Index.php Code Part 4
| <body> |
The command right after the header commands is "<body>". This tells the computer that is can now start to display the website. Everything between the "<body>" and the "</body>" tag is what is displayed to the visitor as the web page.
| <table> |
The first command in the body of your website is the "<table>" tag. You many have noticed that the Pre-Planning Template looks like a table in a Word document. That is because it is. And a table in a website works almost in exactly the same way. It has individual cells that go across make up a row.
If you are not familiar with tables, think of a table as a very flexible piece of graph paper. Each little square is a cell. Each line of cells that go left to right across a piece of paper make a row. Each line of cells that go up and down makes a column. The wonderful thing about have this electronic piece of graph paper is that you can stretch these cells, rows, and column to make the lines go where you want them.
Let's look at that Pre-Planning Template. Notice how almost all of the cells have a file name associated with them. Each of those "includes" files contains the content for those particular cells. However, each individual web page defines where this content goes and how it is shaped on the web page.
The "<table>" tag tells the computer that this is the start of a table, and to expect rows with data in them. It also tells the computer that the table will continue until the <table> tag.
| <tr> |
The first tag in this table is "<tr>". A table row tells the system that this is the start of a row in the table. This row will continue until the computer gets the </tr> tag that tells the computer to stop the row and continue to the next step.
When you look at the Pre-Planning Template you will see that our table has five cells in each row. (Don't forget to count the little spacer cells.) It is important to place the same amount of cells in each row. In this case, we are going to put five (5) cells per row.
