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

[Ed Mullen]

Do those enormous gloves allow the level of dexterity to hold a pen?

Perhaps they use crayons.

Not to mention that it's so cold out there that the ink would freeze,
probably even simply evaporate.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
Please, Lord, let me prove that winning the lottery won't spoil me.

 

[dorayme]

Hmmm, I guess you never had to shake down a fever thermometer. Maybe
the technique is lost on the younger generation.

I take that as a compliment on this fine sunny morning... It is
the violent shaking of anything in zero gravity that I do not
fancy, I have had some terrible experiences...

 

[dorayme]

Like anything else, skill with CSS takes time and practice. Anybody can
have this level of competence if they work at it. But it does take
effort. And patience.

You are basically flat wrong. I have seen the results of years
and years of practice and attention in many earthlings in many
fields and however admirable it all is, there is also a sad
element and no amount of sunny talk can remove it. The difference
between chess players, between pianists and between people in any
field is simply enormous and in practical terms irreducible.

At least on the planet I come from, we are all equally stupid and
happy. The cleaners take turns to lead the government, the
scientists do equal stints with a brush in the loo, why hell,
even the males stop fighting to look after the house and kids...
Now, there, your sunny optimism is fully realised. Time and
patience and effort.

 

[dorayme]

How does the ink *get* to the middle of the sleeve? Gravity? Not in space.

If it is half full, by inadvertent knocking and shaking. It is
absurd to have a device that one has to mollycoddle and at the
slightest random thing one needs to remember to do the
thermometer-shake. Try, with shaking dying hands, put the final
signature on a will just before some dhalek in an approaching
spacecraft is coming to capture you. Why won't anyone believe me:
the equation is no good.

 

[dorayme]

Biros tend not to come with an eraser -- that's pencils you're thinking
about again.

Yeah ok, it was the buttony bit I was thinking about and mis
typed. For you, you think as you type. I don't, I delegate to the
fingers and they sometimes stray. They will be getting the ruler
treatment soon ... that'll learn 'em.

[btw and I know this is a bit OT, the eraser on the end of most
pencils are hopeless quality. They smudge the numbers in a
Sudoku. Better to carry a separate stand alone eraser. best of
all of course is to use a biro and do it without mistakes or
helper numbers.]

It's fairly easy to shake a biro in an arc without a string. Hold it
right at the end (not the nib end), between your thumb and forefinger (if
Martians have fingers and thumbs) such that your fingers are perpendicular,
not parallel, to the length of the biro. Drip tightly, and vibrate your
thumb up and down slightly.

(PS: If you want to see how flickery a CRT screen is, hold the pen in
front of the screen while doing this.)

That is an interesting effect! Thanks for that. I will give you
one now: Get a little kid, from about 4 to 10 years of age is
about right, and tell them you will now turn a pencil or pen into
a rubbery bendy thing by magic word. They feel the pencil, yup,
it is rigid. You take it and say something absurd and then hold
it loosely (!important) towards one end between forefinger and
next and move hand vertically up and down. It appears to bend
quite smoothly.

 

[dorayme]

....
I recall that most/all of these display errors were those in which a
foreign font (non english usually) had been used.

If you go to the Menubar and use Edit/Decode as/ then choose Western
(Latin 1) it should display correctly, at least for us American English
users.

Or simpler, try control mouse press (or right click if you have
gone fancy mouse) and choose from the context menu...

 

[Tom Stiller]

I take that as a compliment on this fine sunny morning... It is
the violent shaking of anything in zero gravity that I do not
fancy, I have had some terrible experiences...

Ooo... do share them with us.

 

[THO]

Or simpler, try control mouse press (or right click if you have
gone fancy mouse) and choose from the context menu...

This is an honest question ... I have never encountered this type of
problem in any newsreader but MT so why can't MT do what other
newsreaders are doing and just display the message as simple plain text?

 

[dorayme]

This is an honest question ... I have never encountered this type of
problem in any newsreader but MT so why can't MT do what other
newsreaders are doing and just display the message as simple plain text?

I have little experience of other newsreaders and I have no idea
why except that it is a free newsreader and it is likely a
complex task to ensure that a preference does not give unexpected
results now and then. A survey of all the languages and formats
and whatever would need to be canvassed and translation
facilities implemented. Probably nothing trivial! As has been
pointed out a few times and as I have personally experienced,
this problem is very much reduced with the latest incarnation of
MT and used on Tiger. I assume you have looked at and set your
preferences as best as you can?

 

[the red dot]

If you like it, put it back in. You could make the highlight
color black, you could even style the border, so that then it
looks nice as one fingers the lovely things (it is part of a
tradition in B & W to often black border photographs). This then
makes one thing do two. Highlight and border it nicely. To simply
let it higlight in thin red is just plain silly imo, no matter
how priests go on about accessibility and uniformity and known
practice. Who the hell would not know that these are thumbnails
in your context. I will tell you who, Mr. and Mrs. Nobody, that's
who. So make it count for something more than almost useless.

are we always to produce websites for the lowest common denominator, are we
always to assume web users are idiots, is it wrong to assume that web users
have some sort of web surfing experience, if so is it wrong (for example) to
use words in the content that idiots would not understand or to produce
something that may be beyond the thought processes of an imbecile?

 

[Rick Brandt]

are we always to produce websites for the lowest common denominator,
are we always to assume web users are idiots, is it wrong to assume
that web users have some sort of web surfing experience, if so is it
wrong (for example) to use words in the content that idiots would not
understand or to produce something that may be beyond the thought
processes of an imbecile?

I would always assume that most users are idiots. I would also not hesitate in
the slightest to write, create, or orate right over their heads.

Catering to idiots just makes more of them. Besides, by not catering to them,
every once in a great while an idiot might come to the realization that he is an
idiot. That realization is a start on the road to improvement.

 

[the red dot]

Take a look with stylesheets disabled.

--

it gets worse, try viewing it with the monitor turned off.

 

[Ed Mullen]

Ooo... do share them with us.

I could be wrong but I think it may involve a planetfriend from Beta
Seven. And the term "shake down a fever thermometer" now begins to take
on a rather interesting meaning. Especially in zero gravity. (Ok, I
just amazed myself after reading that. Apparently I am being seduced by
this concept of aliens, thermometers, and lack of gravity.) HTML is
beginning to become much more interesting to me!

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
Just before someone gets nervous, do they experience cocoons in their
stomach?

 

[Helpful Harry]

The sound of the point going right over your head. )

Over _yours_ more like.

HTML tags are [...] they are a way to
tell a browser how to render a page on-screen.

Not for 10 years they haven't been.

Yep, so a browser makes it up as it goes along, completely ignoring
HTML tags ... that makes sence, NOT! (Except perhaps in the case of
Internet Explorer.)

Of course HTML tags tell the browser how to render a page. That's what
the HTML was designed to do. \

Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

 

[Ed Mullen]

The sound of the point going right over your head. )

Over _yours_ more like.

HTML tags are [...] they are a way to
tell a browser how to render a page on-screen.

Not for 10 years they haven't been.

Yep, so a browser makes it up as it goes along, completely ignoring
HTML tags ... that makes sence, NOT! (Except perhaps in the case of
Internet Explorer.)

Of course HTML tags tell the browser how to render a page. That's what
the HTML was designed to do. \

You're almost right but, no, you don't fully understand.

Look at it this way. Suppose you are setting out to create a browser
from scratch. You want it to be "standards compliant." You read the
standards. You find many parts that "suggest" how a particular HTML tag
is rendered. However, the standard does not "mandate" how that tag is
rendered. So. You could, for instance, design your browser to render
<blah> as suggested by the standard: Italic-Bold-Sans-Serif. Or not.
You might choose: Monospace-Big-Red. You would not be violating the
standard because the standard doesn't mandate how a browser renders <blah>.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
If I melted dry ice, could I swim in it and not get wet?

 

[Bergamot]

At least on the planet I come from

Sorry, but I just can't listen to anything you have to say when you
start this stuff. Maybe some find it amusing, but I'm not in that crowd.

 

[dorayme]

Sorry, but I just can't listen to anything you have to say when you
start this stuff. Maybe some find it amusing, but I'm not in that crowd.

What you say seems fair enough to me. I better go again, since I
have forgotten quite the context. I think you said that CSS takes
time and practice and that anyone can reach some reasonably high
levels if they work at it. And that it can be achieved with some
hard work.

Anyway, it is not a big deal, perhaps your view is useful. But it
gives to me a wrong impression in a world in which there is such
a genetic lottery. It is over optimistic to think this. While it
is true that a lot of improvement is possible in skills, a
reliable sense of touch is something that it is unrealistic to
expect from "anyone", I am pretty sure you used this phrase? Some
intelligent people who put in a lot of time and effort into piano
practice, eg, even after years and years, play quite clunkily.
True, practice over one piece can mask a lack of talent but this
is not what I am talking about when I refer to mastery. The
ability to adapt and hit sweet spots in coding of all sorts, in
skills of all sorts is not always achievable by effort alone. I
am not saying it is not a good thing to practice and improve,
especially if it is an activity someone enjoys, just that what
you said was over optimistic.

 

[Helpful Harry]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:11:10 +1300, Helpful Harry

The sound of the point going right over your head. )
Over _yours_ more like.

HTML tags are [...] they are a way to
tell a browser how to render a page on-screen.
Not for 10 years they haven't been.

Yep, so a browser makes it up as it goes along, completely ignoring
HTML tags ... that makes sence, NOT! (Except perhaps in the case of
Internet Explorer.)

Of course HTML tags tell the browser how to render a page. That's what
the HTML was designed to do. \

You're almost right but, no, you don't fully understand.

Look at it this way. Suppose you are setting out to create a browser
from scratch. You want it to be "standards compliant." You read the
standards. You find many parts that "suggest" how a particular HTML tag
is rendered. However, the standard does not "mandate" how that tag is
rendered. So. You could, for instance, design your browser to render
<blah> as suggested by the standard: Italic-Bold-Sans-Serif. Or not.
You might choose: Monospace-Big-Red. You would not be violating the
standard because the standard doesn't mandate how a browser renders <blah>.

Yes, I know different browser sometimes render tags differently, but
that's completely off the point.

The original person said Postscript defines a page while HTML defines a
"relationship between information component" - complete nonsense. Both
are designed to render a page, one on a printer (usually) and one on a
web browser.

Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

 

[G.T.]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:11:10 +1300, Helpful Harry

The sound of the point going right over your head. )
Over _yours_ more like.
HTML tags are [...] they are a way to
tell a browser how to render a page on-screen.
Not for 10 years they haven't been.

Yep, so a browser makes it up as it goes along, completely ignoring
HTML tags ... that makes sence, NOT! (Except perhaps in the case of
Internet Explorer.)

Of course HTML tags tell the browser how to render a page. That's what
the HTML was designed to do. \

You're almost right but, no, you don't fully understand.

That's for sure. I don't know if he's hairy or not, but he sure isn't
helpful. Maybe the nickname is meant to be ironic, like Curly's of The
Three Stooges.

Greg

 

[Ed Mullen]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:11:10 +1300, Helpful Harry

The sound of the point going right over your head. )
Over _yours_ more like.

HTML tags are [...] they are a way to
tell a browser how to render a page on-screen.
Not for 10 years they haven't been.
Yep, so a browser makes it up as it goes along, completely ignoring
HTML tags ... that makes sence, NOT! (Except perhaps in the case of
Internet Explorer.)

Of course HTML tags tell the browser how to render a page. That's what
the HTML was designed to do. \

You're almost right but, no, you don't fully understand.

Look at it this way. Suppose you are setting out to create a browser
from scratch. You want it to be "standards compliant." You read the
standards. You find many parts that "suggest" how a particular HTML tag
is rendered. However, the standard does not "mandate" how that tag is
rendered. So. You could, for instance, design your browser to render
<blah> as suggested by the standard: Italic-Bold-Sans-Serif. Or not.
You might choose: Monospace-Big-Red. You would not be violating the
standard because the standard doesn't mandate how a browser renders <blah>.

Yes, I know different browser sometimes render tags differently, but
that's completely off the point.

Not in context of what you said (see below).

The original person said Postscript defines a page while HTML defines a
"relationship between information component" - complete nonsense. Both
are designed to render a page, one on a printer (usually) and one on a
web browser.

I was prompted to respond not by the OP's statements but by yours,
vis-a-vis: "... so a browser makes it up as it goes along, completely
ignoring HTML tags ..." My remarks were in response to that statement,
nothing else. Browsers (at least well-designed ones) do NOT make up
anything as they go along. They look to the standard as a guideline
and, where possible, adhere to it. Where the standard is ambiguous
they, rightfully so, make a decision as to what will be "good (in the
minds of the designers)."

Your contention (or implication) that the standard is absolute is not
valid. The further statement that "... HTML tags tell the browser how to
render a page ..." is only partially true, and that's what I pointed
out: The HTML standard is ambiguous on many points, NOT mandating what
a compliant browser should do, only /suggesting/ a possibly preferred
method of rendering.

Life is messy. Sex is messy. So are Web standards. But they're all
kinda fun, eh?

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person; they'll find an
easier way to do it.