Basic HTML

Tables

Let's spruce up our baby homepage a little by adding some links to software sites that can be accessed by anonymous FTP. In the process, we will introduce a new aspect of HTML: how to display items in a table.

The simplest way to get started using tables is to copy a table format from somewhere and just replace the entries with your own entries. Templates for the most common table formats are available at the Table Sampler. A concise summary of table tags is also available.

Open your homepage file with the editor and use your mouse to copy the following bit of HTML code and paste it into your homepage at a convenient place:

<center>
Anonymous FTP Sites
<br>
<TABLE BORDER>
<TR>
<TD>item 1</TD> <TD>item 2</TD>
<TD>item 3</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>item 4</TD> <TD>item 5</TD>
<TD>item 6</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
</center>

Save the file, and open your homepage with the browser (reload if necessary). You should see a table that looks like

Now let's replace these entries with links to FTP sites. Open your homepage file, and in the table that you just placed there, replace item1, item2, and item3 with the following links (use the mouse to copy and paste):

item1 -->

<a href=
"ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/">
FAQ Directory</a>

item2 -->

<a href="ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/">
Finnish Software Archives</a>

item3 -->

<a href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/">
SunSite FTP</a>

Leave the other entries the same, save the file, open the browser, and reload. Now you should have a table that looks like this:

with the entries in the top row clickable links (try them!). Your assignment is to use this example as a guideline to replace item4, item5, and item6 in this table with links to useful FTP sites of your choice.