Glossary of common terms
attribute
Technically, a piece of information that modifies an HTML element in some way. An attribute consists of a name/value pair in the form name=”value”. For example, in the tag <table width=”400″>, the width attribute specifies the width of the table. The term is also used generally to mean any quality of an element that can be controlled by an author (aside from its content).
author
Someone who creates documents. A Web author is someone who creates Web documents.
block element
An element that is displayed with automatic line breaks before and after it.
container
An element that contains other elements.
element
The basic building block of an HTML document. An element generally consists of some content, such as a paragraph of text, and a pair of opening and closing HTML tags surrounding the content, such as <p> and </p>. Elements can contain other elements; for example, a paragraph (<p> element) can contain a hyperlink (<a> element). Empty elements have only a single tag and no content; an example is <img>, which causes an inline image to be inserted in the document.
inline element
An element that does not have automatic line breaks before or after it. An inline element is always contained in a block element.
insertion point
The blinking vertical bar that indicates the point in the current document at which content will be inserted or deleted. Also called the “cursor”.
intranet
A private network that uses the same protocols and file formats as the public Internet.
local files and folders
Files and folders that reside on the local file system.
local file system
The collection of all hard drives, CD-ROMs, and other file storage devices connected to the user’s computer, as well as any servers on the local area network.
local site
A collection of documents and resource files that exist in a local folder, are intended for publishing as a Web site, and are managed with Namo WebEditor’s Site Manager.
markup
The parts of a document that control the presentation of content, as distinct from being content. HTML markup consists of tags that tell browsers how to organize or format the content within them.
parent container
The element, frame, or window that immediately contains the current element.
pointer
The arrow or other shape that moves when you move the mouse, indicating where something will happen when you click the mouse button.
property
Commonly used as a synonym for attribute or to mean any quality of an element that can be controlled by an author (aside from its content). Technically, however, a property is a quality that an element or class of elements can have, which is defined in the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) standard for formatting Web content. Color, width, and border are examples of CSS properties.
remote site
A collection of documents and resource files, on a Web server, that constitute a Web site.
root folder
The “home” or top-level folder of a local or remote site; the folder that contains the site’s home page or main index file. A root folder may contain subfolders in addition to documents.
tag
A unit of HTML markup, such as <p> or <img src=”http://d2nwkt1g6n1fev.cloudfront.net/helpmax/wp-content/uploads/sub/webeditor/en/source/example.gif”>. Most HTML tags come in pairs of opening and closing tags that surround some content; for example, <p>This is a paragraph.</p>. The combination of a pair of opening and closing tags and the content in between them is called an element. A tag may contain one or more attributes, name/value pairs that qualify the tag in some way, as the src attribute in the <img> example provides the location of the image.
temporary document
An open document that has never been saved.
user
Unless otherwise specified, “user” refers to someone who views your documents in a browser.