jif" or "gif" (hard "G") depending on whom you speak to. I have always said "jif", like the peanut butter. This is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format.
The format was invented by Compuserve and it's very popular. The reason is that it's a simple format. It's a series of colored picture elements, or dots, known a pixels, that line up to make a picture. Your television's picture is created much the same way. Browsers can handle this format quite easily.
.jpeg or .jpg (pronounced "j-peg") There are two names to denote this format because of the PC and MAC formats allowing 3 and 4 letters after the dot. JPEG is an acronym for Joint Photographic Equipment Group, the organization that invented the format.
The format is unique in that it uses compression after it's been created. That's fancy computer talk that means that when the computer is not using a jpeg image it folds it up and puts it away. For example, if the picture is 10K bytes when displayed, it may be only 4K bytes when stored. Nice trick, huh? It saves on hard drive space, but also tends to require a bit of memory on your part to unfold the image.
Someone always writes to me to tell me that .gif images also use compression. Yes, they do, but only when they are first created into that format. After that, no compression. JPEG, on the other hand, uses compression throughout its life to fold up smaller than it really is.
.bmp (pronounced "bimp") This is a "bitmap." You will probably never place a bitmap as an image although now Internet Explorer browsers allow it. A bitmap is an image that a computer produces and places for you. A counter is an example.
Even though Internet Explorer will allow you to place an image as a BMP, I wouldn't. No other browsers will be able to display it. Go with gif or JPEG.

Where Do I Get Images For My Page?

They are literally everywhere. The HTML Goodies Images Page allows you access to over 500 for free, and there are other sites out there that offer just as many. Plus, since you've been surfing, you've seen hundreds of images already. If you see something on someone's page that you really like, ask to use it. Don't just take it. That's not right and could be against copyright law. Ask. You'll probably get the image. In no time you'll have a slew to use on your page to use.

Activating An Image

OK, this gets a little fancy. Last Primer, I showed you how to create a hypertext link. What it did was create blue words on your page that someone could click on and then jump to another site. Well, here we're going to set it up so an image becomes click-able, or "active". The viewer would click on the image, instead of on blue words, to make the hypertext link. I'll make a link to my home page using the image above.

Here's the format:

<A HREF="http://www.htmlgoodies.com"><IMG SRC="homepage.gif"></A>

Look at it again. See what happened? I placed an image flag where I would normally have placed words. Here's what you get with that format. Lay your pointer on the image, but don't click. You'll see the entire image is active:

Neat, huh? But what's with that new border around the image? That's what happens when you activate an image. It attempts to turn blue, or whatever color the page is set to, like the wording it's replacing, so it places what's known as a "border" around the image. Some people like it. I don't, and I know how to get rid of it.

To make the border disappear, you again turn to a trusty attribute, a command inside of a command.

Here's the format:

<IMG BORDER="0" SRC="homepage.gif">

See what I did? I added an attribute that denoted that the border should be zero. You can go the other way too if you'd like. Make it BORDER="55" if you want. It'll just make a huge border. Note that the number zero is in quotes. It is an attribute after all.

Here's what you get using BORDER="0":

Again, lay your pointer on the image without clicking. You'll see that it is active but doesn't carry that annoying blue border.

And that brings us to a close. Tomorrow you'll deal almost exclusively with attributes in order to manipulate your images. You'll truly impress your friends with this one.

On to Primer #6

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