Web Design: Would you design a PDF by writing Postscript in Notepad?

[Ed Seedhouse]

"markup language" is not the same as "page description language".

HTML markup doesn't specify *how* information is to be displayed, but
the relationships between information components.

Since when is [strong] a "relationship between information
components"?!?!? It's telling the browser that the following text
shoulld be rendered in bold until it finds a corresponding [/strong]
tag.

No it is not. A <strong></strong> element tells the browser that the
text within it is to be given a "strong emphasis". How this is done is
up to the browser and modifiable with CSS without affecting the semantic
meaingn of the element.

A <b></b> element is presentational, telling the browser to render in
bold face, and that is why it is depreciated in new versions of html in
favour of the semantic <strong></strong>. The fact that most browsers
display strong text in boldface is entirely beside the point. "Bold"
has little meaning to a speaking browser, while "strong" still has it's
original meaning.

HTML code simply tells a browser how to render a page on-screen.

No it doesn't, not in it's modern form. It tells the browser the
meaning or structure of the content, and says nothing at all about how
this is to be presented. That's what CSS is for.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

Give them credit that unlike MS they actually use their software to built
their site!

Whose software do Microsoft use to build their site?

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Geek of ~ HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python*/Apache/Linux

* = I'm getting there!

 

[Andy Dingley]

But the fact remains that the website, whether one likes it or not, displays
in every browser tested, six of them, *exactly* as intended.

That's not even a web page, it's just a picture of a web page.

It fails in one of the most important user-agents of all, Googlebot.
It's totally inaccessible for anything or anyone who isn't happy with
a pure-image fixed-size rendition. You don't even show the title or
credits banner in text, just as an image!

If the results
are as wanted, why should I be concerned about the underlying code structure

You haven't even seen the results (or ever will). You've seen one
possible result, for one possible user. If you try hard, you might see
a handful more. You've still not seen how I see it, or how the guy in
another thread with VT100-only access sees it. That's why it's
important to understand the underlying principles and technology, and
to work at that level (or with a tool that works at that level).


Pretty soon you'll probably switch to the logical fallacy of proof by
example.

"It doesn't matter if images are sized in pixels"
"This website is about images"
"This website works fine in pixel sizes"

which leads to the erroneous generalisation

"All websites can be sized in pixels"

[responding to my giving a reference to a site produced with Freeway Pro that
passed "strict" validation]

You should fix up the mis-use of <a> name and id attributes though.

 

[Bergamot]

To me, and apparently there
is much disagreement here, the better solution is uniform magnification
and/or reduction of the entire page.

Spoken like a true dee-ziner.

Real people don't need or care about page zoom, text zoom is plenty
sufficient. If your layout falls apart as a result, then it's a flawed
design.

 

[TaliesinSoft]

TaliesinSoft wrote:


Whose software do Microsoft use to build their site?

Although I commented on the Microsoft site I was not the person who posted
the original assertion. I haven't the foggiest what Microsoft may have used
to develop their site.

 

[TaliesinSoft]

Here's how it looks in my web browser:

http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/jamesleoryan

It that "exactly as intended"?

Obviously not! And just what browser are you using?

 

[Bergamot]

Not at all. For one thing, a simple form of this is just scrolling,
moving an small viewport around a larger virtual canvas. This needs
manual intervention and it's annoying.

This is pretty much how Flash zoom works (when it works at all), and
it's one of the most user-unfriendly things I've ever had to suffer.

 

[TaliesinSoft]

[commenting in regards to my Ansel Adams website]

You haven't even seen the results (or ever will). You've seen one possible
result, for one possible user. If you try hard, you might see a handful more.

You've still not seen how I see it, or how the guy in another thread with
VT100-only access sees it. That's why it's important to understand the
underlying principles and technology, and to work at that level (or with a
tool that works at that level).

I've watched as quite a few different persons, some using Macs, some using
PCs, viewed the site via a broad variety of browsers and in every case the
display was exactly as intended. The site is a pictorial site and therefore
totally inappropriate for viewing via a text only browser. I suppose I could
put in a disclaimer to that effect.

 

[TaliesinSoft]

[commenting in regards to the Ansel Adams website, a link to which I posted
earlier]

You should fix up the mis-use of <a> name and id attributes though.

Could you elaborate here? I'd appreciate it.

 

[Andy Dingley]

The site is a pictorial site and therefore
totally inappropriate for viewing via a text only browser.

Told you!

"Pretty soon you'll probably switch to the logical fallacy
of proof by example."

 

[Bergamot]

This is beautiful in the Adams-like clarity of its demonstration of
cluelessness.

Take a look with stylesheets disabled.

 

[William Mitchell]

Obviously not! And just what browser are you using?

In fairness, it's not entirely reasonable to expect something which is
nothing but a collection of pictures to look like anything useful in a text
browser.

 

[the red dot]

pencil.

Nope. The Russians didn't use pencils. Have you ever got a bit of pencil
in your eye? I can tell you that it isn't very nice. Now try writing in
zero-gravity with bits of graphite breaking off and floating around. A
nightmare to say the least.

The Russians used good-old-fashioned ballpoint pens, which work fine in
zero-gravity as they only rely on the flow of ink, which will occur
regardless of which way you hold a pen in space. Which is the opposite
of what happens on Earth, ie. hold the pen upside-down and gravity will
cause the ink to stop flowing. No gravity == no problem.

jeez i feel like a right idiot now. thanks for putting me in my place.

 

[TaliesinSoft]

Take a look with stylesheets disabled.

Now being dumb, how do I view the site with stylesheets disabled?

 

[Tom Stiller]

Here is the result of validation of a Freeway Pro produced website.....

This Page Is Valid HTML 4.01 Strict!

In Freeway Pro one can choose whether the generated code will conform to
transitional or strict.

The website can be found at

<http://homepage.mac.com/taliesinsoft/Adams/>

The validator can be found at

<http://validator.w3.org/>

Curious, when displayed with FireFox i see the string "FreeCounter" in
the upper left-hand corner, but nothing when displayed with Safari.

I use WebPics to produce this type of photo site. I think it produces
faster loading code.

 

[TaliesinSoft]

Curious, when displayed with FireFox i see the string "FreeCounter" in the
upper left-hand corner, but nothing when displayed with Safari.

I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.1 on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4.8 and I don't
see the "FreeCounter" in the upper left-hand corner. The FreeCounter is a
facility provided with Freeway Pro that documents visits to the site.

I use WebPics to produce this type of photo site. I think it produces faster

loading code.

I have no experience with WebPics. Freeway Pro, when the site is
published/uploaded, will take actions to minimize the size of an included
picture. That aside, all of the pictures on the Ansel Adams site have been
pre-sized in Photoshop prior to their inclusion in the site.

 

[Andy Dingley]

In fairness, it's not entirely reasonable to expect something which is
nothing but a collection of pictures to look like anything useful in a text
browser.

Why ever not! It should look like a list of pictures.

 

[Tom Stiller]

In fairness, it's not entirely reasonable to expect something which is
nothing but a collection of pictures to look like anything useful in a text
browser.

This might be the place for the "media" attribute of CSS. That way
there could be an appropriate description of the image content.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Could you elaborate here? I'd appreciate it.

You don't need the <a> elements at all. The id on the div is entirely
sufficient for the same purpose.

You've duplicated the values between <a name > and <div id > This is
permitted by the spec, but causes a problem with IE that treats them
both as the same namespace (details discussed a while ago).

You also have <a name="..." ></a> with empty element content. This was
a problem with older Operas. The spec says that there ought to be
content here.

 

[Tom Stiller]

I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.1 on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4.8 and I don't
see the "FreeCounter" in the upper left-hand corner. The FreeCounter is a
facility provided with Freeway Pro that documents visits to the site.

I'm using Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US;
rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1 on a 7-- MHz G3 iMac and I
see the string "FreeCounter" in the upper left-hand corner.

I have no experience with WebPics. Freeway Pro, when the site is
published/uploaded, will take actions to minimize the size of an included
picture. That aside, all of the pictures on the Ansel Adams site have been
pre-sized in Photoshop prior to their inclusion in the site.

WebPics will resize images according to specifications supplied at
creation time. An example can be seen at
<http://johnandjennswedding.com/jennsfamilypage.html>.