HTML stands for the HyperText Markup Language. HTML is the major language of the Internet's World Wide Web (WWW). Web sites and web pages are written in HTML. With HTML and the WWW, you can create web pages with text, pictures, sounds, and links. HTML files are plain text files, so they can be composed and edited on any type of computer by various methods. One of the easiest methods is the use of a program that generates HTML code for you while you design your pages. This is an advantage of Mozilla.

This tutorial help you write your own web pages by using HTML. You do not need any special HTML editors, such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Once you have developed web pages, they can be hosted on the school server. It is a good idea to have a copy of your web pages, just in case there are problems later with a server. If your computer crashes and your server computer crashes, you no longer have your files, and you'll have to start over from scratch unless you have back-ups elsewhere.

This tutorial is not concerned with design, appearance, or aesthetics. We just want to cover the  basics of developing a web page.  After you have mastered these techniques, you can learn advanced techniques and impose your own concepts about design and layout.  Mozilla will also accept cascading style sheets (CSS). There are many things to consider, including navigation and accessibility, but that is for another time.

The code name for Netscape Navigator and Netscape's first alligator-like mascot is Mozilla. It stood for "Mosaic Killer." Mosaic was the Web browser that caused the Web to become popular, which was created by the same people who later founded Netscape.

In early 1998, Netscape Communicator was made free of charge, and its source code was also made available to the developer world. An internal group within Netscape, entitled "Mozilla.org," was created to act as a central clearing house for improvements made to Communicator by third parties. There is more background information about Mozilla, if you want to see more.

  The icon for Mozilla is a lizard

Gecko is the rendering engine used in Mozilla, which is available as separate source code for integration in applications. For more information, visit www.mozilla.org.  A Gecko is any of various tropical and subtropical lizards of the Gekkonidae family, which have toes padded with setae containing numerous suction cups that enable them to climb on vertical surfaces. Obviously, by creating the lizard, as a theme inspired by Godzilla in the original Mosaic slayer idea, they got stuck with reptiles. The fact that the Netscape browser has been crushed by Internet Explorer shows that there is always another killer out there. Many hope that the open-source Mozilla will succeed as a way to compete with Internet Explorer, which is proprietary. If you are interested in more information about the importance of open source programs, see the site developed by David Bucknell.

Mozilla is both a browser and an HTML editor. You are using a browser already, such as Internet Explorer (IE) or, perhaps, Netscape. The dominance of Microsoft means that most people have IE already installed on their computers. If you want to use IE as a browser and generate HTML, you must also purchase Front Page or use a different editor. In either case, there are extra steps to follow and the source code is proprietary. You can create web pages in Mozilla and still use IE, Netscape, or other browsers.

Mozilla is a free, open source program that intends to offer an alternative to Microsoft.  It is fully functional and has all the features needed to create a web page.