Babble v1 90

babble-digest Sunday, December 21 1997 Volume 01 : Number 090

In this issue:
Again- What size monitors
Re: IE4 kinks
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: DHTML, dreamweaver
Re: Again- What size monitors
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: horizontal scrolling
Re: DHTML, dreamweaver, - alpha
Re: DHTML, dreamweaver, - alpha
Re: horizontal scrolling
RE: horizontal scrolling
databases

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 11:16:22 +0200
From: hennerich@superonline.com (Karl Heinz Kluter)
Subject: Again- What size monitors

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Von: Marc Elmlund <marc@wineasy.se

Von: Emil Sernbo <emil.sernbo@openfocus.se

Thanks to both of you

>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...

Yes, Emil, thats the same way I feel
But where are the replies from all the other babblers
or is the subject not serious enough

habby holidays
Karlheinz

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 06:21:18 -0500
From: Jeffrey Zeldman <jeffrey@zeldman.com>
Subject: Re: IE4 kinks

***
> 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
***

ie4 tosses images out of alignment right and left. (pardon the pun.)
have spent way too many hours attempting insane workarounds to
avoid having images float over text, etc. (it's 6:15 am and i'm finishing
work, not starting it.)
linespacing in particular throws images off in ie4's mac version.
(seems to be okay in windows version, which is why you don't hear too much
protest.)

in fact, months after the release of a working windows version, the
Mac implementation of IE4 is more a demo than a browser. almost no DHTML
features work; CSS implementation is most IE3 but with some of IE3's
features bizarrely lacking.

this is not a mac versus windows rant or a netscape versus
microsoft rant. i liked ie3 a lot.

problem is, we need to get comfortable with CSS, and bugs make that
tough. netscape is far from innocent -- neither 4.0 browser truly supports
the spec -- but ie4 (again, particularly the mac version) wreaks havoc with
pages.

one solution: avoid CSS until 5.0 browsers are out, debugged, and
in the hands of large chunk of our audience.
not an acceptable solution from my pov.

another approach: design css pages but use tables and redundant
font face tags to make pages that work in NN3 (still the bulk of our
audience). this is what i've been doing (for what that's worth), but the
frustrations are immense with this version of microsoft's browser.

yes, i've communicated with microsoft's bug division, thanks to
another member of this list. still have to work with what microsoft has
given us, especially since people visiting our sites will be using this
browser.

web users don't know about these issues and we can't exactly tell
them. i don't think this announcement would cut it: "Please excuse
goofed-up site, the problem is your browser. Please buy a Windows machine
or switch to Netscape."

i don't want to make that announcement myself. for now, unless i'm
missing something, incorporating css that works in both browsers means
building kludgy, redundant, over-tagged code ... leaving out some design
elements that simply will not work ... and settling for pages that are less
than what they should be.

if i'm missing something, please advise.

jeffrey

______f_u_r_b_o___f_i_l_t_e_r_s_________________________

Photoshop plug-ins for Web & Graphic Design

______________________ http://www.furbo-filters.com ____

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 10:26:16 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Angeles <angeles@interport.net>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

December 21, 1997

Genart, a not for profit arts group with realtime exhibitions and a web
exhibition counterpart has used horizontal scrolling in its exhibition
space ... to mimick the process of walking sideways through a gallery. A
left arm has an index and the right has thumbnails. Selecting an artist
puts a bio on the left, and the artist thumbnails on the right. lots of
cool stuff there. tehy've had it up since '96.

check it out: http://www.genart.org/GEN_ARTart/home.html

- -m

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Michael Angeles / angeles@interport.net
http://www.angelsmith.org
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 97 17:54:33 IST
From: andrey@bwc.org (Andrey Kovalenko)
Subject: Re: DHTML, dreamweaver

>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?????

Hi David,

i would say any simple text editor is the best product to work with DHTML code
right now. It does not help in the writing the code :) , but it does help in
understanding of what you are doing with the code. And after you master that,
it is a good idea to come back to Dreamweaver and Coda, but still fix by hand
the code they create. And, yeah, it could be really helpful to have an editor
which will colour the JavaScript, html tags and style sheets... if anyone knows
of such (PC), please let me know.

Have a good day, everyone.
a.

http://falkondesign.com

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 97 18:19:15 IST
From: andrey@bwc.org (Andrey Kovalenko)
Subject: Re: Again- What size monitors

>>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 - =

>But where are the replies from all the other babblers
>or is the subject not serious enough

The subject is serious enough, and i too have a feeling that the majority of
surfers are using their monitors set up at 800x600... And we have a way to
check it. There are many people on the list from all around the world, if some
of you will volunteer to ask few randomly chosen people you know (non web
designers, non designers :) what screen size they are using and send me emails
with info, i'll be glad to put the results together, and create small report
for everyone's benefit.

Just an idea...

http://falkondesign.com

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 12:11:52 -0500
From: "Terry Brennan (Mindspring)" <tjbsilv@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

Another interesting use of horizontal scrolling can be found at the
Circle Of Friends site:

http://www.circleoffriends.org/

The Circle Of Friends is a nonprofit organization chaired by Christopher
Reeve to support research for spinal cord injuries. The home page
scrolls horizontally "as a subtle reminder of how people with SCI live
every day." <quote>.

Terry Brennan
http://www.sgcd.com

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

Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 12:30:09 -0500
From: "George S. Williams" <sterling@exis.net>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

At 10:26 AM 12/21/97 -0500, Michael Angeles wrote:
>
>exhibition counterpart has used horizontal scrolling in its exhibition
>space ... to mimick the process of walking sideways through a gallery. A

I have an example that better mimics walking through a gallery at

http://www.websterling.com/pieces/

Later,
georgew

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

Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 12:54:35 -0500
From: Steven Champeon <schampeo@hesketh.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

At 10:26 AM 12/21/97 -0500, Michael Angeles graced us with:
> check it out: http://www.genart.org/GEN_ARTart/home.html

OK, this is the acid test as far as I'm concerned - if anyone here
is interested in providing sensible site design and information
architecture, they'll help explain to me why the structure of the
URL above makes sense. Sorry to pick on Michael A. It's not peculiar
to him, I see this *everywhere*.

In my opinion, this is the sort of shit that make design on the Web
the empty Western storefront prop that it is, where 99% of the effort
goes into appearanceand >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.

Does anyone care about the fact that

1) nobody wants to type something that long, redundant, and
error-prone into their "Location:" field or "Open URL"
dialog.

2) 'home.html' is the default - requesting the directory by
itself is sufficient. IOW, this is the same URL:

http://www.genart.org/GEN_ARTart/

So why show the user more than they need to know?

SIDE NOTE: always remember to end URLs (other than the root
server) with the trailing slash, otherwise your server will
suffer from having to send a redirect (302) back to the client
asking them to try the URL with the trailing slash anyway.

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"?

4) If it is the tool you're using that suggests such idiotic URLs,
change tools.

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.

OK, everyone back to your usual rollover discussions.

Steve
(site architecture terrorist)

- --
Steven Champeon | Consult, v.t., to seek another's
http://www.hesketh.com/schampeo/ | approval of a course already
http://www.jaundicedeye.com | decided on. - Ambrose Bierce
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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Dec 97 21:35:18 +0100
From: "Daniel Shaw" <danielshaw@imailbox.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

Create Killer Site's example site, Elliott|Dickens Advertising, does a
beautiful job with the horizontal scroller. I really love it.
<http://www.elliottdickens.com>

Also check out <http://www.csm-li.co.uk>. Central Saint Martins -- tries
hard to be cool, but is no where near as clean and clear as
Elliott|Dickens. Worth checking out though.

Ciao,

Daniel Shaw
danielshaw@imailbox.com
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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 16:01:48 -0500
From: Dreadscott Internet Productions <java@dreadscott.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

At 12:54 PM -0500 12/21/97, Steven Champeon wrote:

>Does anyone care about the fact that
>
> 1) nobody wants to type something that long, redundant, and
> error-prone into their "Location:" field or "Open URL"
> dialog.

I suspect not so much these days, as most local clients (browsers, Eudora
and several Newsreaders) support double-clinking on a url provided in the
body of the message to open up the default browser to the referenced page.

Lisa G.

~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-
Dreasdscott Internet Productions
Web and database development and consulting services
Lisa Gade
java@dreadscott.com
http://www.dreadscott.com
~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 16:16:43 -0500
From: Steven Champeon <schampeo@hesketh.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

At 04:01 PM 12/21/97 -0500, Dreadscott Internet Productions graced us with:
> At 12:54 PM -0500 12/21/97, Steven Champeon wrote:
>
> >Does anyone care about the fact that
> >
> > 1) nobody wants to type something that long, redundant, and
> > error-prone into their "Location:" field or "Open URL"
> > dialog.
>
> I suspect not so much these days, as most local clients (browsers, Eudora
> and several Newsreaders) support double-clinking on a url provided in the
> body of the message to open up the default browser to the referenced page.

That doesn't work when the URL is printed on the box of software or
business card or manual or in the newspaper or any number of non-digital
media. And yet I see "index.html" in every magazine I pick up, as though
it mattered. And I see http://www.redundant.com/redundant/redundant.html
everywhere - in email, on sites, in papers, magazines, and even on the
radio. Hard to write down a 100-character URL before the next commercial
comes on TV.

Steve

- --
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: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 17:09:11 -0600
From: egan jones <wahoo@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: DHTML, dreamweaver, - alpha

>>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?????
>
>And, yeah, it could be really helpful to have an editor
>which will colour the JavaScript, html tags and style sheets...
>if anyone knows of such (PC), please let me know.

A nice piece of shareware for the Mac only (sorry PC users)
is "Alpha" text editor.

I haven't used it much, but two friends swear it over BBEdit
(which can do limited color coding (img, href, commments, otherTags,
and content)). It's made more for coding "real" programming
languages, and has seperate "modes" for html, perl, tcl, java,
c/c++, latex, etc.

I'm pretty sure it can do color coding (up to 15 colors).
Check it out!

Alpha sites-
http://www.tenzo.com/alpha/
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~keleher/alpha.html <- author's site
http://www.theophys.kth.se/~jl/Alpha.html <- js & css tools

(I don't work for them.)

Hope this helps-
egan jones ......................................,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
digital producer - utcd http://www.utexas.edu/utcd
center for instructional technologies http://www.utexas.edu/cc/cit
512.475.9328.w 512.472.3315.h http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~egan
mailto:egan@mail.utexas.edu http://mmsgi02.cc.utexas.edu/egan
.....,,,,,;,,,,,,.....

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 18:25:46 -0500
From: Steven Champeon <schampeo@hesketh.com>
Subject: Re: DHTML, dreamweaver, - alpha

At 05:09 PM 12/21/97 -0600, egan jones graced us with:
> A nice piece of shareware for the Mac only (sorry PC users)
> is "Alpha" text editor.

I used Alpha even before the rush to BBEdit. It's a great editor,
especially if you like TCL and prefer to hack up your own modes.
Think of it as a Mac-native Emacs, only using TCL instead of LISP.
The trick became keeping up with the divergent HTML tag defs, which
quickly became impossible. So I switched to BBEdit - mostly for the
built-in ftp. But Alpha is still a great editor.

Steve

- --
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: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 21:04:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Angeles <angeles@interport.net>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

December 21, 1997

So happy to incite a little bit of list emotion. I offer no excuse for the
structure of genart's urls (manufactured by a firm called turnstyle). For
the unnecessary length of the url -- including the home.html -- you may
blame COMMAND-C and COMMAND-V. I apologize for filling your boxes with a
few extra characters of URL. I guess it's much easier for me to work that
way.

- -M
PS I have not been injured by being "picked on". But it's nice that you
put it that way. I shall return to lurkdom.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Michael Angeles / angeles@interport.net
http://www.angelsmith.org
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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 21:49:57 -0500
From: "Lance Arthur" <lance@dbtinc.com>
Subject: RE: horizontal scrolling

New Practice! Deleting all added names and sending only to list because I
find it annoying to get things sent to me twice.

Having said that...

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-babble@highfive.com On Behalf Of Steven Champeon

> Does anyone care about the fact that
> 2) 'home.html' is the default - requesting the directory by
> itself is sufficient. IOW, this is the same URL:
> So why show the user more than they need to know?

I must admit to doing this as well. I usually have two "index" pages, but
that's due to my own bad planning since sometimes my index.html is a splash
page, sometimes it isn't. The sub-index is called frontpage.html (having
nothing to do with the product of the same name) so links to my site can be
confusing as well. But I do keep in mind that people want the easiest path
possible toward an opening so I provide several.

At least that's what I tell myself.

> 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.

> 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.

At least not on mine.

Lance

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Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:48:40 +1300
From: "Ruth Lemon " <dashzero@ihug.co.nz>
Subject: databases

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Kia ora everyone,
I have just started a project where the client needs to have a database. =
We have decided on SQL. I have only just heard about POET and I was =
wondering if they were the way to go with this project. (We will end up =
with a base of about 800 people, their CVs, scholarship information. It =
will be running on a UNIX server)
http://www.poet.com/about.htm

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End of babble-digest V1 #90
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