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Web Developer Resource Index: Markup Languages

Markup Languages are used to layout the structure and add content to a document. The most common example of this is HTML, used to publish hypertext documents on the WWW.

In the bad old days before CSS, documents where often polluted with all sorts of presentational markup as well. Thankfully those days are over.

The term “markup” comes from the printing and publishing industry, in which editors made special notes on manuscripts. These instructions were applied during the typesetting process before a book was printed.

<p name="value"> Now days markup "tags," like the ones enclosing this example paragraph, are embedded in the source code of the document and your browser renders the page instead. The one above is referred to as the "start" tag and the one below the "end" tag. This text is the paragraph content and the entire construct is referred to as an element. Tags delimit the content and the start tag may have zero or more name="value" attributes. Elements that have no content or closing tag are referred to as empty elements and in XHTML you must "self-close" such tags like this: <br />. </p>

Most wikis, and many blogs, offer simplified markup languages that are written, and are readable, in plain text. The source is then translated into HTML or XHTML which a browser can render. This is similar in concept to templating engines, that allow you to intermix plain text with variable expansion and other features. I'm doing the same thing here, only my system is a little unporthodox.

Updated: Thursday, November 13th, 2008 @ 2:01 PM EST

Data Formats:Markup Languages {4}(9)[6]

Sub Categories

HTML {0}(15)[8]
Lightweight {0}(10)[82]
XHTML {0}(22)[9]
XML {2}(18)[10]

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Resources

1.The Secret Life of Markup

An article describing the the concepts of document semantics, structure, markup, content, style, transformation, and presentation. [270]
★★★★☆
URI:http://hesketh.com/publications/the_secret_life_of_markup.html
Author:
Steve Champeon
[2]
Reviewed:Sunday, April 17th, 2005 @ 4:32 PM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

The Secret Life of Markup markup
2.SimpleBits: SimpleQuiz

I certainly wouldn't call it simple, nor would I call it quick, but if you're interested in an in-depth discussion of markup and semantics (with lots of feedback from designers and developers) then put aside a few hours and work through this series. [1130]
★★★★★
URI:http://simplebits.com/bits/simplequiz/
Author:
Dan Cederholm
[2]
Reviewed:Thursday, May 12th, 2005 @ 6:33 AM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

SimpleBits: SimpleQuiz design developer markup semantics
3.X-Ray

A Firefox extension that allows you to view the markup of a Web page without having to switch between it and Page Source. In other words, the markup is displayed in the context of the rendered page. Each element is wrapped by the markup that defines it. [1682]
★★★★☆
URI:http://designmeme.com/xray/
Author:
Stuart Robertson
[1]
Reviewed:Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 @ 1:22 PM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

X-Ray code extension firefox markup
4.Semantics in the Wild

Using a simple Web spider, John has done a study not so much on how developers use semantics provided by markup elements as much as the as those created through the use of class and id values. In other words a statistical frequency study of these values. [1612]
★★★★☆
URI:http://westciv.typepad.com/dog_or_higher/2005/11/real_world_sema.html
Author:
John Allsopp
[2]
Reviewed:Thursday, January 26th, 2006 @ 3:26 PM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

Semantics in the Wild css html markup semantics xhtml
5.Validome

As an alternative to the W3C Validation Services, Validome offers some features worth taking a look at, including the ability to select from a large list of User-Agent request strings, Accept-Languages, gzip Accept-Encoding, character sets and doctypes. [1558]
★★★★☆
URI:http://www.validome.org/
Author:
Validome Team
[1]
Reviewed:Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005 @ 9:46 PM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

Validome charset doctype gzip html user-agent validator xhtml xml
6.The Meaning of Semantics

Nearly every Web designer is guilty of forcing line breaks, using tables for layout, and a host of other egregious HTML sins. Now that CSS is here, Molly slaps our hands and explains why we should pay attention to an element's content, not just its looks. [1515]
★★★★☆
URI:http://peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=369225
Author:
Molly Holzschlag
[2]
Reviewed:Saturday, August 27th, 2005 @ 1:41 AM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

The Meaning of Semantics css design html markup semantics xhtml
7.Web SGML and HTML 4.0 Explained

The online version of Bryan's book on HTML and its relationship to SGML. Chapters 1, on the history of electronic markup, and 2, on the HTML DTD are particularly informative, even if they are from a slightly historical perspective. [1229]
★★★★☆
URI:http://www.is-thought.co.uk/book/home.htm
Author:
Martin Bryan
[1]
Reviewed:Monday, May 23rd, 2005 @ 5:34 PM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

Web SGML and HTML 4.0 Explained doctype html markup sgml
8.Mozilla Web Author FAQ

If you're interested in different aspects of how Mozilla and other Gecko-based browsers such as Firefox treat markup, this is a good place to start. Of note are rendering modes ("quirks" vs. standards), and incremental rendering of XHTML documents. [1222]
★★★★☆
URI:http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/faq.html
Author:
Henri Sivonen
[1]
Reviewed:Sunday, May 22nd, 2005 @ 8:08 AM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

Mozilla Web Author FAQ faq gecko markup mozilla xhtml
9.Semantics, HTML, XHTML, and Structure

Good HTML structure is based on logic, order, and using semantically correct markup. If you have a heading use the heading element, beginning with the H1 element. If you have a paragraph, use a paragraph element... [1110]
★★★★☆
URI:http://brainstormsandraves.com/articles/semantics/structure/
Author:
Shirley Kaiser
[2]
Reviewed:Saturday, May 7th, 2005 @ 10:20 PM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

Semantics, HTML, XHTML, and Structure html markup semantics xhtml