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HTML Treehouse Club: HTML Publish a Story HTML Structure

Posted by Michael Bianco
Michael Bianco
1,194 Points

I understand that u need to declare the document type w <!DOCTYPE html> but why do you include html twice under it?

If <!DOCTYPE htlm> signifies that you are going to be making html stuff, why directly under do you write html twice?

index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html> </html>

2 Answers

Rick Gleitz
Rick Gleitz
47,878 Points
Rick Gleitz
Rick Gleitz
47,878 Points

Between those two tags is where all your HTML formatted code is going to go. Think of it as the code's way of telling the browser that what follows is to be interpreted/rendered using the HTML language, as opposed to other formats for displaying in the browser.

Douglas Counts
Douglas Counts
10,126 Points
Douglas Counts
Douglas Counts
10,126 Points

There were many versions of the HTML language prior to HTML5 and they were rendered different ways by the browser. The standard is now HTML5 and that first line informs the web browsers that what follows is to be rendered as HTML5. HTML5 added many new tag types that previously didn't exist and without the DOCTYPE line, there is a chance your page will not render properly if you use these newer features.