A Somewhat-Complete List of HTML Allowed in Journals

Okay folks -- as promised, here's my entry on the allowed
HTML tags that you can use in your Journal entries (and All
About Me areas).

(As you'll recall, this was one of
the items from my April "pending entries" file that you
voted on last week.)

Before I get started,
even the partial set of HTML that Journals supports can get you in
trouble (for example, I've seen people who've
accidentally hidden their Edit buttons because they added some bad
HTML), so if you're going to play around with HTML, it's probably a
good idea to set up a separate test
Journal.

Now, HTML is basically
the bits of code that controls how Web pages look, where the links go,
how to format the text, etc.

In AOL Journals, the
HTML code is typically hidden; if you want to see some of the HTML that
sits beneath the surface, when you're editing or creating an entry,
look in the formatting toolbar -- there's a
pulldown menu that usually says
"Text" -- it shows you the rich
text view of the page -- the bolds are bold, the hyperlinks
are blue underlined text, etc:

Here's
a sample bit of an entry in Text view.

When you change the
pulldown to "HTML", it will show you the HTML view,
exposing the tags that are normally hidden from view:

The
same bits in HTML view.

If you want to edit the
HTML of your entries, you need to be in HTML
view -- if you try adding HTML while you're in text view,
it's not going to be recognized as code, and will show up in your
published entry.

Okay, so, this entry won't be a
full-on HTML tutorial; the list of free Web resources on HTML is as
long as your arm, so do a search or check this list of beginner
HTML tutorials from the Open Directory. (It's a long list --
personally, I start out with the Bare Bones Guide
to HTML, though youshould find the one you like best.)

Supported HTML Tags in AOL
Journals

I went to the Journals tech folks and asked
them, "What HTML tags does Journals support?" In a nutshell:


Not
Allowed:

• No
  Frames -- Exception: IFRAMES (embedded frames) are okay, but the
  IFRAMEd content has to be on our whitelist
• No
  Javascript (Exception: Javascript from Web sites on our whitelist is okay) and no OBJECT (embedded object tags, so no embedded movie
  players, for example)
• No H1/H2/H3-style headines or
  Hard Rule (HR) tags
• No
  Forms

 Allowed:

• Tables (Support for HTML Table tags was added June, 2006)
  
• Structure
  tags like paragraph, div and span (with the usual
  modifiers)
• HTML formatting tags -- bold, italic,
  underline, blockquote, break, etc.  (we don't have
  strikethrough [7/31 Update: Okay, it looks like we now have strikethrough] or blink)
• Font Size/Type
  Tags
• Ordered, Unordered and Definition Lists (this
  is an unordered list, for
  example)
  
• Hyperlinks (including modifiers
  like target="_blank/_top/_new")
• Embedded Images
  (using the <img> tag and modifiers like border and
  align)
  
• Embedded CSS (Style
  Sheets)
• To center something, use <p
  align=center>something</p> (not
  <center></center> -- this won't
  work)
  

 The
List of Tags:
<a></a>
(used to form a hyperlink or
anchor)
<b>bold</b>
<i>italic</i>
<u>underline</u>
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
<p>paragraph
element</p> (use with modifiers like
align=center)
<em>emphasis</em>
(basically
italic)
<strong>strong</strong>
(pretty much
bold)
_{_subscript}
^superscript
(note: this doesn't seem to work)
<br>break tag
(breaks the text to a new line)
<ul>unordered
list</ul> (a bulleted
list)
<ol>ordered list</ol> (a
numbered list)
<li>list
item</li>
<dl>definition
list</dl> (I admit it, I've never used
this)
<dt>term in a definition
list
<dd>definition in a definition
list
<font>font</font> (use with
modifiers like size, style, face,
etc.)
<span>span</span>
<div>div</div>
<img>
<blockquote>blockquote</blockquote>
(indents a block of text, kind of
useful)
<abbr>abbreviation</abbr>

You
can also use the coded
character set, so &nbsp; is a non-breaking space (a
row of non-breaking spaces together won't break to the next line),
&copy; is the © sign, &para; is the ¶ sign,
etc.

This list is just a starting point
-- I haven't gone into all the modifiers for the existing
tags, or how you actually use them.  Also, embedded CSS gives
you a whole world of options if you really want to cause some
trouble.  So this here is just a start.

If
you have questions about specific tags, post a comment and I
will keep updating this entry (and eventually link it from my sidebar,
with all the other helpful stuff).

Fiddling with the
HTML is a little more involved than working with the
rich text, but it does give you more control over
how the page looks and what it does, so it can be worth it if you spend
some time learning it.

Also, if you have no idea
what any of this means, don't worry -- the next generation of editing
tools will hopefully mean you won't have to know any of this (but it
never hurts to know, anyway.)

Thanks --
Joe

Tag: AOL
Journals