Understanding How HTML Fits into eBayWhen you're creating a new item listing on eBay using HTML and CSS, it's important to understand what you can and cannot do. The good news is that you have pretty much the entire arsenal of HTML and CSS tags, attributes, and styles at your disposal for creating slicked-out item pages. However, there are a few things you must know when it comes to writing HTML code that ultimately won't reside on your web site. First off, understand that any code you write will live within the body of the item page on eBay and nowhere else. This means you can't use <meta> tags or any other tags that can appear only in the head of a web page. This also means that you're limited to using inline styles, as opposed to internal style sheets, because the <style> tag can be placed only in the head of a web page.
Because the item page will be hosted on eBay's web servers, not yours, you must always use full URLs when referencing images or pages of your own. For example, any item images that are stored on your web server must be given full URLs (starting with http://) in the src attribute of any <img /> tags. If you plan on linking to any other pages for additional product information, be sure to include the full URLs in the HRef attribute of the <a> tag. Because eBay pages are designed as frameless web pages, you can't use frames. This makes sense when you consider that the <frameset> tag effectively replaces the <body> tag in pages that use frames. In an eBay item listing, you have the ability to make changes only between the <body> and </body> tags, so frames clearly aren't an option. Frames are covered in Hour 16, "Multipage Layout with Frames." Speaking of limitations associated with the <body> tag, because you don't have access to the <body> tag itself, it can be challenging making page-wide style changes to item pages. For example, the background of a page is typically set using the background-color and/or background-image style properties with the <body> tag. Because this approach isn't an option, you have to consider other ways of getting the same effect. You'll learn how to pull off this feat with JavaScript later in this hour, in the section "Altering the Background of an Item Page." For a refresher on how JavaScript is used in web pages, check out Hour 17, "Web Page Scripting for Nonprogrammers." |