Babble v1 137

babble-digest Thursday, January 15 1998 Volume 01 : Number 137

In this issue:
Re: what direction
Re: monopoly
Re: Explorer takes 63% of Web surfers
Follow-up to Rollover Animations
just for fun...browser blast from the past
re: What direction
re: What direction
Re: Follow-up to Rollover Animations
Re: a weird one...
Re: Explorer takes 63% of Web surfers
irony: dontya just love it
Re: What direction, again?
Re: What direction
Creating a hierarchy with JavaScipt
targeting a frame and name together
actual question.. duel...(hava-script)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 98 11:40:30 -0400
From: Matt Snow <snow@portland.com>
Subject: Re: what direction

Armand said:
>imagine a
>situation where everything was standardized, you would have unlimited
>bandwith, streaming 3D virtual reality video, high quality audio and an
>infinite number of colors to use. What would your ultimate site look like?
>To be honest, designing for such a medium would be my worst nightmare,
>because you wouldn't know where to start as a designer because there are
>just too many options...

sort of like a blank canvas, right? 8)

matt

________________________. matt snow
_________________________.. designer
___________________________... new media development group
______________________________.... http://www.nmdg.com
___________________________________..... snow@portland.com

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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 12:19:33 -0500
From: Jeffrey Zeldman <jeffrey@zeldman.com>
Subject: Re: monopoly

Jorge Hurtado <hurtado@exo.com> wrote:
> I picture the near future like this:
> 1 Bank, 1 Medical insurance, 1 language that keeps changing, 1 political
> party [already the case], 1 world market, 1 world economy, 1 type of
> computer, 1 unchangeable set of ideas, etc.

done that. see "a fable for our times" at
http://www.zeldman.com/fable.html

(it's old, but still applies ...)

btw, the original poster, gary, was being facetious, though some of
us (including me) took him at his word. maybe we need standards for irony
as well.

jeffrey

______jeffrey zeldman presents__________________________

furbo filters for graphic and web designers:
http://www.furbo-filters.com

a list apart (one daily digest for people who make websites):
http://www.zeldman.com/advanced/

_________________________ http://www.zeldman.com _______

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 04:35:36 +1100
From: Richard McLean <vorple@n130.aone.net.au>
Subject: Re: Explorer takes 63% of Web surfers

> Yep.
>
> Nope.
>
> Yeah... hey... kind of important info, isn't it?
>
> Yep.

In keeping with these one liner responses...

Why ? :-)

curious,
Richard McLean

Life would be so much easier with a soundtrack.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 13:03:47 -0500
From: Brian Dame <brian@iweb.net>
Subject: Follow-up to Rollover Animations

There was quite a bit of discussion a couple days ago on combining
JavaScript rollovers with animated GIFs. I don't think I've broken any new
ground, but I've put up my experiments and thought I'd share it with the
list. I played around with two different approaches, neither of which is
entirely to my satisfaction. Hopefully, one of them may help a few of you.

Comments are always welcome.

http://www.iweb.net/~harold/javascript/011398.shtml

- --
Brian Dame
i n t e r w e b
http://www.iweb.net/~harold/

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 12:25:33 -0600
From: jason kottke <jason@imationstudio.com>
Subject: just for fun...browser blast from the past

greetings,

i noticed a couple posts here a while back concerning older browsers. i did
some research the other day and i actually found a number of older
browsers, including mosaic 0.6 beta and netscape 0.9 beta. it's lots of fun
to use these old browsers (circa 1993-4)...it really shows how fast the web
and online publishing has come in such a short time.

if anyone is interested, you can download these olde tyme browsers (mac and
pc) from my web site @:

http://web.0sil8.com/remixes/oldschool/index.html

and if anyone has any other old browsers...netscape 1.0, msie 1.0, the
first neXt version of mosaic (the first mosaic browser)...please shoot me a
note. i'd like to add to my little collection.

- -jason

http://web.0sil8.com
"not netscape 0.9 beta enhanced"
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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 12:41:26 -0600
From: Darrel Austin <daustin@isd.net>
Subject: re: What direction

>I agree with you - partially <g>. Yes, it has been the practise that
>monopoly's have not served as great inspiration...

>...However, I wouldn't say that they no longer need to worry about
>improving products, the gap will always exist (Netscape was pretty much a
>monopoly just a little while back and was still innovative - afterall, they
>did introduce the <blink> tag. ;)

But that IS how it is. Netscape came out with version 1...which was good. 2
came out and it was truly innovative...but then subsequent versions were
not substationally improved, rather more and more proprietary functions
were added, which only strengthened Netscapes ability at holding on to its
monoply.

Now that IE came along, Netscape is in full motion again.

Speacking of IE, Microsoft is an excellent example of not improving
products. MS continually releases new versions of software that have more
unecessary features yet contain the same ol' bugs and poor user interfaces
that previous versions had.

The final release of IE4 for the Mac was supposed to be a BETA version! But
MS didn't care, they just wanted to push it out the door for marketing
purposes regardless of quality.

>Also, I was under the impression that people wanted the W3C to introduce
>standards.

The W3C offers good guidlines for HTML...but HTML won't be around
forever...the web is WAY too young to start stunting its growth with
'standards'.

>Yes, but to what extent Darrel? We can deal with the minor differences
>because most of us only cater for the two leading browsers (let's be
>honest, how many of us religiously cater for Lynx et al).

Those pages that I design that would have a viewership that would be
accessing pages through text browsers, I then accomodate.

>In the future, if
>there were to be, say five competing browsers, with 20% market share each,
>each distinguishable by different features and different tags (and not just
>the marginheight, marginwidth, topmargin, leftmargin jokes) then it will
>become quite messy.

It won't be THAT messy. Any browser that strays from the 'market' standards
already set in the industry simply won't be payed attention to. It would
simply be a bad business move. As of now, I pay very little attentions to
technologies available in only one or the other browsers.

- -Darrel

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 03:07:36 +0800
From: Gary Sweeting <gary@neuronet.com.my>
Subject: re: What direction

Hi Darrel,

I suppose it would be rude not to answer this one :)

>But that IS how it is. Netscape came out with version 1...which was good. 2
>came out and it was truly innovative...but then subsequent versions were
>not substationally improved, rather more and more proprietary functions
>were added, which only strengthened Netscapes ability at holding on to its
>monoply.
>
>Now that IE came along, Netscape is in full motion again.

I think, IE came out sometime when Netscape was still in v.2? Though I do
understand the point made. However, I don't think many would argue that the
Microsoft model of entry is the typical model
(e.g. Monopoly exists and small firm enters niche market and increases
market share due to either the inherent demand for such a product that had
not before been catered for, or reduced costs - sometimes read as
loss-leader policies to increase market share).

>Speacking of IE, Microsoft is an excellent example of not improving
>products. MS continually releases new versions of software that have more
>unecessary features yet contain the same ol' bugs and poor user interfaces
>that previous versions had.

Whilst I don't really disagree, it might be noted that they have always
pushed with the common look and feel, identifying it as one of their main
strengths - which almost by definition means that at some stage it will
seem rather antiquated. Also, you argue that they contain unnecessary
features, but then many argued that the <IMG> tag was unnecessary at one
stage I think, and is the <blink> tag truly necessary? It is difficult at
times to draw the line between 'innovation' and 'unnecessary features'.
However, in essence I agree with you.

>>Also, I was under the impression that people wanted the W3C to introduce
>>standards.
>
>The W3C offers good guidlines for HTML...but HTML won't be around
>forever...the web is WAY too young to start stunting its growth with
>'standards'.

I think that they're also involved in DOM, CSS, XML, SGML, PNG (?), and not
to forget Curl which might just crop up later if MIT have their way.

>>Yes, but to what extent Darrel? We can deal with the minor differences
>>because most of us only cater for the two leading browsers (let's be
>>honest, how many of us religiously cater for Lynx et al).
>
>Those pages that I design that would have a viewership that would be
>accessing pages through text browsers, I then accomodate.

Then I am impressed - seriously. We used to do it, but have now convinced
ourselves that the LCD has to be moved (working on the 80:20 principle).
I'm not proud to state that we don't accommodate for those that are
visually impaired, for those that use webTV or PDAs or even the Nokia
Communicator ;) but the truth is that we don't. If the client could pay for
all of that, and felt that the increase in costs were justified, then we
would - but I'm just on the production side.

>>In the future, if
>>there were to be, say five competing browsers, with 20% market share each,
>>each distinguishable by different features and different tags (and not just
>>the marginheight, marginwidth, topmargin, leftmargin jokes) then it will
>>become quite messy.
>
>It won't be THAT messy. Any browser that strays from the 'market' standards
>already set in the industry simply won't be payed attention to. It would
>simply be a bad business move. As of now, I pay very little attentions to
>technologies available in only one or the other browsers.

Good point. Though I was using the magic "IF" again. However, it does beg
the question - which browser has really kept within market standards - and
if any has, have they gained the market share that they so richly deserve?
I don't see everyone rushing to use Mosaic anymore, and that's about the
closest I know to the standards (though I'm probably mistaken, which is
actually my point :). My ActiveX/VB Script do not work in Netscape, and
some JavaScript doesn't work in MS. And who leads who, it is clear from
previous threads that we must accommodate for both MSIE and NS, but is that
because designers said "hey, they're sticking to the standards, we'll cater
to them" or was it more a case of "oh, bloody hell, MSIE didn't die the
quick death we expected after v.2, so now we have to cater for them as
well, and their new CSS, HTML, JScript ... "

So yes and no - if I am to be serious, then I agree with what you are
saying. But nothing is ever quite so black and white - you all as designers
will appreciate this faaar better than I.

Gary.

- -----------------------------------------------------
http://www.tanjungrhu.com.my - "Heaven on Earth"
- -----------------------------------------------------
Enterprise Solutions
WebMaster & Information Architect :)
- -----------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 14:17:40 -0500
From: Porter Glendinning <pglendinning@cen.com>
Subject: Re: Follow-up to Rollover Animations

At 01:03 PM 1/15/98 -0500, Brian Dame wrote:
>Comments are always welcome.
>
>http://www.iweb.net/~harold/javascript/011398.shtml

Brian,

The problem you mention of having to hard code the animated GIF's file name
into the function is easily solved. If you name the image "img1" on the
page, just name the animation "img1_on.gif" or something like that. That
way your rollover function can be something like this:

function imgOnNC(imgName) {
if (document.images) {
document.img1.src = imgName + "_on.gif";
}
}

This way you're assigning the string "img1_on.gif" to be the source of
document.img1, and you can use the same function for as many mouseovers as
you like.

- - Porter

- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Porter Glendinning pglendinning@cen.com
WWW Developer http://www.serve.com/apg/

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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 11:18:22 -0800
From: Luis Cota <softech@inreach.com>
Subject: Re: a weird one...

Nathan Perry wrote:
>
> what's the easiest way, in Flash, to make that pill shape that's all over
> the Macromedia site? I can do it in PS4, just not in Freehand or Flash
> without making two circles of equal size and running a rectangle between them.

If you can do it in another program, especially Freehand, import it. I
am pretty sure that works, as they are highlighting Freehand and Flash
all over the site.

> Who Makes a kick-ass 17" monitor? My Nokia, I'm afraid, is on its last
> legs. .25-.26 dot pitch, big viewable area - 15.9", decent price?

The monitors that I like for good prices are called Utobia. Another
brand that makes wonderful 17' monitors is MAG. Check them out.

> What art pads are good? everyone i know that uses one really likes it but,
> which one is the best?

I don't know if there is a 'best' one, but I have heard good things
about the Wacom tablets. Also, I will be getting one of those.

Luis Cota
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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 15:06:04 -0500
From: Dreadscott Internet Productions <ceo@dreadscott.com>
Subject: Re: Explorer takes 63% of Web surfers

At 04:35 AM 1/16/98 +1100, Richard McLean wrote:

>> Yeah... hey... kind of important info, isn't it?
>>
>> Yep.
>
>In keeping with these one liner responses...
>
>Why ? :-)

Cause :-)

But seriously: knowing which browsers folks use is as important as knowing
the average screen size and resolution. Browsers handle the same code
differently, as we all know too well :-). If only %2 of the surfin'
population is using MSIE v2, we may, as webmasters and designers, decide
not to hack our code or omit a feature which isn't supported under that
browser.
If Netscape 3 use fell to only %8 user base , we might decide to forego
all those time-conmsuming work arounds to make sure tables don't display
overlapping elements, for example.
IF MSIE 3 use fell to some small percentage, we might not worry so much
(or invest many person-hours) about how to gracefully present javasript
material which only works in MSIE 4, and NS 3/4.

Lisa G

- -,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-
Dreadscott Internet Productions
Lisa Gade
java@dreadscott.com
http://www.dreadscott.com
- -,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth."-Picasso

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 20:01:59 +0000
From: Paul Frost <paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk>
Subject: irony: dontya just love it

In message <l03102808b0e3f45330e0@[208.219.174.13]>, Jeffrey Zeldman
<jeffrey@zeldman.com> writes
> btw, the original poster, gary, was being facetious, though some of
>us (including me) took him at his word. maybe we need standards for irony
>as well.
>
i hear microsoft want to bundle irony standards with the OS, but the DOJ
think it contravenes anti-trust laws.

i thought nihilism/postmodernironyshields was a last year thang

"don't know about you but i am un chien andalusia"
Paul Frost Web Development
www.phw.co.uk Priority Healthcare Wearside
paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk Sunderland, UK
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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 20:18:49 +0000
From: Paul Frost <paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: What direction, again?

In message <3.0.3.32.19980115110204.006c502c@worldweb.net>, Shelby
<srogers@worldweb.net> writes
>I thought Lance was being really way too pessimistic.
>
>And maybe I'm just a child of the 70s (even though I only remember '78-9, I
>swear!), but I thought that we needed to stop thinking in terms of
>Microsoft, Netscape and modems. I also thought that it would be good if we,
>the people who are really helping to shape this medium, could try to make
>our wildest dreams come true.

meet+greets, shelby

i too am spawn of that era, and yes, am inclined to agree with you to a certain
extent. i think that part of the reason the browser/standards issue keeps
cropping up is that as designers, we haven't really got our heads wrapped around
nonlinearity.

we've been conditioned to think one thought per timeframe, and so often design
in a pedestrian way because the syntactic advances required to break out of this
mold haven't been made (this also applies to the user).

i was visiting a webcafe a few days ago (a good way to view work on different
machines/setups: and better coffee than the office slop), and two kids were
sitting next to me, surfing the nba website.

they knew what they were trying to get, and seemed one step ahead of the
navigation system, positioning the cursor over menus before they'd arrived,
speed reading pages/using edit/find. basically, a lot more sophisticated than
the designers of the site in question.

but i'm sure if you took these two kids and asked them to visit any of the so-
called advanced pages, their methods would apply equally.

very few sites are attempting to get out of this loop. (jeff's certainly does,
but i'm pushed to think of others: even good work, like highfive or mit rely too
heavily on quickly outdating metaphor).

i am optimistic: things are noticeably better than a year ago, and i think the
improvement will continue. but rather than get stuck on standards (cross-compat
is a necessary pain in the ass, so just deal with it as bret easton ellis is so
fond of saying).

for ppl interested, douglas rushkoff's early books investigate this issue in
great depth, with some very cool conclusions.

he lives at www.levity.com/rushkoff

i guess what i'm saying is 'wildest dreams=genuine empathy with the kids of ten
years hence'

or something

happy navelgazing, y'all. and no flame wars. subjectivity is our greatest asset,
(see posts on the concept of monopoly and realise most ppl agree).

paul

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 14:37:54 -0600
From: TC Mangan <mangan@broker.com>
Subject: Re: What direction

</lurk>
I'm a bit hesitant about jumping into this thread after such great
observations from Lance, Jeffrey, Gary, Darrel, et al, but I think this
paragraph from Gary may be the answer to many of our problems.

> In the future, if there were to be, say five competing browsers, with > 20% market share each, each distinguishable by different features and
> different tags (and not just the marginheight, marginwidth, topmargin,
> leftmargin jokes) then it will become quite messy.

If there were five competing and mostly incompatible browsers, I suspect
we'd have little choice but to produce different pages for each browser,
an alternative I have tried just to make NN and IE produce similar
pages.

As it is, if we get it tweaked just right, one page can produce
satisfactory results for most of the surfers out there. If we were
faced with the near impossible task of tweaking to five (or more)
different standards, the question would be pretty much answered for us.
The use of different versions of the same page, with simple browser
redirects, would almost certainly become the norm.

I abandoned the 'different version' strategy after seeing how difficult
it was to keep the two versions synchronized, but as database
integration becomes easier, it may prove that different template
versions pulling the same info off the server is the way to go.

If only it were that easy to deal with five different screen
resolutions...

TC "Can I have 5 points for knowing the Bob Marley Part" Mangan
CIO
Perkins, Smart & Boyd, Inc.
http://www.broker.com (in the midst of a rehaul)

<lurk>
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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 15:37:55 EST
From: TheGilster <TheGilster@aol.com>
Subject: Creating a hierarchy with JavaScipt

Dear list,
I would like to know how to create a hierarchy (specifically a drop down
outline looking thing...) in JavaScript. Does anyone have any info on how to
create this
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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 12:49:16 -0800
From: "Jim Bass" <jim@bassworks.com>
Subject: targeting a frame and name together

I think I've made this work before, but now...

I have a two frame page. The top frame (named a-z) has letters A-Z, with
each letter linking to a single Topics page (named Topics) in the lower
frame. The goal is to click on, say, L and have the Topics page scroll down
to where the L topics begin.

The code I am using is this: <A HREF="topics.htm " TARGET="topics"
NAME="L">L</A>

Unfortunately, the page doesn't scroll down to L. When I had the row of
letters as part of the same page, it worked just fine. But putting it in a
frame doesn't work.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 10:09:32 -0800
From: jEsTeR <jester@sweetillusions.org>
Subject: actual question.. duel...(hava-script)

heya all..

i have been thinking about something. consider it a duel.

the whole issue of preloading images via the 1x1 pixel idea taken to
extreme would be to make a status bar out of the pictures loading themselves.

dr ozone had a page that did something like this.. but not using the images
i believe.

we worked a lil on this at work... and couldnt get them to load them
sequencially in order...

http://www.mcic.net/~allen/tr2/test.html

take a look if you are interested.. and let me know if there is already
something like this laying around, or if you decide to bust it out real quick.

i dunno about any kind of soul offering of child giving. but, i'll think
youre really cool, and you will get to see it in action on my page :D

thanx again.

-- jEsTeR

www.sweetillusions.org
== ================================= === ==
jester@sweetillusions.org
== ================================= === ==
whatever is not nailed down is mine;
what i can pry loose, is not nailed down
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End of babble-digest V1 #137
****************************

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