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Create an HTML page

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and is used to “markup” the text to be displayed on a webpage. More specifically, HTML is used to describe the hierarchy and function of the text in a page. With HTML you can indicate a header, create a link to another page, or indicate where an image should be placed.

HTML consists of what are called “tags” or “elements”. While there is a technical difference between the two, you will find many developers use the terms interchangeably and generally doesn’t impact how you create your code. These tags are read by a browser and are used to determine how to display and interpret the information in a page.

You will begin to build your resume by creating an HTML file and adding the code. You may notice that the page won’t appear to be very structured or robust; you will make it look better when you add some styles.

Create an HTML file with CodeSwing

You will use CodeSwing to create and edit your HTML and CSS in Visual Studio Code. CodeSwing has a variety of templates you can use and includes support for advanced pages as well. Start by creating your first “swing” using the core HTML template.

  1. Open the Command Palette by selecting the three parallel lines icon in the left-hand side Activity Bar, then navigating to View > Command Palette. You can also quickly open the Command Palette by using the keyboard shortcut Control+Shift+P on a PC, or Command+Shift+P on a Mac.
  2. Type CodeSwing, then select CodeSwing: Initialize Workspace as Swing.
  3. Choose the option for Basic: HTML-Only and your new swing will appear, with your HTML file on the left and a browser window on the right.
  4. This will create an index.html file in your root directory.

IMPORTANT If you accidentally close the wrong windows, you can re-open CodeSwing by navigating to your repository in github.dev, opening the Command Palette with Control+Shift+P (or Command+Shift+P on a Mac), typing CodeSwing, selecting CodeSwing: Open Swing…, and selecting the directory with your files.

You now have the HTML file created for your resume site!

Create the HTML structure

Let’s start adding the HTML for our page. Every HTML page includes three main tags - html which contains all the HTML, head which includes information about the page, and body which contains the contents to display on the page. Tags can also contain attributes, which allow us to change how a tag behaves. Attributes are key/value pairs such as rel="stylesheet".

Note: You may notice some of the names are a little cryptic or not necessarily intuitive. This is partly due to the history of HTML. HTML was originally used by scientists and academics as a way to structure documents. As a result, the names or abbreviations used might not always be as clear as we might like.

Most tags have an open (<tag>) and a close (</tag>), and contain information. So <title>Demo title</title> indicates the title of the page. Others will only have a single tag, such as <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">. These types of tags behave much like a command, telling the browser to perform a particular task.

Tip: Don’t try to memorize every tag available. Just as memorizing a dictionary isn’t a good way to learn a spoken language, memorizing a set of keywords isn’t going to aid you in your growth as a developer. As you continue to create pages you’ll learn more tags and how they behave.

You’re going to use these three tags (and a couple of others) to begin the creation of your resume. We’ll explain the tags we’re using after we create the page.

  1. Inside the index.html window, add the following code to create the initial structure of your page, replacing Your Name in the <title> tag with your name:

     <html>
     <head>
         <link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet">
         <title>Your Name resume</title>
     </head>

     <body>
         <header id="header">
             <!-- resume header with your name and title -->
             <h1>YOUR NAME</h1>
             <hr>
             YOUR TITLE (EX: SOFTWARE ENGINEERING STUDENT)
             <hr>
         </header>
         <main>
             <article id="mainLeft">
                 <section>
                     <h2>CONTACT</h2>
                     <!-- contact info including social media -->
                 </section>
                 <section>
                     <h2>SKILLS</h2>
                     <!-- your skills -->
                 </section>
                 <section>
                     <h2>EDUCATION</h2>
                     <!-- your education -->
                 </section>            
             </article>
             <article id="mainRight">
                 <section>
                     <h2>ABOUT</h2>
                     <!-- about you -->
                 </section>
                 <section>
                     <h2>WORK EXPERIENCE</h2>
                     <!-- your work experience -->
                 </section>
             </article>
         </main>
     </body>
 </html>

  2. Notice how as you type (or copy and paste), the browser window on the right automatically updates with the information you’ve added.

Exploring the code

You used several tags to display your new page. Below is a table that describes each of these tags and what it is used for. As you look at the code, notice that the HTML is in all lower case letters, and that you use tabs to create an outline for the code. While this isn’t required, it does make your HTML much more readable.

tag description
html Container for all HTML in an HTML page.
head Contains metadata, or information about the page.
link Used to tell the page what CSS stylesheet to use. rel="stylesheet" indicates we are using a stylesheet, and href="style.css" loads style.css (which is the name of the stylesheet we’ll create in the CSS section of the workshop).
title Indicates the title of the page to display on the toolbar. This is not displayed on the page itself. Every page you create should have a title.
body The contents of the page to be displayed to the user.
header, main, article, section These are “semantic” tags. See the description below for more information.
h1 A level 1 header. Header tags go from h1 to h6, with h1 being the highest level, to h6 being the lowest level. These are used to create structure for the outline of the page.
p A paragraph tag. Paragraph tags are where the body text of your page goes.
hr Creates a horizontal line. The tag stands for “horizontal rule”.
id id is an attribute that allows you to assign a unique id for an HTML element. This will come in handy when we style the HTML.
<!-- comment --> These are HTML comments. They are useful for making notes or setting reminders to yourself.

Note: Comments are a great way to take notes as you’re learning HTML. You can put a comment right above a section of code, and describe what the section does. But do remember comments are not hidden from browsers, so don’t store sensitive information in comments as anyone who views the source of your code can read your comments.

Semantic tags

Semantic tags are a relatively new addition to HTML. You may notice on the page there is a difference in size between h1 and h2. This is because besides just indicating a level, header tags also modify how content is displayed. Semantic tags such as header, main, article and section are only used to group information together. Semantic tags are useful to structure a large HTML document, and later use CSS to control how the content will actually get displayed.

You can use semantic tags however you wish, but a common hierarchy is:

Note: Semantic tags are also very important in making your web pages ‘accessible’, or more easily read by screen readers so that all users, including those with disabilities, can access your web pages. Read more about making your web pages accessible in this article.

Summary and next steps

You’ve now created your first HTML page! Next, add additional content such as your email address and sections for your professional experience.