help > widgets > HTMLHEAD Widget
Widget Tag
++HTMLHEAD++
What It Does
The ++HTMLHEAD++ widget builds standards-compliant headers for your site's pages, and should be the first line of all of your page templates, followed immediately by the <body> tag. In other words, the first two lines of all of your templates should always be:
++HTMLHEAD++
<body>
The Markup Results
The ++HTMLHEAD++ widget generates the <!DOCTYPE> declaration, the <html> tag and the complete <head> tag for each page.
The <head> tag includes the following information:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"> declaring the character set
<title> with the page title
<link> and/or <style> tags to load the Big Medium style sheets for your page
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache"> (only if your widget settings indicate that you do not want browsers to cache your pages)
<link> tag pointing to the RSS news-feed file for the page, if applicable
<meta name="description"> including the page description
<meta name="robots"> including instructions to search-engine spiders and robots
<meta name="keywords"> including the page keywords
<meta name="htdig-keywords"> including the page keywords
<meta name="htdig-noindex"> (only if your widget settings indicate that you do not want search-engine spiders and robots to index your pages)
<meta name="author"> including the author's name for article pages
<meta name="copyright"> including your site's copyright statement
<script> tag to load Big Medium's javascript file
- Your custom header markup
Templates Using This Widget
You should use this widget in all page templates:
- Homepage
- Main section page
- Subsection index page
- Article page
Customizing This Widget
Users with webmaster or administrator accounts may customize this widget in the "Page Header" panel of the widget editor. To get there, click the "Widget Settings" link in the left-column menu of the Big Medium control panel.
- Document type. This required element of html/xhtml pages tells browsers what standard you are following with your markup. All markup generated by Big Medium will comply with the standards for the document type you select, and you should be sure that your templates do the same. If your pages include markup errors for the document type you select, some browsers may not display your pages properly. (Check your pages for errors using the W3C html/xhtml validator).
Big Medium supports the following document types (if you don't know what any of this means, choose "HTML 4.01 quirks"):
- None. This is not recommended, but if your site templates do not use valid markup, you should choose this setting.
- XHTML 1.0 transitional. Use this when you need to take advantage of XHTML's presentational features and when you want to support browsers that don't understand Cascading Style Sheets.
- XHTML 1.0 strict. A trim version of XHTML that does not allow any style or presentational tags or attributes.
- HTML 4.01 strict. A trim version of HTML that does not allow frames, link targets or deprecated tags (including
<font> and <center>).
- HTML 4.01 quirks. Essentially the same as choosing "none," this option declares your pages as HTML but indicates that they have "quirks" -- that is, they do not necessarily validate as standards-compliant HTML. Browsers will display your pages more leniently.
- HTML 4.01 transitional. Allows all HTML tags, including the frames, link targets and deprecated tags that strict HTML does not allow.
- Page <title> format. This setting determines the content and display of non-homepage
<title> tags. The <title> tag appears in the title bar of the browser window and helps search engines properly index your site's pages.
- Homepage <title> format. This setting determines the content and display of the homepage
<title> tag.
- Language of the website. Select your website's primary language.
- Page Caching. Checking this option tells browsers not to save versions of your pages on your visitor's local hard drives. Caching speeds the browsing experience for your site visitors when they return to pages they've previously visited, and you should select this option only if you have highly volatile pages that change very frequently.
- Search Engine Spiders and Robots. Selecting these options generates commands to search engine spiders and robots for how they should behave on your site. When in doubt, check all of these options.
- Allow search engines to index the pages. Checking this option tells search engine spiders and robots that it's okay to add your pages to their indices.
- Allow search engines to follow links on the pages. Checking this option tells search engine spiders and robots that they may "crawl" your site, following links on each page to find other pages.
- Allow search engine sites to display archive versions of the pages. Checking this option tells search engines that they may "cache" pages from your site. Some search engines save versions of your pages and display those pages to their site's visitors. (At Google, for example, clicking the "cached" link that accompanies most search results displays the page as it looked when Google last visited it).
- Additional HTML to include in the header. If you would like your pages to include any additional markup in the
<head> tag, you may enter it here. The markup will be included exactly as you enter it. Use this field to include JavaScript or style markup for your pages, for example.
- Copyright line. You may edit the contents of the copyright tag that appears in the
<meta name="copyright"> tag by editing the "Your site's copyright line" field in the "About Us" section of the widget settings page.
Styles
The ++HTMLHEAD++ widget is not displayed within the body of your pages, so it does not use any styles.
Need more help?
For further assistance and documentation, visit the website of Global Moxie, the developer behind Big Medium.