Sometimes when I’m discussing things with a client I’ll talk about viewing the source of a web page. I’m not talking about the code view on WordPress here. I’m talking about surfing to any page on the Internet and viewing its code. Sounds scary doesn’t it?

It’s something anyone can do but it’s generally only done by website developers and others who are not easily frightened by technical mumbo jumbo. Would you like to give it a try? Would you like to take a look at my world?

What I’m going to have you do will open up a new window. In other words the screen you’re looking at now will remain. The below steps will cause a new window will open up over top of this one. To get rid of the icky, scary HTML code you’ll just close the new window.

Brace yourself! Here we go . . . .

Find some white space in this page. Over to the right of the article title (Welcome to My World) would be good. Put the cursor on the white space and right click on your mouse. A little box will pop up. If you use Internet Explorer (IE) you’ll click on the “View Source” option. If you use FireFox you’ll click on the “View Page Source” option.

What you see is HTML. As a website developer I look at code every single day. Yep, I’m such a nerdette that I look at code in my spare time. It’s kind of like speaking another language. I look at the HTML and it makes sense to me.

OK, feel free to close the window with the HTML. If you don’t want to you’ll never have to look at it again. But just so you know, that’s how things look in my world.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Websites 101. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.