4 Key Files that You Need to Know About When Developing Your Website
When developing your website there are four fundamental web page files that your site requires to go live.
These four key files are listed below:
.html
The HTML file describes the structure of your website when opened in a browser – it defines the web page layout. HTML stands for hypertext markup language which is considered the fundamental language of the web, and the html file was the foundation of web development. It was introduced back in the early 1990s by Tim Berners-Lee, who took the concept of research development and the idea of collaboration as a way to spread data and share information from one source to another. He introduced this simple and universal markup language as a way to share data across multiple computers across the internet.
Before the development of one of the first web browsers – called Mosaic – there were few effective ways the developers were able to create the complex HTML files of today. HTML is one of the first web developer languages, and eventually developed hyperlinks to electronically share documents. The elements used to create these web pages have progressed quite significantly over the past 20 years. Here are some example elements of what is used to construct a HTML file:
- <h1>, </h1>
- <p>, </p>
- <i>, </i>
- <head>, </head>
- <body>, </body>
These different elements (the above examples showing the opening and closing tags) are used to change the font style, color, size, and position of text on your web page. There are many different resources available if you choose to write your own HTML page as well as languages to use them, such as include ASP.NET and PHP.
.css
This file lets you manipulate your website style without changing the .html reference markup language file. What this means is that can completely and efficiently control the styling of your website by using an external style sheet. The CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) was created to avoid repetitious coding and generally increase the performance of your site. Developed in the early ‘90s after the release of Mosaic, developers sought a more flexible form of design elements to pair with the limited stylings of HTML. CSS has many different styling options and source type options for your content creation which includes the following:
- Fonts
- Tables
- Animation
- Borders
- Speech
Another thing to consider when working with CSS different source types. These can be used to help optimize certain elements on your web page, such as multiple image displays or video playing in the background of your website.
.sln
SLN files are files that are associated with the Microsoft Visual Studio software development environment. This is one of the most popular pieces of coding software on the market right now, so if you are working in this, you will need to consider this file. However, if you don’t use this software, then there should be no problem disregarding it. It is used as a way to organize different web pages and layouts in a cleaner format. Any modifications within this SLN file without 100% certainty will, however, corrupt the .sln file so keep this in mind when deciding to work with it.
web.config
The web.config files control the function of your site. Encrypting the web.config file is a basic principle of security for the root directory or whatever directory in which you chose to store your web.config file. An example of a web.config file includes database connections, sessions states, error handling, and security. Making your own web.config program is useful and highly recommended when developing in ASP.NET.
Now that you know a bit more about some of the more popular web development files, you can start developing your site with a little bit of beginner’s knowledge on the file purpose and function.