When we first created the first portfolio HTML file, we opened it directly in the file explorer so that we could preview it in the browser.
Different applications or softwares do different things and if an application needs to open a file, it needs to be able to ‘read’ and display the contents of a file. Some common file types are image files (jpeg, png), music files (mp4), pdf files (pdf) and many more. You can recognize a file type by looking at the file extension. A file extension is the last part of the file name after the period (.), see the following examples
- Image file: wedding.png or with-friends.jpeg.
- Music file: lunch.mp4
- PDF file: math-homework.pdf
The files above can only be opened with specific applications designed to ‘read’ the file contents. An image viewer cannot open a music file, a PDF application cannot open a photoshop file (.psd) because it cannot understand the contents of the file.
A browser on the other hand has the ability to read and display a range of files. And you can