Babble v1 91

babble-digest Monday, December 22 1997 Volume 01 : Number 091

In this issue:
DESIGN: Text
Re: DESIGN: Text
URL diatribe
image prep
RE: horizontal scrolling
Re: image prep
Re: URL diatribe
Re: URL diatribe
Re: urls and ie4

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 22:30:15 -0600 (CST)
From: ashley@giant.net
Subject: DESIGN: Text

Was curious as to what people might think about using CSS to modify text
presentations on the web. Is it too far ahead to combine CSS and Truedoc
for specific type treatments? I realize This would only work for NS 4,
but if I used WEFT (?) it would work on IE4 too. I had hoped to combine
this technology to create "imageless" images. In other words, text effects
only possible in graphics now. And of course, text box placement.

I have no problem creating an alternative "stripped down" version for non
CSS browsers.

Has anybody else attempted this for a client?

I am designing for a non profit minority media client. I was hoping to
emulate some print effects in order to create unity with their print
identity. Establishing their identity is a major design and content goal
for the website.

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Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 13:20:07 +0800
From: Gary Sweeting <gary@neuronet.com.my>
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Text

Ashley,

I wanted to raise this a while back - I went nuts when I say what Dynamic
Fonts could do (http://wwwAhttp://www.bitstream.com/world/dynamic.htm)
sure, it's going to be misused, and probably by me. I keep trying to get
the designers here to try out and learn new things, since they're terrified
by JS, DHTML etc and only now is one trying out CSS; however one of the
guys finally started playing with HexMac (an add-on for BBEdit) - and he's
probably more excited than I am because he appreciates it to a different
level.

Combining the two? Definitely - <ahem> depending on your target audience.
For our new company site, I thought back to something that someone said
here re: Ideo's snazzy but difficult-to-find-information site, which argued
that their (MetaDesign's) remit was probably just to produce a "WOW!" site
so that clients were instantly impressed. Period. It is also good to try it
on our site (nope it's not up yet) since it won't be updated much, just
major rehauls now and then. How to do it? Quite simple from what I can
tell, since it works the same was as normal <FONT FACE=..> tags, if the
font isn't there then it skips it. Playing with CSS for both NS and MSIE is
the difficult one - and I'm resorting to either different sites, or using
JS to link to different .css files.

WEFT? Lost me there Ashley - which is good, 'cos that's why I'm on this
list - to learn.

Incidentally - is there a very good, thorough CSS tutorial for Netscape??
Glassdog et al. taught me a lot, and I know where things will be with MSIE
- - but Netscape is not *quite* working (litotes??).

I'm-a-babbling.

Merry Christmas All.

Gary.

- -----------------------------------------------------
http://www.tanjungrhu.com.my - "Heaven on Earth"
- -----------------------------------------------------
Enterprise Solutions
WebMaster & Information Architect :)
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Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 00:17:23 EST
From: MindScribe <MindScribe@aol.com>
Subject: URL diatribe

Steve-

<<and >1% into thinking about the eventual use of the
results, whether in terms of quoting the URL in an email, making sure
that the user can remember your URL, or giving the user some heuristic
for figuring it out if they forget.>>

Finally I see some sane discussion on the naming of Webpages. What is wrong
with everyone? All alphanumeric site URLs are mnemonic symbols for purely
numeric codes anyway, so why DON'T we make them easy to remember? Plus the
stupid case-sensitivity originated in UNIX is the bane for us regular people
when it comes to recalling sites from memory. Telephone numbers and street
addresses are not case-sensitive, and are standard. Let's do the same thing
with URLs before fifty years pass and the avg. URL is:
http://wwwww16.Pr9Ino333ogentin000.commercial<$1,000,000/I_f_o_r_g_0_T.9qzxhtm
l(#2)

cheers-
brew
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Date: Mon, 22 Dec 97 00:37:46 -0500
From: matthew nash <choreo@inch.com>
Subject: image prep

hi everybody

i've been lurking for a few weeks and man i've learned a lot. i'm not a
pro -- just a regular guy trying to set up a good site. and i've run into
a problem that has totally stumped me.

i'm using a lot of small photos: prep method: either hardcopy 8x10 or
contact sheet > scanned into photoshop > manipulated in photoshop and
saved to indexed color tiff or pict > made into gif via graphic converter
> strung into slide-show using gif-buider.

there are many pix that have backgrounds of very subtly changing greys
(many of the black and whites where shot in front of a grey seamless. no
matter what i do, i can't get the subtle backgrounds (whether in bxw or
color) to transfer to gif with their smooth transitions from shade to
shade to shade of grey. what am i doing wrong?

is it the photoshop manipulation? saving in photoshop to the wrong
format? changing to .gif format badly?

btw, i don't encounter this problem with dark background shades or
colors. only in those nice steel grey to platinum changes.

i'm really stumped and would be grateful for your input.

the site will be up soon.

many thanks

matthew
(just a regular person like you and me)
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Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 00:50:29 -0500
From: Steven Champeon <schampeo@hesketh.com>
Subject: RE: horizontal scrolling

At 09:49 PM 12/21/97 -0500, Lance Arthur graced us with:
> > 3) GEN_ARTart? Why not GeN-ArT,aRt? GEN_artArT? Why not, simply,
> > "http://www.genart.org/art/"?
> > And yes, I know, there's also a GEN_ARTfashion. See #3.
> > Hold on. We're talking about the visual arts, here, aren't we?
> > Why not use:
> > "http://www.genart.org/visual/"
> > and avoid the repetitive use of the term "art"?
>
> At soulflare, some of the directories and pages do not reflect the contents.
> It's an artifice I did on purpose. But that was part of a site character I
> was trying to portray. These examples do seem superfluous.

I can certainly understand being difficult on purpose. I enjoy the same
perverse attitudes myself. But a jaundiced eye is not selling anything,
at least nothing besides my skills or lack thereof, so I forgive myself.
What I dont understand is why you say these examples seem superfluous. I
have seen worse - at least from the standpoint of predictability, anyway.
If you're going to use caps, use them consistently - at the first letter
of each word, or something. Not distributed throughout the URL. The first
site I was tasked with maintaining had the top level URL:

http://www.meda.com/Medaphis/MEDAHome.html

The site was internal (so www had to be reserved for Internet use); there
was no top level default, so the user got a directory listing containing
one directory, "Medaphis", and there was no default in the second dir, for
that matter, so if you didn't know that there were five other "home pages"
in the same dir you just had to pick one at random.

Superfluous? This is /nothing/...

> > 5) If you're concerned about people's bookmarks breaking, learn
> > about your server and provide redirects from the old URLs to
> > the new. Takes about five minutes using Apache.
>
> Some of us don't know how to do this. I raise my hand. I have often *meant*
> to learn more UNIX, but I haven't had time to devote to it. Should it be the
> designer's obligation to manage the server, or should the designer merely be
> mindful of how they arrange and organize a site in the first place. The
> problem with the first option is that a lot of designer's could give a rat's
> ass about UNIX after worrying about HTML, DHTML, JavaScript, VBScript, XML,
> et al. It's not high on the priorities.

I understand this - and though I protest that you need not know UNIX to
configure a Netscape or IIS server. You don't need to know how to fill
the gas tank to drive a car, either, but it helps. And as far as designers
not knowing UNIX and its effect on the site architecture (read: naming the
directories sanely) I don't buy it - designers need to adapt to the
conventions of the system they are working with. You don't put colons in
Mac filenames, you don't deliberately name files with >8.3 names on Win3.1
systems, you don't put spaces in HTML filenames. Why is naming your dirs
any different?

It's design, Lance. It's all design.

If you're working on a site design team that doesn't at least have the
services of a sysaadmin available on request, you're doing the client
and yourself a great disservice. Ask them whether they can help. If they
don't know anymore about the server than you do, then find another
provider or ask the question on one of the many mailing lists devoted
to such topics. I'd be glad to help, for one.

- --
Steven Champeon | Go n-ithe an cat thú, is go
http://hesketh.com/schampeo/ | n-ithe an diabhal an cat!
http://a.jaundicedeye.com | - Gaelic curse

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Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 01:11:09 -0500
From: zeppo@netpass.com (Liam Casey)
Subject: Re: image prep

matthew nash wrote:

> is it the photoshop manipulation? saving in photoshop to the wrong
> format? changing to .gif format badly?

Your problem is likely in your choice to use the .gif format at all.
.gif images are limited to 256 colors, which makes subtle transitions
very difficult. You'd be much better off going with .jpg format, which
can handle over 16 million colors, plus the images are smaller since
they undergo compression. The only disadvantages to jpegs is that
they use "lossy" compression, which means that some of the colors will
be dithered, but this is irrelevant in your case -- it would be much
more important in, say, a line drawing, and it seems that as a .gif your
photo is already badly dithered; and that they can't be used in
animations, which i presume you're not trying for this page.

- -Liam

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 22:32:47 +0800
From: "Tenacious Terry" <tenacious-t@thecybercircus.com>
Subject: Re: URL diatribe

Brew wrote:

> Finally I see some sane discussion on the naming of Webpages. What is wrong
> with everyone? All alphanumeric site URLs are mnemonic symbols for purely
> numeric codes anyway, so why DON'T we make them easy to remember?
<snip>

I wholeheartedly agree! Here's a real-life example I got from ZDNet
today:

- -----Begin-----

Get tips for IE 4.0, Netscape Communicator, HotJava, iChat,
WebWhacker, BackWeb and others. Whether you're a new user or a Net
expert, you'll find new tricks for better browsing in the TipZone!

http://www.zdnet.com/chkpt/zdnu971222002/search.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texi
s/zdhelp/zdhelp/se arch.html?Utext=Browsers&Uhcat=All&Utiptype=tip

(You may have to cut and paste the bits of this long URL into
your browser.)

- -----End-----

MAY have to cut and paste? Since the URL is almost double the
suggested standard width of Email messages, I'd say that's a pretty
sure bet. And wouldn't this be a fun one to try and communicate to a
friend over the phone? Why couldn't this just have been:

http://www.zdnet.com/tipzone/

or even add an extra directory for the date if they wanted:

http://www.zdnet.com/tipzone/971222/

I don't get it...

Terry K.

P.S. Happy holidays, everyone!

___________________T_h_e___C_y_b_e_r_C_i_r_c_u_s___________________
S T E P R I G H T U P ! T H E S H O W H A S B E G U N !
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Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 01:50:13 -0500
From: Steven Champeon <schampeo@hesketh.com>
Subject: Re: URL diatribe

At 10:32 PM 12/21/97 +0800, Tenacious Terry graced us with:
> I don't get it...

Another fun one:

I run a mailing list. In my world, mailing lists end with "-l"
because they are "L"ists. It's an old tradition that I just
don't think about anymore. Unfortunately, some people, when they
see this lowercased, type "webdesign-1".

That's a "one". It needs to be an "ell".

Ah, we11.

True story:
I know some folks who did a site for a client at

http://www.collectorsexpress.com

Ahem. Is that "Collector Sex Press"? Nope. "Collectors Express".
But as William Stratas has pointed out in private email, the use
of appropriate caps in the host.domain portion of the URL (which
is case-insensitive) can also be a lifesaver. He points out
that judicious use of <BASE HREF="..."> is a good practice, too.

Cheers,
S

- --
Steven Champeon | Go n-ithe an cat thú, is go
http://hesketh.com/schampeo/ | n-ithe an diabhal an cat!
http://a.jaundicedeye.com | - Gaelic curse

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

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 02:10:34 -0500
From: Jeffrey Zeldman <jeffrey@zeldman.com>
Subject: Re: urls and ie4

agree with steve that unnecessary "home.html" and "index.html" are an
annoyance in printed materials. not limited to wall street journal btw --
you'll find these extra characters <http://www.void.org/void/index.html> on
pathfinder, c|net, and others who should know better. even lynda.com. not
to pick on lynda, who's forgotten more than i'll ever know.

agree with lance that most of us have enough to do without learning unix
metaphysics. (no flames please. i accept my imperfections.)

this is why god gave us domain names.

actually, there is no problem with protecting people's old bookmarks. can
be fixed by retaining old urls and using META REFRESH to send to new,
corrected pages. i do this all the time with my older sites, many of which
were poorly planned. (as i said, i accept my imperfections.)

for instance: since so many indexes point to "special" pages on my old
tilde site (and these indexes seem unwilling to update -- see for yourself
at lycos.com), i maintain the old tilde site, but every important page is
simply an identical meta refresh to the clean new address. simple.

no unix mojo needed.

a text link is also provided for those with ancient browsers. download
time: .5 seconds. refresh: instantaneous. problem solved.

what puzzles me is:

why do babblers (including me) reply to threads like these and ignore
threads about nightmarish CSS bugs in IE4 (also mine)?

i'm not making light of the "home.html" thread, since it concerns
information architecture and planning. it's a valid and useful mini-rant.

but is the woeful mis-alignment of our precious images in a major browser
of less consequence to web designers?

the only response to this thread so far has been from the babbler who
posted the original message about a referenced page being all screwed up
when he viewed it in IE4. and his response was mainly a gentle chastisement
to me for failing to capitalize the first words in my sentences in email.

gentlemen and ladies, with all due respect, style sheets are breaking
ordinary html elements like <IMG> in one of the two dominant browsers --
the browser which, in fact, first supported styles. if our
painstakingly-wrought designs are turning to mulch, and pages are being
rendered unreadable because images overlap text where they should not, it
hardly matters whether our site is named http://www.void.org or
http://www.void.org/void/voidlet/home.html.

and i'm frankly more concerned with capitalizing on CSS and absolute
positioning than with capitalizing my sentences in email.

if you only design in windows 95 and only test on that platform, you may be
unaware of what the browser is doing to your site, but your visitors will
be very aware. and they won't blame microsoft, they'll blame you. (i'd
suspect that nearly all list members test cross-platform, so i can't
understand the silence. and close to 50% of us design mainly on macs,
according to the survey referenced yesterday. not that it matters: the web
is supposed to be platform-agnostic, and so is the browser.)

oh my friends, tell me: how are you coping with these bugs? are magical
workarounds being passed around by the elect? are you simply ignoring the
problem? are you avoiding CSS? removing images from your pages so that CSS
"works?" or what?

kindly enlighten.
with love & respect,

jeffrey

p.s. batmanforever.com (may 95) used horizontal scrolling in the image
gallery. one of the first sites to do so, though probably everything was
already invented on "the place."

______jeffrey zeldman presents__________________________

"A genius with too much time on his hands." -- Magellan, 4 Stars

_________________________ http://www.zeldman.com _______

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End of babble-digest V1 #91
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