If you have used HTML in your web design tasks or have just started learning it, then terms such as HTML elements, HTML tags, and HTML attributes are not new to you.
However, there is a high chance that the trio often confuses you. That’s because it is hard to tell the difference between two or more items if you don’t understand their meanings. If that is the case, this is the place to be.
We have prepared an article that will define and differentiate elements, tags, and attributes in HTML. Continue reading for the details as we dive into the meaning of the various terms.
What is an HTML Element?
HTML elements are the building blocks of this language. Each element is an individual component on a particular web page or document. They appear throughout the page, including the header, footer, body, and text.
The format of a tag is a start tag followed by content, and eventually an end tag. For instance, if you need to use a paragraph element, here is the way to go.
<b>some written texts here</b>However, not all HTML elements have closing tags. They go by the names void, singleton, or empty elements.
Examples include:
This text contains<br>a line break.<img src="images/logo.png">Types of HTML Elements
Here are two broad categories of HTML elements. They are inline-level and block-level HTML elements. The block-level elements make up the structure of the document. It takes up the entire width of the page.
There is always a line before and after a block HTML element. Examples include <div>, <p>, <h1>, <h6>, <form>, <ol>, <ul> and <li>, e.t.c.
On the other hand, inline-level elements are mainly within the content of a block. In addition, their width is determined by how much space each individual element needs. They include <img>, <a>, <span>, <strong>, <b>, <em>, <i>, <code>, <input> and <button> among others.
What is an HTML Tag?
HTML tags define where an HTML element starts and ends. There is usually an opening bracket followed by the element’s name and, finally, a closing bracket.
In most cases, there is a start tag and an end tag that enclose an element. Nevertheless, that is not the case for all elements.
In HTML, there are several types of tags. The first one is the start tag. It contains two opposite angle brackets. Examples include:
- <title>
- <p>
- <b>
The other one is the end tag. Like the start tag, it has angle brackets. However, there is a forward slash after the first angle bracket. Examples of the end tags corresponding to the start tags above are as follows.
- </title>
- </p>
- </b>
In other cases, the tags may contain other aspects. That usually happens with the opening tags. They may contain an extra attribute, such as height, width, or a CSS class name, among others. Check out this example:
<p class='info'> img src="smiley.gif" alt="Smiley face" height="42" width="42"> <INPUT TYPE = "checkbox"> What is an HTML Attribute?
In simple terms, an HTML attribute modifies an HTML element. It is usually in the form of unique words that one inserts inside the opening tag. They control the behaviour of the element that follows.
Every tag has two sections. The first is usually the attribute name, while the other is its value. The two are usually separated by an equals sign (=). Attributes are inside the start tag of that particular element that needs modification.
One can enclose the value of the attribute using either double or single quotes. In some cases where there is the usage of certain characters, quoting may not be necessary. It is worth noting that the rules may differ for other languages, including the sister language, XHTML.
However, experts have ruled that unquoted attribute values are unsafe. Equally important, not all attributes need values. A good example is the ismap attribute, which modifies the img element. The general structure of an attribute is as follows:
<element attribute="value">element content</element>Let us look at the various types of HTML attributes.
The first ones are the required attributes. As the name suggests, they are required by certain element types to function as expected.
The next type is the optional attributes. Their role is to change the default functionality of an element.
On the other hand, standard attributes can support several element types.
Last but not least, event attributes allow element types to declare scripts that run under certain circumstances.
Under the required and optional attributes, some are used by one, two, or multiple elements. For those used by two or more elements, there is a high chance they will modify the elements differently despite sharing the same name.
A good example is the attribute name
Examples of various HTML attributes
<input type = "text" name="email" size=15 value="type name here"><td align=right><a href="http://www.cnn.com"> cnn </a><button onclick="document.getElementById('demo').innerHTML = Date()">The time is?</button>Standard attributes include class, contextmenu, data, hidden, id, lang, style and title among others.Final Words:
From the above discussion, a parallel line has been drawn among HTML elements, HTML tags, and HTML attributes. It is important to note that both the tags and attributes are within an element. While the elements tell the browser what to display, the attributes define how they will behave.
The tags mark the beginning and the end of an element. They may not be necessary for some elements, especially the closing tags. Equally important, the attributes are only within the opening tags. With such information at your disposal, we hope you will find it easy to use HTML.
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