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Perhaps the most fundamental thing to HTML is the fact that an element is created by inserting a tag name, surrounded with < and > e.g. <elementname>. Because of this, any time you want an actual < or > to appear in the text (e.g. 2 < 4), it must be ‘escaped’ as &lt; or &gt;.

Any element content (which may include more HTML) goes after the opening tag, and is then followed by a closing tag </tag> e.g. <b>This text is bold</tag>

A tag may also have parameters passed to it via attributes e.g. <element parameter="value">

Code like that found in a typical DVD Profiler skin
<DP NAME="SOMETHING" ATTRIBUTE="<b>Some HTML embedded within the actual tag as an attribute value....</b>"> breaks all the rules on what constitutes HTML, and is thus a complete nightmare to handle.

How do you tell (algorithmically) where the <DP> element ends in this example? It’s a lot harder than just looking for the first > after <DP…

Even the source colouriser inside DVD Profiler gets confused with stuff like that, and that example came straight out of an IVS-created skin!

<td align="right" WIDTH="0"><DP NAME="LOCK_RELEASEDATE" IFSET="<IMG SRC='$DPIMAGES.Locked.gif'>"></td></TR></TABLE></TD>