"It's about porting visual design intelligence out of 'design time' into runtime." -Todd Fahrner %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% David wrote: > Can one support the 'structural' claim > without resorting to labeling features like font, hr, color, as an > "ill-conceived mistake", which smells of ad hoc? It's perfectly obvious that elements like I, B, and TT are primarily visual, that they have a legitimate and historic role in hypertext markup, and that they are not deprecated in current specs (HTML 4.0). The HR element, though named for it most common visual rendering "horizontal rule," is a structural one, signifying a change of topic, especially where the customary topic-change elements (H1-H6) are absent. As for FONT, I (with many others) have long asserted that it is an "ill-conceived mistake"--indeed the whole concept "smells of ad-hoc"--fortunately this element is now deprecated in HTML, along with color attributes in many elements (you didn't specify which ones). They can be suggested, with less damage to accessibility, via style sheets, which lie outside the scope of HTML. [ See http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/font.html ] Warren Steel ---------------- > [ See http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/font.html ] Warren, please stop trying so hard to be autocratical, because you always come off clumsy in the attempt. Saying style sheets lie outside the scope of HTML is preposterously absurd. The fact is the whole purpose behind the development of style sheets was to revolutionize the DESIGN of web pages, mainly because of an appalling lack of decent "tools" within HTML itself to allow for what all purists dread; presentational and design capabilities. Of course us "designers" know aesthetics are and important part of the overall look of any well designed site. No, not just my radical idea; those bold thoughts come from Hakon Wium Lie, who along with Bret Bos created style sheets. I just paraphrased what he (Lie) said in the preface of his book titled apply enough, Cascading Style Sheets, designing for the Web: ISBN #0-201-41998-X. Which just shows once again, there are those that do know what they're talking about and the purist crowd that plays pretend. Enjoy your plain, bland and boring Warren. William G. Schlake --------------- "William G. Schlake" wrote: > > Warren, please stop trying so hard to be autocratical, because you > always come off clumsy in the attempt. Saying style sheets lie outside > the scope of HTML is preposterously absurd. No, it isn't. Stylesheets are intended to *work along with* HTML 4.0 to suggest the presentation of a Web document, but they are themselves in a different language than HTML. Thus, stylesheets are "outside the scope of HTML", though both stylesheets and HTML are within the broader scope of Web authoring (and, in fact, both have their own separate newsgroups, ciwah and ciwa.stylesheets). Similarly, JavaScript, Java applets, GIF and JPEG images, CGI scripts written in PERL, and many other kinds of things can work together with HTML as part of a Web site, but that doesn't make all of these things "HTML"; they each have their own formats, languages, and techniques. HTML contains some tags and attributes designed specifically to work with some of these types of objects, but the objects themselves aren't HTML. Daniel R. Tobias %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% David wrote: > (The >'wait till you see what Lynx and IE7 do to your site' arguments are not >very convincing. It is for those who have went through several browser versions (NN 0.9 -> NN 4.5) and several new browsers (Mosaic -> NN -> MSIE -> Opera) Tero Paananen %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Tero Paananen wrote: >Yahoo may not be all that graphicdesignwise, but as a website of its kind >it is most certainly very, very good. > >It is easy to navigate, loads fast and most often than not leads you >exactly where you wanted. > >All elements of good web design, wouldn't you agree? Search engines are not the place to display graphics and advertisements. The most important aspect in designing a successful website is understanding what the reader is there for. Search engines would do well to stay away from graphics all together. People are there to get information. The best search engine I have found so far is http://www.google.com. Nicole %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% On Mon, 28 Dec 1998 02:01:05 -0700, "Brandon Burt" wrote: -> ->It is important to remember our friends who use text browsers! It seems a ->good idea to at least glance at your HTML documents in Lynx if for no other ->reason than that it can make it easier to determine if the document's text ->content follows a logical structure without being overly dependent on ->graphical and presentational elements. -> ->-Brandon Burt -> -> A very good point! My local library uses text only browsers to avoid the porn issue. I leave the artistry to others and try to keep my pages simple and understandable. That doesn't mean I don't use graphics, I just try to concentrate on the content first. Just my $.02 worth. ><)> Haoleboy Aloha <(>< ---------------- Haoleboy Aloha wrote: > A very good point! My local library uses text only browsers to avoid the porn > issue. So text-only pornography is not a problem? Chris Gray %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (Jim) wrote: | Default browser text on a 1024 or 1200 pixel display is extremely | trying for me. I resize the window to be able to read it. And why was your viewing window too wide to begin with? Never mind. Perhaps worse than the Prisoner's Dilemma is obliviousness to the fact of being a Prisoner. Case closed. Arjun Ray -------------- > And why was your viewing window too wide to begin with? Since some people in these ongoing page-width discussions cited newspapers as an example of why fixed, narrow columns are the way to go, it is interesting to note that the New York Times' Web site, www.nytimes.com, does not hardcode any width on its individual articles; they are able to resize freely to as wide or as narrow a width as the user makes his/her window. In fact, the pages aren't within tables at all, so they can even be resized to a width narrower than the header graphic/imagemap without forcing the body text to scroll horizontally. (However, the front homepage of the Times site does have a fixed-width table. You have to go to individual articles to see the no-fixed-width style, and you must fill out a registration form to access the articles.) Daniel R. Tobias %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% I thought about start writing a script to insert HTML ABBRs and ACRONYMs in existing HTML files, by having the program look up a list of common abbrevations and acronyms (as well as my own) and their expansions, but first I figured I'll ask if someone already wrote such a script. So? Since I'm quite new to Perl (that I will use), it'll probably take me some time. If somebody wants to give a hand, it seems like my greatest difficulty now is to make sure I'm not inserting ABBRs inside HTML tags. I can't just remove them of course, which seems easy. If anybody knows a fast way (without having to go all the way through a parser), that would be great. Kjetil Kjernsmo ---------------- You *do* want to use HTML::Parser or one of its subclasses (possibly HTML::Filter) so you can be sure you're doing your substitutions on content rather than markup. It's not really that difficult, and trying to "hack parse" HTML is just asking for trouble, especially if the HTML isn't all written by you (there are plenty of perfectly legal, but non-obvious, HTML constructs that can throw you off). Eric Bohlman ---------------- Kjetil Kjernsmo wrote: > [...] > I thought about start writing a script to insert HTML ABBRs and > ACRONYMs in existing HTML files, by having the program look up a list > of common abbrevations and acronyms (as well as my own) and their > expansions, but first I figured I'll ask if someone already wrote such > a script. [...] I wrote a program that does mass replacements on files. It searches all levels under a given directory for files with the specified file extension. With the files that qualify, it searches for the desired string and replaces it with another. I developed it under Windows 3.1, but it should work under Win95, 98 and NT as well. It shouldn't be too hard to port to another OS; the only OS specific things I can think of are reading an .INI file, and some of the directory routines. > [...] it seems like my greatest difficulty now is to make sure I'm not > inserting ABBRs inside HTML tags. [...] Since I intended it for mass updates of HTML files, I did allow for a "safe zone" between 
 tags, but that's about it.

You can use the reply address on this post to request a copy.

--
Bill Donovan

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Michael K. Neylon wrote in message ...
>The fact is, most of the goals of the so-called purist camp is to make
>sure that the web continues to expand as a multimedia system with
>creativity and information in both design and content, but with the
>emphasis of "write once, run in any browser" web pages - which does mean
>adhensence to established HTML specs (by both browser makers and web page
>designers), separating presentation and content with established methods
>(CSS), and providing alternate means of getting non-textual medium, if
>possible.  I certainly wouldn't call these goals arrogent - if this
>happened with all web pages and browsers everywhere, the world
>wide web would be a better place.


Certainly more valuable, because more useful. I'm becoming convinced that
the web will simply divide itself into two realms: one set of documents
containing useful information and valid HTML, and another set of documents
that look pretty in a certain version of some browser or other. The first
group is the one that will be most readily adapted for use by those pocket
agent/information appliances that are supposed to become ubiquitous in the
next five years. The second set of documents will mainly be for the benefit
of people who still think the web is going to fulfill their childhood
fantasies of having their own television shows.

-Brandon Burt

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

John Andersen wrote:
> > Please tell me by what magic  is usefully renderable on
> > a TV screen with a usable width of 560 pixels,
>
> It isn't.

Well that's a start.  This means that no-one using a WebTV can read it.
I admit that's a small market at the moment, but I'm looking at the
future, I make no bones about it.

Want to see another piece of the HTML-on-TV future? - try a hotel
Interactive TV system serving 600,000 rooms:

  http://www.lodgenet.com/lne/internet.html

Can you really afford to ignore all those high-value customers?

> > or a cell-phone with a usable width of 40 text characters.
>
> Paul, when did you last make contact with Planet Earth?

Never been there.  Is it nice?  Do they have Nokia Communicators?

> My point is there would be no need to "artificially" limit the width
> (linelength) if "screenresolutions still were limited to 640x480".

True.  Given that resolutions aren't (and never were) limited to that
width, then, is there a need to artificially limit the width?  (Sorry,
couldn't resist a bit of logic)

We're back to the old argument about whether users are capable of
resizing their browsers to a comfortable reading width.  Of course,
nobody knows because designers won't let them try.  We can go round this
for ever.  What I do know is it doesn't work on TV.

> > 1) Browser stats can be skewed in the presence of caching proxies
>
> Slightly skewed......

Yes, fair enough.  I'm hatching a theory that they suppress minor
browsers, but I have to think about it a bit more.  Perhaps I'll have
time on the trip back to Planet Zog.

> > 2) What is 'real value'?
>
> For professional design firms (and their clients) "real value" is money.

Does the client _really_ want a design which may not be viable in a
year's time and may prevent some customers reaching it?  Perhaps if (as
someone else suggested), you thought of yourselves as architects
producing long term solutions it would be different?  I'm interested,
because this is obviously where this whole issue arises from.

> ...
> I used the word "trade-off" and I'm quite sure you know the meaning of
> that word.

Yes, everything is a cost-benefit analysis, I understand that.  I'm just
trying to point out some of the costs of non-portability.

> ...
> Professional design firms use NS and IE as validators.

:-)

> ...
> True, but Interactive TV is a *LOT LOT LOT MORE* than just HTML-on-TV.

Don't worry, I know that.  This browser is just a small part of the
project.

> Why do _you_ think "everyone in the industry agrees it's essential"?

Because they think they can make money from it.  We're all the same,
really.

> Microsoft owned WebTV have been available for some time now. I wouldn't
> call 325 000 subscribers a success. Seems like most people prefer to buy
> a versatile $700 PC. Now, why would I want a low-res monitor hooked up to
> a high-speed network?

This is because, as you say, Interactive TV is far more than this.
WebTV isn't really convergence - it's just slightly downmarket Web.  I'm
talking about total integration.  Nevertheless, the TV will still be the
final delivery point, because it's what most people are used to.
Remember my point about lack of computer literacy?

> > The question should be reversed - what market research have you, as a
> > 'professional designer', done about the future directions of Web-enabled
> > devices?
>
> None. I did say I'm a follower, didn't I?
>
> > As a professional, you could not, of course, design pages just for
> > the current base of browsers, could you?
>
> LOL, you bet I can !.

Well, thank you for your honesty, at least.

Cheers

P.
--
Paul Clark

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

William G. Schlake wrote:
>You remain clueless.
>
>Neither Netscape or Microsoft need to comply with any standards. Wise
>up and try to learn how the world works or continue to piss into the
>wind since that seems to be what you prefer.


Apparently, Netscape saw a clear enough business need to create a
standards-compliant browser that they trashed their Mosaic-spawn rendering
engine and replaced it with one that actually seems to work. I understand
they [have/had] a sizeable development team working on this open source
project. Pity they didn't have you around to save them the effort....

Of course, MS's version of standards-compliance does seem reminiscent of the
beast slouching toward Babylon .


Dan McGarry

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


>>>>> "OS" == Old Salt  writes:

OS>     Another person who doesn't know what PLONK means and things it
OS> some sort of cuss word.  Give be a break, or he is from AOL, that
OS> explains it.

We did have a long discussion on this on one of the Norwegian groups.
A lot of people claimed that certain people deserve no more than a
*plink*

*plonk* might make people believe they actually have some weight...


Ina Faye-Lund

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

BTW, I'm just imagining c.i.w.a.h of 2005:

"Look, you purists really get up my nose.  You want me to support all
these obsolete desktop browsers with huge resolutions, but f**k 'em.
99% of my hits are coming from GeckoTV, iTVBrowse and MobileExplorer!"

:-)


Paul Clark

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Edhex wrote in message ...
>> >   As for FONT markup, the more you try to "force"
>> >your presentation on your viewers using these ill-
>> >conceived and now-deprecated hacks,
>
>Deprecated=Hack???
>Yeah, Right.

Actually it's more like: "These ill-conceived hacks are now deprecated." So,
within the limited context of that statement:

Hack = Deprecated.

Which is logically correct.
--
Dan McGarry

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

>Deprecated=Hack???
>Yeah, Right.

Yes, indeed.  That is *why* they are deprecated.

Stanley Friesen

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

...

The problem is not with the browsers, it is with your decision to use Frames
at all.  They were the new great wonder, but there are more reasons not to
use Frames then there are reasons not to sleep with someone with a lot of
STD's


William M. Toohey

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I say, was that greyman@erols.com who wrote?
>Netscape 2 was a useful tool. MSIE 2 was an icon that was difficult to
>get off your Win95 desktop.)

ROFL!  That may be the most succinct description of MSIE 2 I've seen :>}

John Atchley

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

(Stanley Friesen [Contractor]) wrote:

>In article <76tlef$nme$1@remarQ.com>, REBUS  wrote:
>>That being said, perhaps he did not have his browser window maximized.
>
>That seems likely.  As a general rule, the higher the resolution, and the
>larger the monitor, the less likely it is that any given window is maximized.

The reason I saw scroll bars was because the web author used a fixed
font size (i.e., Font size=3) that was smaller than my browser's default
font (14pt) in a text string that was too wide to fit. When I reduced my
browser's default font size, or he went to a variable font-size spec,
the bars disappeared.

Your statement is, however, quite true. I, and everyone I know who
purchased a large monitor was so we could see multiple apps
concurrently.

Ed Jay

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

William G. Schlake wrote in message <36958982.945605@news.enteract.com>...

>I defined my parameters of a CIWAH purist many times. Apparently, I
>should add forgetfulness. ;o)
>
>A purist is always quick to pout;
>many people think them loud louts.


[etc...]

If you must describe 'purist parameters',
Kindly eschew these tortured quadrameters.

If (G*d forbid!) some e-zine recruits you,
They'd be quick to say rhyming couplets don't suit you.

There are better ways to express this trash
Than to dance on the grave of the great Ogden Nash.

--
Dan McGarry

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

On Mon, 04 Jan 1999 15:11:34 GMT,
johander@usa.net (John Andersen) wrote:
| On Wed, 06 Jan 1999 09:32:34 -0600, Warren Steel  wrote:

| > For information on interpreting web stats in the light
| > of large proxy caches, see
| > http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/docs/stats/
|
| Utterly clueless.

That's a candid admission, thank you. The clues may be easier to
absorb from here:

  


Arjun Ray

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

(John Andersen) wrote:
| On Thu, 07 Jan 1999 06:43:09 GMT, aray@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) wrote:

| > 
| >
|
| Oh boy, another halfwit.

What, another admission? Why so late?

| Are these HTML-purists totally incapable of absorbing any
| information

What information? Your impeccable sayso?

Looking back on this thread, it appears you're the one who brought up
"market research". Was that some sort of magic incantation? Did you
think the phrase by itself made a point? What "market research" do
*you* know of, apart from your preconceptions? As a self-confessed
follower, you dutifully osmoted them from elsewhere. Where?

"Market research" is basically about demographics. Take a look at the
lists here:

   

How many of the sources have you followed up on? Or, if you prefer to
to pay for your information, the pricier the tag the better, you could
have tried this:




Now, which of those did you buy, and how might you have known that you
hadn't shelled out money for a steaming pile?

Well, actually, that's an unfair question. Chances are you'd buy the
ones that said what you wanted to hear in the first place. Thomas
Gilovich's book "How We Know What Isn't So" has the details. See, e.g.

  
  
  

Even better, perhaps, is Gilovich's article in the Skeptical Inquirer,

March 97, "Some Systematic Biases in Everyday Judgment". See

  



The "Seek And Ye Shall Find" bias is particularly noteworthy.

For all the fussy concern with browser stats in this newsgroup, it's
amazing how few of the entities *actually involved in market research*
bother with such factoids more than incidentally. Check the summaries
in the CASIE listing, for example. If you'd actually paid attention to
market research -- instead of pretending to know what it would tell
you -- the reasons are pretty clear.

1. Browser stats are about browsers. Demographics are about *people*.
A "target audience" -- another magic incantation in this newsgroup to
bluff one's way past rigorous thinking -- consists of *people*, and
the relation between people and browsers is far from clear cut. All
but the most dyed-in-the-wool marketroid fluffpieces wind up citing
(or quoting) the GVU surveys for the "hard numbers" on this:

  

2. Server logs are *not* random samples. All purportedly "statistical"
conclusions based on them are utterly bogus. Take Statistics 101 for
the details.

"Designers need browser stats" is the credo of the clueless halfwit.

| ...shit, I'm wasting my time.

Actually, you've wasted everybody else's.


Arjun Ray

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


In article <36906734.29939820@news.alt.net>,
John Andersen  wrote:
>On Wed, 6 Jan 1999 01:01:38 +0100, "Alan J. Flavell" 
>wrote:

>> Considering how familiar you appear to be with WebTV, I doubt that
>> you're going to notice when they arrive. Does the term "cache proxy"
>> say anything to you, by the way?

>Are they going to mirror the entire WWW?

It's certainly technically feasible to do so, and if
someone does who is between you and whoever else, then
you may have users who never appear in your logs.
   I can't say if this is already happening, but I have
noticed an increase the last 6 months in log entries which
looks like they're from cache proxies, presumably for
use within specific providers; And if it pays for them to
do it, it might pay for someone else to mirror everything
on the WWW which passes through them. (I can also think of
strategies where it might be useful to prefetch objects
which haven't yet been requested by someone.)
--
 Urban Fredriksson

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

Urban Fredriksson wrote:

> (I can also think of
> strategies where it might be useful to prefetch objects
> which haven't yet been requested by someone.)

Good point, so that means that in addition to the readers that the
server never sees, there are going to be pre-fetch hits recorded by the
server even though nobody actually viewed them.

Server statistics and real readers are getting further apart all the
time!  I thought that Cranfield paper was over-stating the case, but
as time goes by...


Alan J. Flavell

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

>Server statistics and real readers are getting further apart all the
>time!

Yes indeed: I forgot to mention yesterday that some
proxies, like WebTV's and AOL's, uses different host names for
sequential hits (in order to spread the load I guess),
even though it's obvious it's the same user behind them.
--
 Urban Fredriksson

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

On 6 Jan 1999 16:17:34 GMT, p116711@cc.tut.fi (Tero Paananen) wrote:
| In <3690d95c.7284643@news.alt.net> johander@usa.net (John Andersen) writes:
|
| >> For information on interpreting web stats in the light
| >> of large proxy caches, see
| >> http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/docs/stats/
|
| >Utterly clueless.
|
| What an utterly convincing opinion.

But of course! It says things he doesn't like, therefore it's
obviously all wrong!


Arjun Ray

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Rock 13 wrote in message <369155A2.F45E0A3D@excite.com>...
>"www.Loracom.com" wrote:
>> We have a testing lab that includes Unix, Mac and PC clients.
>
>Can you make any suggestions to keep inconsistencies to a minimum?
>

That's a tough one...I'm certainly not an expert, but I'll take a stab at
it. ok?

I would summarize by saying:

1. Only stick with true HTML as defined on w3.org.  In other words stick
only to the standard, and pay close attention to what is deprecated.  Yes
it's some of the more boring stuff.

2. Be aware of default margins.  They can be different on each browser and
can through off alignment.

3. Be aware of the different fonts.  Stick with only the primary fonts.  Yes
I know it's boring, but if you want to ensure a similar look, you should.
If you conisder this risk low (which I would agree, then you can deviate)

4. Be aware of font sizing.  The various OS's and Browsers use different
sizes.  I'm not sure of the details (can someone help here?) but IE may use
a font +1 of 125% and Netscape uses 135%.  Again I'm making up the nbrs
becuase I don't remember, but the concept is true.

5.  ok this'll sound like a sales pitch, but I recommend the use of Java.
It's universally implemented becuase there is only one authority Sun...there
are not competing definitions.  Java allows for more control.  It also does
not work in Windows CE right now...so not all is grand.

6. Most users should be aware of the subtle differences.  Such as a size="1">
: >
: >Change it to:
: >
: >
Photos: