babble-digest Thursday, December 25 1997 Volume 01 : Number 097
In this issue:
Just another Christmas greeting
ADMIN: List status?
Re: 640x480.. or not?
Re: 640x480.. or not?
how clients feel...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 13:49:52 +0200
From: Armand Niculescu <armand@starnets.ro>
Subject: Just another Christmas greeting
Merry Christmas, guys & gals!
Babble seem to be a good "place" to learn and I'm looking forward
to see more interesting threads in the year to come.
Here's a small .gif that I hope you'll like:
http://lancomp.starnets.ro/division/fel-a.gif
Armand
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 07:41:46 -0600 (CST)
From: ashley@giant.net
Subject: ADMIN: List status?
Is the Babble list still up? I haven't received any mail since Saturday
and not seen a reply from the list admin in 48 hours. I knew they were
changing listmasters.....
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 08:49:10 -0500
From: Shelby <srogers@worldweb.net>
Subject: Re: 640x480.. or not?
At 03:42 PM 12/23/97 -0800, you wrote:
>My question is this: I typically do my prepublishing on a 640x480 canvas
>but this really isn't quite accurate. With each browser's toolbars,
>icons, title bars, status bars, and scroll bars, much less of the page
>is actually available. Does anyone have any idea what is the -absolute-
>safest resolution to design under, for ANY platform/browser?
Good question. Browser chrome, the default size of the browser
window...does it never cease?
And then we could talk about laptops and CEs and, heck, we could even
go
into cell phones...boy oh boy.
I try to stay safe by doing things like setting my browser window to
its
default -- on a PC (the ones I've used anyway), it doesn't take up the
whole screen the first time you open it and not everyone knows how or wants
to maximize -- and putting all the ugly pictures plus buttons plus What's
Cool? and What's Hot? (Netscrape) bar back in. And I try to lay out in
tables no wider than 550x400 on any given page if it's important to get
everything on the top screen.
It depends more on how crucial it is to get all the stuff in the top
window
than anything else. There are a couple of sites I've worked on where it's
just not possible - be it architecture, office politics, whatever (see
http://www.grantscape.com for a
glowing example of office politics mixing
with a homepage). At a certain point, I just sigh and think, well, no one
will see the copyright notice. Or the last 4 menu options. (In that page's
particular case, I showed the politicos what it would look like. They
wanted menu items bigger, the big round thing on the left to be in there,
and they wanted me to create more space between menu options. *and* the
primary directive: keep it all on the top screen. as you can see, I only
won about two battles.)
I also try to work not just with general site architecture principles,
but
also with the Journalist's Pyramid -- most important info first, expand
underneath. Of course, my ultimate goal is to make that top screen/homepage
so enticing that they move into/through the site anyway.
Oh wait. You wanted absolute numbers? Too bad. I'm in the office on
Christmas Eve and determined not to write a single line of mouseover code.
heh
shelby rogers/web diva/dc webgrrl/person.html
Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
-Goethe
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 10:17:42 -0800
From: "Jim Bass" <jim@bassworks.com>
Subject: Re: 640x480.. or not?
I think the safe number is 624 x 314 pixels -- at least that's what I
picked
up from David Siegel a long while back and we've been using. I don't think
all sites need to fit into that vertical space. Vertically scrolled pages
make sense to me. Just design it so that the user knows to scroll down to
find more. As for the width, we never go more than 624 wide.
Merry merry.
- --Jim
- -----Original Message-----
From: Shelby <srogers@worldweb.net>
To: babble@verso.com <babble@verso.com>
Date: Wednesday, December 24, 1997 6:21 AM
Subject: Re: 640x480.. or not?
>At 03:42 PM 12/23/97 -0800, you wrote:
>>My question is this: I typically do my prepublishing on a 640x480
canvas
>>but this really isn't quite accurate. With each browser's toolbars,
>>icons, title bars, status bars, and scroll bars, much less of the
page
>>is actually available. Does anyone have any idea what is the -absolute-
>>safest resolution to design under, for ANY platform/browser?
>
>Good question. Browser chrome, the default size of the browser
>window...does it never cease?
>
>And then we could talk about laptops and CEs and, heck, we could even
go
>into cell phones...boy oh boy.
>
>I try to stay safe by doing things like setting my browser window to
its
>default -- on a PC (the ones I've used anyway), it doesn't take up the
>whole screen the first time you open it and not everyone knows how or
wants
>to maximize -- and putting all the ugly pictures plus buttons plus What's
>Cool? and What's Hot? (Netscrape) bar back in. And I try to lay out
in
>tables no wider than 550x400 on any given page if it's important to
get
>everything on the top screen.
>
>It depends more on how crucial it is to get all the stuff in the top
window
>than anything else. There are a couple of sites I've worked on where
it's
>just not possible - be it architecture, office politics, whatever (see
>http://www.grantscape.com for
a glowing example of office politics mixing
>with a homepage). At a certain point, I just sigh and think, well, no
one
>will see the copyright notice. Or the last 4 menu options. (In that
page's
>particular case, I showed the politicos what it would look like. They
>wanted menu items bigger, the big round thing on the left to be in there,
>and they wanted me to create more space between menu options. *and*
the
>primary directive: keep it all on the top screen. as you can see, I
only
>won about two battles.)
>
>I also try to work not just with general site architecture principles,
but
>also with the Journalist's Pyramid -- most important info first, expand
>underneath. Of course, my ultimate goal is to make that top screen/homepage
>so enticing that they move into/through the site anyway.
>
>Oh wait. You wanted absolute numbers? Too bad. I'm in the office on
>Christmas Eve and determined not to write a single line of mouseover
code.
heh
>
>
>shelby rogers/web diva/dc webgrrl/person.html
>
>Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it.
>Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
> -Goethe
>..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: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 13:32:16 -0500
From: Tari Akpodiete <tari@sympatico.ca>
Subject: how clients feel...
Greetings Chana:
I agree that it is important to a) make sites that work well across
all/most platforms/connections/browsers and b) work hard with clients to
make sure that they are happy and satisfied but quite frankly I think
that this client has a big sign on his head that screams "I am a problem
client".
So he has "hired and fired more site-design shops than he cares
to
remember". Interesting that every single one of them was 100% wrong.
According to him, they were all so unprofessional as to ignore him from
the beginning. Maybe I am cynical, but it smells very fishy to me.
I suspect that the truth may include that he has also been dropped as
a
client by a number of houses. I hope he at least paid them for the work
that was done for him. Either way, there must have been a huge amount of
miscommunication on both his part and the part of the Web houses he was
dealing with.
His letter is full of contradictions. In one breath he says that he
personally likes to use Netscape 1.1 and Lynx but in the next he says
that it is okay to use plug-ins. Very few plug-ins work with Netscape
1.1 and Lynx! He also like Opera because "Netcape requires the use
of a
pointing device"!!! Would that, by chance, be a mouse? Just about
everyone, these days has a mouse.
Le me illustrate the strangeness of this anti-pointing device attitude
by asking you if, when he is using a word processor (ie: Word), or a
spreadsheet program (ie: Excel), does he use only old DOS versions and
keyboard commands OR does he use a Mac or Wintel version AND his mouse?
I suspect that he uses graphical versions and a mouse.
Very few people are using Netcape 1.1 and Lynx. Most people (even the
newer users), according to server logs and anecdotal evidence, are using
at least Netscape Navigator/Internet Explorer 2.0, and a great many are
using Netscape/Explorer 3.0. There is a reason for this, and it has not
a lot to do with the skill level of the user. Note that I am not
refering to Net/Web professionals or computer experts but to
"civilians".
These days, at least in North America (can't say about Europe because
I
just don't know), when people sign up for ISPs, they get a free set of
disks or a CD-ROM that will set up their connection for them and
included in the package, also for free, is usually Explorer. Almost all
these ISPs are giving away Explorer 3.0. Sometimes Netscape is included
as well, but not as often, because the ISP actually has to pay Netscape
for the priviledge while they don't have to pay Microsoft. My ISP pays
Netscape 80 cents for each browser they give to new clients.
Given that most people, even the more sophisticated users, are also not
yet currently using either Netscape 4.0 or Explorer 4.0, many Web
designers rely heavily on the clever use of tables for layout and design
(as opposed to the more versatile Cascasding Style Sheets) and correct
me if I am wrong but tables simply don't work in Netscape 1.1 and Lynx.
Heck, Netscape 1.1 predates solid background colours and background
images. You can be as talented as you want, but HTML 3.2 tags don't work
in either Netscape 1.1 and Lynx and that does severly limit what you can
do. You will get a site that is very functional but not particularily
interesting to look at. Personally, I believe that content is king, but
I also know that people respond to things that are visually appealing.
That is a fact of life, the world over, no matter the culture, creed,
religion or race.
On the other hand, for Netscape 2.0, you can make an extremely visually
interesting/arresting page without the benefit of plug-ins. And that is
just with "legal" (W3C-compliant, not Netscape/Explorer-specific)
HTML
tags. If you are talking about a site that requires e-commerce, then you
are going to have to have visitors who have browsers that can support
secure forms. And that would not be anyone with Netscape 1.1.
There comes a point in Web design/development, where you have to say
to
yourself, "Where should I set the bar?" Probably keeping the bar
at
Netscape 1.1 is not the place to put the bar. You have to balance
progress with practicality. Netcape 2.0/Explorer 3.0 is a fairly good
place to do this.
- --
...Webmaster Training Coordinator at Digital Media Studios......
.....http://www.h-plus-a.com/dms-itdc/studios/studiow.htm.......
...Creator of The Web Publishing Resource Guide (aka TheWPRG)...
.....on America Online - http://members.aol.com/thewprg/
.......
...ICQ Internet Pager - http://wwp.mirabilis.com/2131290 .......
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------------------------------
End of babble-digest V1 #97
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