Babble v1 89

babble-digest Sunday, December 21 1997 Volume 01 : Number 089

In this issue:
Re: What size monitors/web statistics
Re: single pixel trick...
Re: single pixel trick
RE: horizontal scrolling
Opinions on Macromedia Backstage?
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
RE: Shocked Sites
RE: horizontal scrolling
re E-mail capture...
The New York New Media Industry Survey
horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
DHTML, dreamweaver

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 97 11:48:02 +0200
From: Emil Sernbo <emil.sernbo@openfocus.se>
Subject: Re: What size monitors/web statistics

at 97-12-19 17:35:46 +0100, Marc Elmlund wrote:

>CAPDESIGN (A swedish magazine) recently published the following statistics
>from a recent study of European surfers :
>
>1280x1024 - 16%
>1152x900 - 6%
>1024x768 - 35%
>800x600 - 28%
>640x480 - 15%

All rescpect for the mentioned magazine, they usually provide their readers (myself included) with very accurate and good stories, but hey - these statistics feel as reliable as the iraqi statements about having destoyed all their scud's...

The stats doesn't say what kind of group they have made the inquiery on, I wouldn't bet a nickle on their accuracy in relation to the general group of www-users (640x480=15% - get out of here!). To me it looks like the statistics are somewhat missguiding, probably due to the use of a statistically too small or too homogenous material. IMHO designing for 640x800 is still the only way to go, unless your site has a very specified target group which have acess to larger screens/better technology. Scrolling still sucks...
Anyway, below I've provided the rest of the stats from the article, judge for yourselves:

Browers:
Netscape - 44%
Netscape3 - 16%
Netscape2 - 3%
MSIE 4 - 5%
MSIE 3 - 31%
Others - 1%

Access method:
10m - 8%
128k - 13%
14k - 20%
28k - 47%
"m" - 12%

Screen Colors:
16bit - 21%
24bit - 32%
8bit - 9%
"Color" - 35%
Monochrome - 1%
Don't know - 1%
Other - 1%

seasons greetings,
/e

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 20:33:46 -0800
From: Ryan Ferguson <signacct@signweb.com>
Subject: Re: single pixel trick...

>Wow and ugh all at once. Won't Macs and PC's differation of text size
>affect using non-breaking spaces though? As well as bg colored
>underscores and the like?

Yeah, this has been an ugly problem for a long time. It's nearly
impossible to format text on a page when the text sizes, leading, and
even the fonts themselves aren't identical. The width of a character
is a non-standard thing - and even a pixel is not necessarily standard,
as the Mac and PC both have different ways of constructing the little
buggers. It's not surprising at all that so many sites have "gone
graphical" in the interests of cross-platform compatibility.

Sigh. Will the nightmare ever end?

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 09:11:08 -0600
From: Pat Flanagan <pfpd@pfpd.com>
Subject: Re: single pixel trick

>>As an early and frequent user of the 'single pixel gif trick' made
>>famous by David Seigel, I found a white pager on the PixelSmith section
>>of WebDesign & Review to be very informative as to why I should consider
>>another way to create white space from now on:
>>
>>http://www.graphic-design.com/WEB/PixelSmith/SinglePixel/trick.html
>
>Wow and ugh all at once. Won't Macs and PC's differation of text size
>affect using non-breaking spaces though? As well as bg colored
>underscores and the like?

I agree, Matt. The article also states that the best way to use invisigifs
is to NOT use height and width to set the size, but use hspace and vspace.
This doesn't work as consistently as height and width; I learned through
bad experience. I also think that the "images off" ugliness problem they
mentioned is only a big problem in the 4.0 browsers.

One way to cut down on the number of invisigifs on your pages: don't indent
paragraphs, give them small vertical spacing between. I know I'll draw
flack from purists, but the important thing is that it's readable. That's
all the average webpage visitor cares about, not that the text adheres to
Strunk & White et al. Most of the text I set is in table cells, anyway, so
I use blank table rows (with a &nbsp or invisigif in them, depending on how
much vertical spacing I need) for vertical spacing. I'll continue using
them for now, thank you.
____________________
Pat Flanagan Publishing & Design
PO Box 281, Granger, IN 46530-0281
<mailto:pfpd@pfpd.com> -- <http://www.pfpd.com>
competitive business advantages through creative technology
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 10:32:10 -0500
From: "Lance Arthur" <lance@dbtinc.com>
Subject: RE: horizontal scrolling

One of the most interesting I've seen is on the Titanic site:
http://www.titanicmovie.com/present/bts_index.html

Click on STORYBOARDS, click on PLAY in the left frame.

They use a JavaScript applet to automatically scroll the right frame. You
can pause it, too.

I kind of liked it.

Lance

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-babble@highfive.com [mailto:owner-babble@highfive.com]On
Behalf Of Chuck West

Does anyone know of any well-designed horizontally scrolling sites? I've
been toying with the idea. Have any of you ever stepped out your comfort
zone and tangoed horizontally? Any ideas or suggestions?

Chuck West

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 97 12:04:20 -0500
From: Carl Jabido <case@dementia.org>
Subject: Opinions on Macromedia Backstage?

Has anyone out there used Macromedia's Backstage? I'm thinking about using
it on an NT Server to serve up some databases. We're probably gonna stick
with the desktop version since we only need ODBC database access for the
time being.

Is it easy to implement? Easy to use, design with, etc. Oh, I noticed it
had site management tools. I plan on keeping CyberStudio for initial
design at the very least but may move to Backstage's site management
if it's better.

TIA!
Carl Jabido
cjabido@npl.org
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 11:29:04 -0800
From: "Jim Bass" <jim@bassworks.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

The autoscroll thing is clever from a scripting perspective, but it's lame
as web page concept. Why force someone to view the images as a predefined
rate (on my machine, way too fast)? The whole point of interactivity is
letting a viewer access data as he wants it.

- --Jim Bass

- -----Original Message-----
From: Lance Arthur <lance@dbtinc.com>
To: Chuck West <webtamers@webtamers.com>; babble@highfive.com
<babble@highfive.com>
Date: Saturday, December 20, 1997 8:03 AM
Subject: RE: horizontal scrolling

>One of the most interesting I've seen is on the Titanic site:
>http://www.titanicmovie.com/present/bts_index.html
>
>Click on STORYBOARDS, click on PLAY in the left frame.
>
>They use a JavaScript applet to automatically scroll the right frame. You
>can pause it, too.
>
>I kind of liked it.
>

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 11:35:12 -0800
From: "Jim Bass" <jim@bassworks.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

On my IE4 Win95, this site is all goofed up. Type on top of type, no animal
images, etc. This isn't the first I've seen of this and must be some kind of
new kink with the browser.

In Nav3, it looks nice.

- --Jim

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 11:38:28 -0800
From: "Jim Bass" <jim@bassworks.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

We used it at www.multimagic.com click the link for the Multimedia
Process -- a visual guide.
We went horizontal because timelines typically move left to right and the
metaphor fit. A long while ago, HighFive reviewed a site for Austin Healy
(sp?) car collectors that used a horizontal layout, too.

- --Jim

- -----Original Message-----
From: Chuck West <webtamers@webtamers.com>
To: babble@highfive.com <babble@highfive.com>
Date: Friday, December 19, 1997 10:48 PM
Subject: horizontal scrolling

>Does anyone know of any well-designed horizontally scrolling sites? I've
>been toying with the idea. Have any of you ever stepped out your comfort
>zone and tangoed horizontally? Any ideas or suggestions?
>
>Chuck West
>WebTamers
>http://webtamers.com/
>Phone 209-388-1348
>Fax 209-726-1352
>..H5 Babble Design List Info: http://www.highfive.com/h5/babble.html
>..To unsubscribe, send the following one line to majordomo@highfive.com:
>."unsubscribe (babble or babble-digest) (e-mail address)"

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 14:48:55 -0500
From: "Matt Picone" <matman@mysticworks.com>
Subject: RE: Shocked Sites

Your statements about South African web users hold true when applied to the
intranet community of my North American corporation. I'm a site designer for
a communications megacorp and I've found that as far as plugins go,
shockwave is one of the best ways to diminish the accessibility of the
information in a site. (My audience, I'll add, needs links which read "Move
your mouse until the pointer is over this blue underlined text. Click, and
another page will automatically load on your computer screen." Shock them?
Sure! Tell them you expect them to DOWNLOAD and INSTALL something and
they'll be shocked enough to choose FILE | EXIT

Matt

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven Crane [mailto:stevec@datapro.co.za]
> Sent: Thursday, December 18, 1997 8:04 AM
> To: 'Lista High5 Babble'
> Subject: RE: Shocked Sites
>
>
> I'm of the opinion that if its not built into the browser you shouldn't
> use it. If its a site catering to a high-tech audience its fine but not
> for the average company's site.
>
> I can't speak for other countries but here in South Africa most business
> users are almost computer illiterate, knowing only how to use the
> functionality of those programs they use in their work. When it comes
> to installing extra software or plug-ins they are quite clueless, so
> would probably not be able to view a shocked site unless their IT people
> have installed the necessary plug-ins for them.
>
> Steve Crane (MCSD, SBN2 Member)
> E-mail ......... mailto:stevec@datapro.co.za
> Web (Company) .. http://www.datapro.co.za
> (Personal).. http://home.pix.za/pa/pak00325
> ICQ Pager ...... http://wwp.mirabilis.com/4364105
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ines Guerrero dos Santos [SMTP:Ines@compugraf.com.br]
> > Sent: Thursday, December 18, 1997 2:49 PM
> > To: 'Lista High5 Babble'
> > Subject: Shocked Sites
> >
> > I would like to know how many people from this list vote in behalf of
> > the creation of "shocked sites".
> >
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 11:54:41 -0800
From: Christopher <chris@christopher.org>
Subject: RE: horizontal scrolling

On Saturday, December 20, 1997 11:38 AM, Jim Bass [SMTP:jim@bassworks.com]
wrote:
> We used it at www.multimagic.com click the link for the Multimedia
> Process -- a visual guide.
> We went horizontal because timelines typically move left to right and the
> metaphor fit. A long while ago, HighFive reviewed a site for Austin Healy
> (sp?) car collectors that used a horizontal layout, too.

When I was just a weekly reader, one of the best sites I found through High
Five also had great horizontal scrolling for their timeline -
carnegiehall.org.
Awesome site with image inflation to boot!

Also, IDEO.Com employs horizontal scrolling w/ JavaScript.

Christopher Schmitt
http://www.highfive.com/
415.278.9900 ext. 38
mailto:chris@christopher.org
"Oh, waiter. This conversation isn't very good."

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

Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 09:09:04 +1300
From: "Ruth Lemon " <dashzero@ihug.co.nz>
Subject: re E-mail capture...

I'm not too sure about e-mail capture...but I did receive a mail one day
from cloaked.com (co-incidently the day after my little brother had been on
the Net visiting Warez sites). This mail was anonymous and it promised the
ability to send mail to 10,000 addresses with the click of one button(?)
Now, what you're talking about is not anonymous, but it makes me think...why
would companies be so eager to advertise that they would risk pissing off
their site's visitors sooo much. I agree that your site should be sufficient
to entice visitors back...if they choose to do so, let them fill out a form
and join a mailing list.

(Oh yes, sorry for the late post...I have just had a
computerless/Internetless week...and yes, it was VERY hard ;) but I made
it )

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 15:12:07 -0500
From: Marc Parent <marc@desedge.com>
Subject: The New York New Media Industry Survey

If you haven't seen it yet take a look at the very interesting
New York New Media Industry Survey:
<http://www.nynma.org/files/survey97.pdf>http://www.nynma.org/files/survey97
.pdf

Marc

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

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 19:43:52 -0500
From: John Shelley <js@gdnctr.com>
Subject: horizontal scrolling

<m. liedtke wrote...>

Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 01:57:04 -0500
From: Michael Liedtke <mcliedtk@colby.edu>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

Check out this page. It makes good use of the horizontal to present a
story
which would be to long to present vertically. It's only one section, but
it
works well.

the page at
http://www.colby.edu/colby.mag/issues/86n3/africa/
is done horizontally to demonstrate
the vast african plains metaphor. it's actually
not too long to do vertically, but the metaphor
works beautifully in horizontal mode.

season's greetings!

____john shelley___________________________

"Governments, like diapers, should be
changed often, and for the same reason."

_________________________www.gdnctr.com____
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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 11:26:03 +1000
From: John John <johnjohn@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

try http://home.mira.net/~socket/

It is still under construction though.

http://www.yarranet.net.au/stellar/greyarea/ is worth a glance too.

At 22:09 19/12/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Does anyone know of any well-designed horizontally scrolling sites? I've
>been toying with the idea. Have any of you ever stepped out your comfort
>zone and tangoed horizontally? Any ideas or suggestions?
>
>Chuck West
>WebTamers
>http://webtamers.com/
>Phone 209-388-1348
>Fax 209-726-1352
>..H5 Babble Design List Info: http://www.highfive.com/h5/babble.html
>..To unsubscribe, send the following one line to majordomo@highfive.com:
>."unsubscribe (babble or babble-digest) (e-mail address)"
>
>
- --
oh no... Here comes the sig..!
/-------------------------------------------------------------------\
| I think I'm John John | A phrase often heard... is that we |
|-------------------------| must 'restore faith in our leaders'... |
| Saying that pulpwood is | ..Rather than 'restore faith', we must |
| a wiseuse of forests | utterly destroy the last remnants of it.|
| is like saying that | - Paul and Anna Ehrlich |
| fertilizer is a wiseuse |-----------------------------------------|
| of loggers..! | e-mail: johnjohn@alphalink.com.au |
\-------------------------------------------------------------------/

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

Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 01:31:43 -0500
From: Amanda Gould <a_firefly@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

There are some examples of horizontal scrolling in this site...

http://www.newschool.edu/mediastudies/immediacy

Especially notice the text heavy article "Furor Over Futive" and its
footnote page.

(Received a High Five Nov 5 97)
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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 17:28:18 +1030
From: david doull <doull@box.net.au>
Subject: DHTML, dreamweaver

OK there's been quite a bit of talk about DHTML

But what about writing the code??
I've played around with dreamweaver and it's definitely a nice product
but the DHTML is pretty much limited to point to point animation and a
few simple event procedures - that's fine but if you want to start
producing complex DHTML based pages you are going to jump into the code.

So does anyone know of a product that helps in writing the code
e.g.: an editor that can check the syntax of your HTML,style sheets and
Javascript or at least an editor that will colour code the
JavaScript code?????

Also
Toren of Omnistreet asked
>Anyone know any REALLY
>easy DHTML tutorial site for raw-beginners?.

check out webtechniques the current issue http://www.webtechniques.com
also Nick has some good tutorials at web coder http://www.webcoder.com
regards
david
- ----------------------------------------------------
david doull
email: doull@box.net.au
http://www.satech.net.au/~doull

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End of babble-digest V1 #89
***************************

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