HTML Attributes
All HTML elements can have attributes
Attributes provide additional information about an element
Attributes are always specified in the start tag
Attributes usually come in name/value pairs like: name="value"
The lang Attribute
The language of the document can be declared in the <html> tag.
The language is declared with the lang attribute.
Declaring a language is important for accessibility applications (screen readers) and search engines:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
<body>
...
</body>
</html>
<html lang="en-US">
<body>
...
</body>
</html>
The first two letters specify the language (en). If there is a dialect, use two more letters (US).
The title Attribute
Here, a title attribute is added to the <p> element. The value of the title attribute will be displayed as a tooltip when you mouse over the paragraph:
Example
<p title="I'm a tooltip">
This is a paragraph.
</p>
The href Attribute
HTML links are defined with the <a> tag. The link address is specified in the href attribute:
Example
<a href="http://www.link.com">This is a link</a>
Size Attributes
HTML images are defined with the <img> tag.
The filename of the source (src), and the size of the image (width and height) are all provided as attributes:
Example
<img src="learntocode.jpg" width="104" height="142">
The image size is specified in pixels: width="104" means 104 screen pixels wide.
You will learn more about images and the <img> tag later in this tutorial.
The alt Attribute
The alt attribute specifies an alternative text to be used, when an image cannot be displayed.
The value of the attribute can be read by screen readers. This way, someone "listening" to the webpage, e.g. a blind person, can "hear" the element.
Example
<img src="learntocode.jpg" alt="learntocodeforever.com" width="104" height="142">
We Suggest: Use Lowercase Attributes
The HTML5 standard does not require lowercase attribute names.
The title attribute can be written with uppercase or lowercase like Title and/or TITLE."Learn to code" recommends lowercase in HTML, and demands lowercase for stricter document types like XHTML.
We Suggest: Quote Attribute Values
The HTML5 standard does not require quotes around attribute values.
The href attribute, demonstrated above, can be written as:
Example
<a href=http://www.learntocodeforever.com>
Chapter Summary
- All HTML elements can have attributes
- The title attribute provides additional "tool-tip" information
- The href attribute provides address information for links
- The width and height attributes provide size information for images
- The alt attribute provides text for screen readers
- AtLearn to code we always use lowercase attribute names
- At Learn to code we always quote attribute values with double quotes
