Babble v1 163

babble-digest Tuesday, January 27 1998 Volume 01 : Number 163

In this issue:
Bug in Netscape: in which conditions?
designing by numbers
Re: Questionnaires
Pop-Up Problems
Re: duH!
Re: Slicing images in PS4
Re: Bug in Netscape: in which conditions?
Re: my windows are spawning satan...
Re: Wysiwyg
re: Red background?
red!!!
pc version of navigator 3.0?
Re: Bug in Netscape: in which conditions?
Re: my windows are spawning satan...
Re: pc version of navigator 3.0?

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:28:56 +0000
From: "Patrick Pinchart" <pinchart@dupuis.be>
Subject: Bug in Netscape: in which conditions?

Hi!
Somebody wrote, some weeks ago, about a bug in Netscape due to the <META
HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;CHARSET=iso-8859-1"> tag.
When this tag is present, Netscape reloads sometimes the page, without
any reason.
I checked this information and I observed the phenomena on my computer.
As I'm building the site with Visual Page, from Symantec, and as this
tag is added automatically by the program, I e-mailed Symantec, asking
for a solution to prevent the program from doing that (I'm obliged to
take the tag out the pages with another program, which is not
practical, and when I open them again with Visual Page, it adds them
again).
The technician answered that he could'nt reproduce the phenomena.
So: is it a bug in only some versions of Netscape and if not, is there a
reference that I cand send to Symantec to confirm that there is a bug?
Thanks.
Patrick

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:45:29 +0000
From: Paul Frost <paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk>
Subject: designing by numbers

In message <002401bd2ac6$b9aa9f60$b356eccd@mdaoust>, Mathieu Daoust
<mdaoust@total.net> writes
>Is a red background (255,0,0) for all a site is considered bad?
>I feel doing a project this way but not sure...
season's greetings y'all

time to kill two birds with one sharp stone. (i get to answer a question and try
to inject some design philosophy back into the discussion).

quite simply, mathieu, there are no colours which are wrong: it depends on your
aims. i've seen sites combine the most ridicuous colours and manage to work
superbly.

the question, i figure, is based on a designing by numbers ethos. that is to
say, that you can read the manual. include the key elements and wow, the right
answer.

i would hope that as self confessed designers, we can do better than that.
obviously, we need technical proficiency, which is why in part, lists like this
exist: discussing "how to" is one thing, but the "why to" bit is surely our
raison d'etre. or rather it should be.

recently, several ppl have gotten themselves wrapped up in the colours
discussion: i feel, however, we need to get over our childlike clamouring for
rules if we are ever going to innovate.

surely? feedback is good, money is better....

"don't know about you but i am un chien andalusia"
Paul Frost 'Webmeister' <giggle/apologies>
www.phw.co.uk Priority Healthcare Wearside
paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk Sunderland, UK

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 12:30:17 -0000
From: PaulM@mhie.ac.uk (Paul Milne)
Subject: Re: Questionnaires

Gary Sweeting <gary@neuronet.com.my> wrote

>...we need to become a little more efficient. The proposed panacea?
>well, a questionnaire for starters.

>The plan is that by sitting down with clients and pretty much forcing
>them
>to fill out a questionnaire, we shall be able to get a better idea of
>what
>the clients want and save a lot of time

>Are there any resorces that may have questions that would ease the
>process, so that we would be able to walk away with a clearer picture.
>Failing that, have any of you babblers come up with your own
>questionnaires
>that you may or may not have given to clients but have in your head as a
>list of things you must know before you can even start the prototyping.

>Is this the way to go?

Shelby <srogers@worldweb.net> replied

>..."this is a questionnaire you must fill out before work begins,
>period" is a pretty stringent approach...

>Have the questions in front of you ... and just ask them. ... You will
>find out very quickly what's most important to them, and therefore,
>what should be most important to you.

I'd have to go with Shelby on this one.

The things I always ask first thing are:

"Why do you want a web site?
What do you want your web site to do?"

This is a very interactive process, hopefully you will more that one
people brainstorming ideas for these first questions. You can then take
the (sensible) answers and come up with a list of the main areas of the
web site (sales, demos, documentation, etc.) Take it back to the
clients and refine it. Then you can start sketching out how actual
pages link up and what goes where, how navigation flows through the
site, without having actually authored a page.

I would say, never underestimate the "paper and pencil" stage. Sketch
it all out first. Make sure the client understands what's happening in
the sketches. Iron out as many potential problems as you can before you
spend any time in html.

Then prototype the pages without content in as simple form as possible.
Make sure the links work the way you want them to. Again, use this
testing to find and solve potential problems.

Meanwhile, the designers can go to work on the look of the site, the
graphic design and user interface. Again, initially this should be
pencil and paper.

At all times check with the client, so that he doesn't come back at the
very end and say, "But that's not what I wanted."

It's easier to fix problems earlier on than when you have fully
authored pages and all of sudden be told to integrate a whole area of
the web with another area, for example.

But I don't see how a questionnaire would help, really. It has to be
people talking to people.

None of this is original with me. See D. Sano's "Designing Large Scale
Web Sites", my bible so far.
- -------------------------------------------
http://corrieneuchin.mhie.ac.uk/~Paul_Milne/
"I learn by going where I have to go."
- --Theodore Roethke
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 04:55:43 -0800
From: "Michael Liu" <mliu@compellingimages.com>
Subject: Pop-Up Problems

Hello Babblers,

Pop-up windows are perhaps a rather basic HTML issue, but since I've had no
reason to work with them before, I am just now experiencing "pop-up
headaches".

I am trying to create a pop-up window that will *exactly* hold an animated
GIF (i.e., the size of the window view-space is exactly equal to the pixel
dimensions of the GIF). Seems like a simple task at first glance, right?
But when working with NN and MSIE, life is *never* simple.

I have tried several solutions but it appears that there is no universal
way of doing this to satisfy the idiosyncrasies of both company's browsers.
So unless I'm a dolt and I'm overlooking something, that means I have to
use a java script to determine which browser a viewer is using and deliver
the appropriate code.

Of course, this still doesn't eliminate the problems, it just divides them.

PROBLEM #1 -- NN3:

With NN3, there is no way to load an image straight into an HTML pop-up
window without the bloody top and left offsets. So I have to resort to the
frames trick in the pop-up:

But there are two problems with this. First, NN3 still retains a one pixel
margin along the top and left sides of the image. Second, NN3 creates a 6
pixel margin along the bottom (or along the right side if using cols="*,0"
in the frameset tag). The end result is that in a 300x300 pixel NN3 window
for example, a 300x300 pixel image gets offset and cropped so that only
293x299 pixels are visible. So...

QUESTION #1: Is there a way to eliminate these offsets and margins so as
to fill a NN window completely with a single image.

PROBLEM #2 -- MSIE:

With MSIE3, an image can either be loaded into a frameset using the same
code listed in Problem #1, or it can be successfully loaded into a straight
HTML pop-up window as illustrated by the following code:

With either code, MSIE3 does a fine job of flushing the image against the
top and left edges of the view-space. But just to prove that NN doesn't
own the monopoly on quirky browser behavior, MSIE seems to have problem
creating pop-up windows of the requested size. For some inexplicable
reason (probably having to do with scroll bar and menu space allocation),
if you create a window.open script with the width and height set to 300x300
pixels, then MSIE creates a window 309x328. I have tried a couple of
different sizes and MSIE3 always adds 9 horizontal pixels and 28 vertical
pixels to the pop-up window dimensions. (Note: adding bottommargin=0
rightmargin=0 to the body tag does not correct this problem).

I can "fix" this by making the pop-up window dimensions smaller than the
actual image dimensions by 9 (H) and 28 (V). As an example, for a 400x200
image, I could open a window using width=391 and height=172 and end up with
a 400x200 window. But this is hardly an elegant solution. And I'm not
sure if this window size problem is universal throughout the various MSIE
versions. So...

QUESTION #2: Is there a way to stop MSIE from creating pop-up windows
with dimensions different than the requested width and height?

QUESTION #3: If not, can anyone tell me if this problem is a universal
"feature" among all MSIE browser versions?

Thanks in advance for any help...and for reading my long post!

Michael Liu
Compelling Images (SM)

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:21:24 +0000
From: "Tammy Jackson" <tajassoc@intrlink.com>
Subject: Re: duH!

Jeff,

Looks to me like an old patent drawing. It's probably the original
patent drawing done for the first car developed by Daimler-Benz way
back when. You can find lots of these by searching out patents. I
know you can do it online through the library of Congress (I think),
but you need to be careful. Since these are patent drawings, lots of
them still belong to someone. Nowaways, engineering drawings for
patent applications are more than likely done on a CAD system.
However, if I wanted to put one of the old patent drawings on a web
site, I'd probably just scan it in. In fact, I'm getting ready to
start work on an engineering site and will probably include scanned
drawings on some of the pages.

HTH,
Tammy Jackson
TAJ & Associates, Inc., Troutville, VA USA
http://www.interlink.com/~tajassoc/

- --------------------------------------------
jeff faulkner, Trope newMedia <trope@teleport.com> wrote:

> got a design question - i'd like to use some background schematic
> drawing like the stuff used here: http://www.mercedes-benz.com/
>
> first off, is there a name for that kind of art? some esoteric
> designer speak i'm not familiar with ? secondly, are there formal
> resources for that sort of thing ? did they draw it in illustrator
> maybe? i've found lots of old books and stuff with that kind of art
> - do others just scan old stuff in ? what would you do it you wanted
> to design something like this?

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:14:55 -0800
From: Mark Gregor <markg@tiac.net>
Subject: Re: Slicing images in PS4

There is a cool little program (win95 only I think) called Dicer that
slices up your .gif files into nice, little, user-specfied chunks *and* it
makes the HTML table for you that puts them all back together.

I belive it's freeware, but check it out at
http://www.ziplink.net/~shoestring/dicer01.htm

- -Mark

At 01:04 PM 1/11/98 +0000, Nick SÆnior ?ID8= wrote:
>>Dear List,
>> How does one slice an image into pieces in PhotoShop 4 for faster web
>>loading? Are there any guides in the program to slice accurately? I want
>to
>>learn the process, not some plug-in.
>
>I could be a fool here, someone can tell me if there is an easier way but, I
>always just did it "manually" (select an area crop it off and save , select
>part of the remainder, crop it off and save, etc) I thought that was the
>only way.....is it?
>
>95% Babble list approved Spelling and Grammer kinda correctish :)
>
>Nick Senior
>GlassBee [de]signs
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:52:00 -0500
From: Dreadscott Internet Productions <java@dreadscott.com>
Subject: Re: Bug in Netscape: in which conditions?

At 10:28 AM 1/27/98 +0000, Patrick Pinchart wrote:
>Hi!
>Somebody wrote, some weeks ago, about a bug in Netscape due to the <META
>HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;CHARSET=iso-8859-1"> tag.
>When this tag is present, Netscape reloads sometimes the page, without
>any reason.

This happens only on the Mac version Of Netscape 3.

Lisa G

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

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:48:12 -0800
From: Luis Cota <softech@inreach.com>
Subject: Re: my windows are spawning satan...

Matt Newell wrote:
>
> pick it, flick it, just help me out a lil...
>
> <A HREF="JavaScript: newWindow = openWin( 'http://www.mcic.net', 'mcic',
> 'width=565,height=400,toolbar=0,location=0,directories=0,status=0,menuBar=0,scrollBars=1,resizable=0'
> ); newWindow.focus()" onMouseover="window.status='mcic inc.'; return true;
> "onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">job</A>
>
> it creates the window just fine... but ie 4 gets cranky and irks up a
> error. :|
>
> heh. any help would be appreciated.
>
> -- jEsTeR

When i spawn new windows, i use this code:

<!--

var Next='';
var browser = navigator.appName;

if (browser.indexOf("Microsoft") !=-1)
window.open('main.htm','splash','toolbar=no,status=yes,width=614,height=470,directories=no,scrollbars=no,location=no,resize=no,menubar=no');
if (browser.indexOf("Netscape") !=-1) {

window.open('main.htm', 'splash',
'toolbar=no,status=yes,width=600,height=450,directories=no,location=no,resize=no,menubar=no');
}

// -->

</SCRIPT>

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:55:46 +0100
From: Ikonos <Ikonos.sas@agora.stm.it>
Subject: Re: Wysiwyg

We strongly suggest GoLive Cyberstudio.
It works only on the Mac but it is invaluable to us. You can download a
free working version at
http://company.golive.com/cgi-bin/liveSQL/PRODUCT/trial.html
We have no experience with Dreamweaver so I can't comment comparatively.

All the best,

- --
Luigi Canali-De-Rossi
Director
IKONOS s.a.s. Multimedia
"Strategic creativity for Information design,
multimedia and new media projects development"
e-mail: Ikonos.sas@agora.stm.it
phone: 39-6-33.50.365 fax: 33.11.946
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:11:14 -0600
From: Darrel Austin <daustin@isd.net>
Subject: re: Red background?

>>Is a red background (255,0,0) for all a site is considered bad?
>>I feel doing a project this way but not sure...

There is no answer to this. All you asked was "is red bad?".

No, it is not bad if your site is selling valentines.

Yes, it is bad if you are advertising vacations in Ireland.

You have to take every aspect of the site into consideration as a whole.
You can't decide what color to make the background without making decisions
on everything else as well.

The only technical reason for not using 100% red is if much of your
audience is viewing the site on a television...red is horribly oversturated
on TV sets.

- -Darrel

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:16:21 -0000
From: "Steve Hunt" <steve@tnet.co.uk>
Subject: red!!!

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

- ------=_NextPart_000_000A_01BD2B47.49BAE760
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Mate,

go for what feels good!!!

There are no rules on good and bad design!!! do what you think feels =
right!!!

try http://www.valtd.co.uk, its not quite full on scarlet but hey!!!

regards

steve hunt
t i g e r - i n t e r n e t
http://www.tnet.co.uk

- ------=_NextPart_000_000A_01BD2B47.49BAE760
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>

<META content=3Dtext/html;charset=3Diso-8859-1 =
http-equiv=3DContent-Type>
<META content=3D'"MSHTML 4.71.1712.3"' name=3DGENERATOR>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>Mate,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>go for what feels =
good!!!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>There are no rules on good and bad =
design!!! do=20
what you think feels right!!!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3D2>try <A=20
href=3D"http://www.valtd.co.uk">http://www.valtd.co.uk</A>, its not =
quite full on=20
scarlet but hey!!!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>regards</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>steve hunt</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>t i g e r - i n t e r n e =
t</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2><A=20
href=3D"http://www.tnet.co.uk">http://www.tnet.co.uk</A></FONT></DIV></BO=
DY></HTML>

- ------=_NextPart_000_000A_01BD2B47.49BAE760--

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:51:04 -0700
From: Trope newMedia <trope@teleport.com>
Subject: pc version of navigator 3.0?

two weeks ago i bought a pc to cross check my designs . the problem is
explorer is totally integrated and it will not let me download navigator
(or anything else that doesn't bare the name microsoft) . everytime i try
there's a bug and navigator won't set up . anyway, i'm trying to find
navigator 3.0 for pc and no one seems to have it . even netscape won't send
me a copy on disc . pcwarehouse can't even help . any suggestions ? a new
client runs a 2000 pc intranet using navigator 3.0 exclusively and i need
to test my mac based design on an identical platform . thanks .

jeff faulkner

____________________________________________
<b>TropE new media creative</b> now up and running at
http://www.teleport.com/~trope
_____________________________________________

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:55:19 -0500
From: Dana Adams <dana@studiowerks.com>
Subject: Re: Bug in Netscape: in which conditions?

Patrick Pinchart wrote:
> Hi!
> Somebody wrote, some weeks ago, about a bug in Netscape due to the > <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type"
> CONTENT="text/html;CHARSET=iso-8859-1"> tag.
> When this tag is present, Netscape reloads sometimes the page, without
> any reason.
>

Dreadscott Internet Productions wrote:
> This happens only on the Mac version Of Netscape 3.
>
> Lisa G

I don't know if the behavior is realted to the META HTTP-EQUIV tag but I
get this from time to time in NC 4.04 on a Wintel system....

dana adams
http://www.studiowerks.com
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:58:19 -0500
From: Joe Busch <jbusch@monster.com>
Subject: Re: my windows are spawning satan...

jester,

try toolbar=no,location=no, etc. instead of 0's.

- --jb

Jester wrote...
>pick it, flick it, just help me out a lil...
>
><A HREF="JavaScript: newWindow = openWin( 'http://www.mcic.net', 'mcic',
>'width=565,height=400,toolbar=0,location=0,directories=0,status=0,menuBar=0
,sc>rollBars=1,resizable=0'
>); newWindow.focus()" onMouseover="window.status='mcic inc.'; return true;
>"onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">job</A>
>
>it creates the window just fine... but ie 4 gets cranky and irks up a
>error. :|
>
>heh. any help would be appreciated.
>
>
> -- jEsTeR

. Joe Busch <jbusch@monster.com>
. Web Developer, Creative Services Group :: TMP Interactive

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:12:08 -0500
From: Jeffrey Miller <jeff@l9.com>
Subject: Re: pc version of navigator 3.0?

Trope newMedia wrote:
>
> two weeks ago i bought a pc to cross check my designs . the problem is
> explorer is totally integrated and it will not let me download navigator
> (or anything else that doesn't bare the name microsoft) . everytime i try
> there's a bug and navigator won't set up .

(I) would recommend contacting the (J)ustice (D)epartment - that's a
much more serious issue than you may think(!)

(S)eriously(,) (I')m not sure that(')s correct(.) (Y)ou may be
experiencing difficulty(,) but (I) doubt that it(')s due to (IE)
3(.)0(.)

> anyway, i'm trying to find
> navigator 3.0 for pc and no one seems to have it . even netscape won't send
> me a copy on disc . pcwarehouse can't even help . any suggestions ? a new
> client runs a 2000 pc intranet using navigator 3.0 exclusively and i need
> to test my mac based design on an identical platform . thanks .

(N)ot entirely true (-) but it will take a smidge of exploration on your
part(.) (S)imply go to the (N)etscape homepage. (S)elect [Browsers]
under [Software]/[Netscape Download] (.) (N)ow, scroll down the page a
ways(..) yes(..) yes(..) good, right there(.) (Y)ou should see a section
marked (PREVIOUSLY RELEASED NAVIGATORS) (-) third from the top in the
first bundle of links(.) (N)ow look way at the end(..) (S)ee that link
marked [Navigator Archived Versions (3.01-2.02)](?) (F)ollow that, and
you will find a section to download the older version of (N)etscape(.)

(-)(J)effrey(,) able to sling weird capitalization and punctuation
schemes with the best of them(-)

- --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeffrey Miller - Production/Creative Design
Level Nine - http://www.L9.com
Home Page - http://www.amergin.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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------------------------------

End of babble-digest V1 #163
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