The World's Greatest Webpage

by J. W. Rider

Remarkable engineering

It had been a long time in coming, but the wait was worth it. The world-wide web was awed early this morning with the unveiling of the world's greatest webpage. Breaths were held as the development team finished their last millisecond touches, and the curtains were pulled back.

Public response was immediate and enthusiastic. Most reaction was positive, punctuated with occasional exclamatory.

"Oh, wow!" remarked one early visitor to the page. "This is sooooo kewl!"

The basic structure of the world's greatest webpage
HTML Page Composition

  1. <!Doctype ... >
  2. <html>
    1. <head>
      1. <title>...</title>
      2. Metas
      3. Script
    2. </head>
    3. <body>
      1. Text
      2. Anchors
      3. Lists
      4. Images
      5. Tables
      6. Forms
      7. Applets
    4. </body>
  3. </html>
  4. <!-- comments -->

Headings found in the world's greatest webpage
HTML Headers

H1

H2

H3

H4

H5
H6

Incredible endorsements

"I was skeptical at first," cited one dubious web page author. "But, after examining the page, it became abundantly clear that all relevant features were present. The world's greatest webpage has everything."

"The world's greatest webpage stabilizes the harmonies of the cosmos," offered a pundit with a less parochial view. "It transcends the zen of the yin and the yang. Its karma is very powerful."

"I've been searching for this page my whole life long," a chronic web surfer declared. "Now, I can die, happy and content."

Not everyone was happy. "Whoa, dude. This is bogus," was overheard as a competing development team was redirected to other programming efforts. After all, the world's greatest webpage had already been done.

Heroic achievement

Technically-oriented viewers offered opinions and explanations, mostly unsolicited.

"It's really neat how they wove everything together," explained one net-savvy user. "Most webpages just use a few of the features available in HTML. This one ties all the major parts together in a clever and innovative way."

"It adapts to your browser," noticed another as the page was shifting and resizing. "This sure ain't your sister's frontpage."
Paragraph formats found in the world's greatest webpage
Paragraph Styles

<p>...</p>

Basic paragraph

<pre>...</pre>
Preformatted text
<xmp>...</xmp>
HTML interpretation deactivated
<address>...</address>
Address style paragraph

<blockquote>...</blockquote>
Blockquote style paragraph
<code>...</code>
Code style paragraph

<marquee>...</marquee>
Moving paragraph
Fonts styles used in the world's greatest webpage
Font Styles

  • Physical
    • <b>bold</b>
    • <blink>blinking</blink>
    • <i>italicized</i>
    • <s>strikethrough</s>
    • <sub>subscript</sub>
    • <sup>superscript</sup>
    • <tt>monospaced</tt>
    • <u>underlined</u>

  • Logical
    • <abbr>abbreviation</abbr>
    • <acronym>acronym</acronym>
    • <big>big</big>
    • <cite>citation</cite>
    • <del>deletion</del>
    • <dfn>definition</dfn>
    • <em>emphasis</em>
    • <ins>insertion</ins>
    • <kbd>keystrokes</kbd>
    • <q>quotation</q>
    • <samp>sample text</samp>
    • <small>small</small>
    • <strong>strong emphasis</strong>
    • <var>variable name</var>
The accolades continued to pour in.

Some even took time to notice the content of the page. "It educates and entertains at the same time."

Some noticed the dynamic nature of the content. "It evolves over time," reported another, chuckling as the development team continued making alterations after the unveiling.

Some comments just defied explanation. "It anticipates your every whim."

A few seemed far-fetched even by the new standards established. "It's all things to all people."

Critical musings

Not all browsers considered the world's greatest webpage so great.

"I don't get it," slurred one critic, possibly confusing webpages with country songs. "Where's the lines about dogs, and pickups, and mama, and prison?"

"It is unconscientious for the promoters to foster this page upon the public at this time," cited a spokesman for a educational political lobby. "In a single careless stroke, they've eradicated all incentive to motivate students to pursue technical objectives. More care should have been given to the future of the international arena."

Instant notoriety

The most vocal critic never even bothered visiting the world's greatest webpage, unless it was done anonymously. Just the same, the critic alleged that the world's greatest webpage was an utter hoax.

"Such a page is impossible," he declared. "You cannot possibly incorporate such diverse features into a webpage and still have the webpage useful for any purpose whatsoever."

Legal restrictions

In the first hour of its existence, the greatest webpage drew such attention, that the server on which it's hosted was innundated with download requests that could very well have exceeded the total annual bandwidth of 50 percent of the web servers of the world. No wonder that network administrators immediately slapped restrictions on the webpage and limited its distribution through cyberspace.
Lists

  • Unordered List
    • <UL ... >
      • <LI ... > . . . .
    • </UL>

  • Ordered List
    • <OL ... >
      • <LI ... > . . . .
    • </OL>

  • Description List
    • <DL>
      • <DT> . . . .
      • <DD> . . . .
    • </DL>
Never forget

Things are looking bleak. The world's greatest webpage could very well have its plugged pull. How something so beneficial could be expunged perplexes the author still. There was still so much left to tell. As he put it:

"The way things are going, this report could be the only evidence left that the world's greatest webpage ever existed at all."
Copyright © 2001 J. W. Rider
 Webcrafted by J. W. Rider pagecount
JWR 010822
Table tags
<table ...>
  • ALIGN="left", "center", "right"
  • BGCOLOR= #xxxxxx
  • BORDER=number of pixels
  • CELLPADDING=spacing
    within cell
  • CELLSPACING=spacing
    between cells
  • COLS=number of columns
  • FRAME="void", "above",
    "below", "hsides", "lhs", "rhs",
    "vsides", "box", "border"
  • RULES="none", "groups",
    "rows", "cols", "all"
  • WIDTH=length in pixels
    or percent ("50%")
  <caption ...> ... </caption>
Optional caption
  • ALIGN="top", "bottom"
<tr> Optional header
  <th ...>...</th> For each heading.

The TH tag uses the attributes as the TD tag (see below)
</tr>
<tr> For each row
  <td ...>...</td>
For each column/cell,
  • ALIGN="left", "center",
    "right"
  • VALIGN="top", "middle",
    "bottom", "baseline"
  • NOWRAP
  • COLSPAN=number of
    columns cell spans
  • ROWSPAN=number of
    rows cell spans
</tr>
</table>