Babble v1 92

babble-digest Monday, December 22 1997 Volume 01 : Number 092

In this issue:
Designing With Logos That Stink
Re: IE4 kinks
Re: DESIGN: Text
Re: why no CSS
RE: urls and ie4
Re: DHTML, Dreamweaver
Re: why no CSS
Re: DESIGN: Text
a cool trick
Re: horizontal scrolling
Single pixel gif trick and IE
Re:horisontal scrolling
Re: horis(Z!)ontal scrolling
Re: Single pixel gif trick and IE

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

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 08:29:45 EST
From: TheGilster <TheGilster@aol.com>
Subject: Designing With Logos That Stink

Dear all,
I am doing a company's website and they have a horrible logo. What am I
supposed to do to to get around that? I'd like to hear your success stories
(and your horro stories) on this issue that is plauging me.

Thanks,
Gil
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 08:40:06 -0500
From: Jeffrey Miller <jeff@l9.com>
Subject: Re: IE4 kinks

Jeffrey Zeldman wrote:
>
> 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.

I've seen a number of people designing that way, and I wonder -
what is the point? Personally, it seems overly redundant to build
things in that fashion - you're building and displaying the same
thing twice on the same page. Why not use that effort and create
a triage front end to sluice 4.0 users into a CSS section and
everyone else into a <= 3.0 section?

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

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 07:40:22 -0600 (CST)
From: ashley@giant.net
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Text

On Mon, 22 Dec 1997, Gary Sweeting wrote:

> 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.

<snip>

> 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.

WEFT is MS's free "Open Type" app. It allows anti-aliased text to be
displayed on the agent's canvas. It has been found to be unsafe for
protecting fonts/typefaces so I was going to stick to the free ones MS
offers on its site.

> 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??).

As for a CSS reference guide (what works, what doesn't for a platform)
try this: http://style.webreview.com/

There is also a recent article about the "Pitfalls of Style" (Sheets) here:
http://www.webreview.com/97/12/12/style/index.html

Netscape's known CSS bugs (I think this was for 4.0 final - released June
20) can be found somewhere on Netscape's site, but good luck as their
site is impossible to find anything on their site. A search for "CSS"
only resulted in positioning and DHTML articles, but I have the printout
of the bugs.

I have tried to use Truedoc before for our intranet but had no luck in
getting it to work. In fact it crashed every browser except for the
X-Windows platform where it just failed to render. But as I have been
tasked with making it work, I figure I will have to try it again.

FWIW, Hexmac has three nice examples of CSS and "Dynamic" fonts on their
website. Look for the awards section.
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 08:51:44 -0600
From: Pat Flanagan <pfpd@pfpd.com>
Subject: Re: why no CSS

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

Because threads like these are realworld usable-now issues. While I'm
playing internally with CSS (sounds like a stomach problem), I'm not going
to even consider using it for a client until the 5.0 browsers and/or things
get bugfree and standardized (I know, don't hold my breath).

>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.

If that's the case, simple solution: don't use CSS yet. Wow, that cures a
TON of headaches, doesn't it? :D
____________________
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: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 09:18:13 -0500
From: Lance Arthur <larthur@dbtinc.com>
Subject: RE: urls and ie4

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jeffrey Zeldman [mailto:jeffrey@zeldman.com]
>Subject: Re: urls and ie4
>
>why do babblers (including me) reply to threads like these and ignore
>threads about nightmarish CSS bugs in IE4 (also mine)?
>...is the woeful mis-alignment of our precious images in a major
browser
>of less consequence to web designers?
>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.
>and i'm frankly more concerned with capitalizing on CSS and absolute
>positioning than with capitalizing my sentences in email.

I'll toss my cookies in.
It should be pointed out that IE4 on the Mac is still Beta, so the CSS
problems are (hopefully) part of the workout process. Having said that,
and noting that I do not use a Mac, it should also be pointed out that
the reason they Beta is to find these problems out. I know Jeffrey has
passed his concerns on to Microsoft - which is notoriously difficult to
contact when one has problems with their software - but I also know that
MSIE4 on Windows95 adheres to CSS guidelines rather rigorously. Much
more so than the un-Beta Netscape 4.04 browser.

So the reason there was no initial response was because I had some
background knowledge of this particular issue, the Mac software is in
Beta, most Mac people I know hate Microsoft to such an extent that they
will not use MSIE anyway, and the vast majority of MSIE4 users on PCs
will not experience the problems mentioned.

Not that I do not think it's incredibly stupid that Microsoft does not
accurately support one of the standards it has been trumpeting since
MSIE3 - which itself screws up CSS to the extent that tables collapse in
on themselves and text overwrites images. Perhaps they should spend less
time on CDF and desktop crap and more on having the browser behave
correctly.

But what do I know? I'm not worth $40billion.

Lance
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 09:22:35 -0500
From: "David Ross" <daveross@star.net>
Subject: Re: DHTML, Dreamweaver

What about HomeSite 3.0. From its inception, it has used color coding for
scripts and tags, etc.

Not sure about other platforms than Win '95 or NT, but for my money it is
one of the better text editors out there!

David Ross
daveross@star.net
http://www.star.net/People/~daveross
SBN L2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood
so established, that unless we love the truth,
we cannot know it.
*Blaise Pascal*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 22:44:04 +0800
From: Gary Sweeting <gary@neuronet.com.my>
Subject: Re: why no CSS

At 08:51 AM 12/22/97 -0600, you wrote:
>>why do babblers (including me) reply to threads like these and ignore
>>threads about nightmarish CSS bugs in IE4 (also mine)?
>
>Because threads like these are realworld usable-now issues. While I'm
>playing internally with CSS (sounds like a stomach problem), I'm not going
>to even consider using it for a client until the 5.0 browsers and/or things
>get bugfree and standardized (I know, don't hold my breath).

Sorry Pat, I've got to disagree here, if I had lived a web-free existence
and jumped into HTML-ing now for example, I would not be able to solve half
the problems we encounter, and probably wouldn't even enjoy finding new
problems. I would see these entities HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DHTML etc ad
infinitum and I would think the task ahead was too great. It probably is,
and there is so much that I want/need to learn in other areas and my chest
tightens because I'm not able to just force myself to learn one at a time,
I want to know it all.

I believe that it is nice to grow with something, and feel part of it (a
bit presumptuous I know since I am a member of none of the decision-making
bodies). For example, a while back I spent a weekend playing with CSS
filters and effects:

- - actually, I've just put up if any of you with MSIE4 (PC) are interested:

http://www.heaven.com.my/playtime/effects/

I've never shown anybody, except those at work I'm trying to motivate. And
yes, they are buggy - (the applications silly) - note: don't forget to move
your mouse around the page - especially on those ugly black areas.

Anyway, what I intended to say is that, yes, it is frustrating, at times it
may even be demoralising; but if we are able to make the time - or have the
time to spare - it is indeed interesting to do something that you haven't
seen anywhere else. Can I use them, well no, not really - but atleast I now
understand them, and maybe if we have a need for something I shall be able
to say that "it can be done using this" or even "sorry, it can be done, but
only in a few browsers and it is still buggy".

I did two versions of our company's site, [okay this time I'll give the URL
but it really is not ready yet : http://www.heaven.com.my/neurotic/ - we
will give an alternative to those that don't have FLASH, it really is still
in its nascent stages]. And in the MSIE version, I added a few effects but
they are buggy and we can't risk people seeing it and thinking it is bad
quality as opposed to pushing the boundaries so they will be removed. Yes,
it's a shame - but for me the whole experience is worth it.

Much more to say on this, but I'm losing my structure - feel like Billy
Connolly, but he used to always come back to his theme..

Best wishes to All,

Gary.

- -----------------------------------------------------
http://www.tanjungrhu.com.my - "Heaven on Earth"
- -----------------------------------------------------
Enterprise Solutions
WebMaster & Information Architect :)
- -----------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 22:53:53 +0800
From: Gary Sweeting <gary@neuronet.com.my>
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Text

Thanks Ashley,

I read the http://style.webreview.com/ a while back, but didn't realise
they'd made so many changes.

Thanks also for the info on WEFT. I found a good page on Microsoft's site @
http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/sdk/inetsdk/help/dhtml/content/font_embed.htm

>I have tried to use Truedoc before for our intranet but had no luck in
>getting it to work. In fact it crashed every browser except for the
>X-Windows platform where it just failed to render. But as I have been
>tasked with making it work, I figure I will have to try it again.

For Intranets - I would definitely perservere, it is a joy to work on
projects when you know the precise limitations.

Gary.

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

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 10:14:44 -0500
From: Shelby <srogers@worldweb.net>
Subject: a cool trick

Well, ok, maybe everyone here already knows about this trick, but I thought
it was a good way to get around problems with frames.

A site I work on at <http://www.bluechippubs.com> (and Steve, I didn't pick
the URL ;-) has a nav frame on the left.

Not that I really think the site needs a nav frame, but hey, I didn't even
concept this site, I just inherited it. And when I did, it had been
FrontPaged, and a lot of the nav just didn't make sense (still doesn't, but
I haven't got time for the pain, as Carly Simon once crooned). So I went in
to try to make sense of it while deleting all the superfluous crap that
FrontPage stuck in. oi!

Oh yeah, the trick. While doing this, I found out that the nav frame is
actually a background. What the designer did was create a transparent,
basically spacer gif that was a wee bit smaller than the navigation images.
She stuck those in as links, and they just sit there on top of this
background as links to all the appropriate pages.

It avoids the creation of an imagemap (which I avoid at all costs, usually
- -- they're unnecessary most of the time), fixes frame alignment problems,
gets rid of those nasty, unwanted scroll bars that you sometimes
get....anyway, I thought it was a cool trick.

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: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 11:06:56 -0500
From: Dave MacLeay <dave@digitalfrontier.com>
Subject: Re: horizontal scrolling

At 10:09 PM 12/19/97 -0800, Chuck West 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?

Since one of my pages (http://www.colby.edu/colby.mag/issues/86n3/africa/)
has gotten a bit of attention on this topic, I thought I'd share a some
experiences from that project:

Trying to make text work in a multi-column horizontal layout requires a lot
of kludgy tricks. In this case, I had to keep all of the text blocks
roughly even in size, making sure that the text stayed in the sky and the
animals stayed on the ground. I used JavaScript platform detection to
write <big> tags for Mac users and <small> for Windows, which results in
type rendering about the same size in relation to the images on both
platforms. Of course, this doesn't work if a user has changed their default
font size, so I made it redundant by adding CSS font sizes (10pt Win, 14pt
Mac) to nail it down for those with 4.0 browsers.

One problem that should be considered in any horizontal design is cueing
the user to use the horizontal scroll bar, a decidedly unnatural act for
most. In this case I made the columns of text 380 pixels wide, which gives
most users a column and a half or so of visable text. Once they have read
the first column, the second column is available for the user to keep
reading, but forces scrolling to see the entire line of text. It's kind of
brutish, but it acts as an effective cue. More subtly, most of the animals
are walking to the right, hopefully inviting the user to do the same.

>From my experience, it is much easier to implement a horizontal scrolling
page if it relies on images rather that large blocks of text. There are
just too many variables involved when trying to lay out columnar text. I
thought CSS was the answer, but if it is breaking IE4 Win95, then I may
have to rethink that.

As Chuck said in his original question on this topic, designing for
horizontal scrolling certainly requires stepping out of your comfort zone,
but it is an interesting challenge.

- -Dave

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

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 16:24:04 +0100
From: "David P. Leader" <d.leader@bio.gla.ac.uk>
Subject: Single pixel gif trick and IE

Help! I'm almost ready to mount a web site for my ski club (OK, from small
acorns...) and I check it out on a range of Netscape versions on Mac and PC
- - a bit dark on the PC, but more or less as expected. The I try IE3 and IE4
(Mac) and horror of horrors, my first attempt at using invisible single
pixels for leading has led to em-space sized gaps in the text. Can anyone
tell me if this is a known problem with IE or is it just platform-specific
(can't find a pc running IE) - or am I doing something wrong?

The site is mounted temporarily on a server in my office if anyone
wishes/is willing to look at it:

http://www.biochem.gla.ac.uk/GSC_Site/Index.html

The single pixel leading is in the text to the left of the title pic for
each frame page.

Thanks in advance and Season's Greetings to all.

David Leader

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

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 18:49:27 -0800
From: "@.@.mmmmm" <adelski@instinct.net>
Subject: Re:horisontal scrolling

Hi all ,
Here's one more cool example of horisontal
scrolling . .
http://members.tripod.com/~adelski/
It's so simple, no complications, yet so elegant
in my openion.
It also has a kind of picture gallery -
thumb-nailed - more practical, eh ?

Merry Xams & a Joyful new year to every one.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ADEL |||||||||||||

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

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 12:15:58 -0500
From: Gene Lewis <gene@digitalpulp.com>
Subject: Re: horis(Z!)ontal scrolling

Adel,

Although I can appreciate your need to illuminate us with your insight
and opinions, I have a hard time understanding why you have to promote
your own site. When suggesting that we take a look at a sight whose
navigation is "so simple, no(t) complicat(ed), yet so elegant", you
should probably mention that you were the driving creative force behind
it.

- -Gene

- --
Gene Lewis.........................Digital Pulp Inc.
gene@digitalpulp.com...............220 East 23rd Street
•vox:: 212.679.0676 x225...........Suite 1007
•fax:: 212.679.0463................New York, N.Y. 10010

_____w w w . d i g i t a l p u l p . c o m______
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 12:38:05 -0500
From: "Kushal Dutt" <kushal@nyct.net>
Subject: Re: Single pixel gif trick and IE

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

- ------=_NextPart_000_0060_01BD0ED6.735FF2A0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

It looks exactly the same on both Netscape and IE 4.0 on the PC. (But =
what do you expect on the MAC anyway!?)

Kushal Dutt=20
http://www.nyct.net/~kushal/=20
Where the Internet is a way of life=20
- -----Original Message-----
From: David P. Leader <d.leader@bio.gla.ac.uk>
To: babble@highfive.com <babble@highfive.com>
Date: Monday, December 22, 1997 12:10 PM
Subject: Single pixel gif trick and IE
=20
=20
Help! I'm almost ready to mount a web site for my ski club (OK, from =
small
acorns...) and I check it out on a range of Netscape versions on Mac =
and PC
- a bit dark on the PC, but more or less as expected. The I try IE3 =
and IE4
(Mac) and horror of horrors, my first attempt at using invisible =
single
pixels for leading has led to em-space sized gaps in the text. Can =
anyone
tell me if this is a known problem with IE or is it just =
platform-specific
(can't find a pc running IE) - or am I doing something wrong?
=20
The site is mounted temporarily on a server in my office if anyone
wishes/is willing to look at it:
=20
http://www.biochem.gla.ac.uk/GSC_Site/Index.html
=20
The single pixel leading is in the text to the left of the title pic =
for
each frame page.
=20
Thanks in advance and Season's Greetings to all.
=20
David Leader
=20
=20
=20
--------------------------------------------------
| Dr David P. Leader |
| Division of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,|
| Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences |
| University of Glasgow, |
| Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK. |
| |
| Tel: +44 (0)141 330 5905 |
| Fax: +44 (0)141 330 4620 |
| http://www.biochem.gla.ac.uk/BMB.html |
--------------------------------------------------
=20
=20
..H5 Babble Design List Info: http://www.highfive.com/h5/babble.html
..To unsubscribe, send the following one line to =
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."unsubscribe (babble or babble-digest) (e-mail address)"

End of babble-digest V1 #92
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