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From: dorayme on 5 May 2008 23:43
In article <brddYgxvE0gm-pn2-JDXiRdrX6hbo(a)localhost>,
"Dolores Park" <noone(a)nowhere.nothing> wrote:

> On Tue, 6 May 2008 01:50:22 UTC, TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft(a)mac.coom> wrote:
> > On Mon, 5 May 2008 19:19:40 -0500, Dolores Park wrote (in article
> > <brddYgxvE0gm-pn2-6I6Hd78kudeq(a)localhost>):
> >
> > > Your question (and the ensuing discussion) arises from an incorrect use
> > > of
> > > terminology.
> > >
> > The ECR site under discussion was implemented in Freeway Pro 5, a WYSIWYG
> > website implementation application produced by SoftPress, a British
> > company.
> > The Freeway tools and the Freeway documentation refer to those seven "menu
> > items" as "buttons".
> >
> > > So, to answer your question, there is an agreed upon standard for button
> > > behavior but only a generally accepted convention for links.
> >
> > So it looks like that there is unfortunately some disagreement in the
> > website development community over terminology.
>
> That company is free to document their product as they wish. If it is
> aimed at those who are not overly conversant with GUI concepts, it may
> serve their purposes to call these links "buttons" for the sake of
> simplicity. However, if you review the page source, you'll see that
> the menu items are substantially identical to the links you'd find on
> any webpage (i.e. they are all anchors, as indicated by the <a> tag).
> If you'd like a more comprehensive description of anchors and buttons,
> see the HTML 4.01 specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/), in
> particular chapters 12 & 17.
>
> BTW... this tool is rather dated in the way it format pages using
> tables & transparent GIFs. That was considered fine some years ago
> but is now deprecated in favor of using CSS to handle positioning.
>
> BTW2... why is all of the text rendered as GIFs? That technique is
> usually reserved for logos and other text that requires an uncommon
> type face. It's pretty unusual for text rendered in Times Roman or
> the like and can have a downside. If your cellphone has a browser
> be sure to check your page for readability on a small screen.

This is quite correct. It is a very bad idea to deliver text by pictures
because it does not cater for those who want their text bigger or in
their own chosen font.

--
dorayme
From: TaliesinSoft on 5 May 2008 23:45
On Mon, 5 May 2008 22:25:16 -0500, Dolores Park wrote
(in article <brddYgxvE0gm-pn2-JDXiRdrX6hbo(a)localhost>):

[continuing in our back and forth in this thread regarding my ECR website and
Freeway 5 Pro, the application used to develop the site]

> That company is free to document their product as they wish. If it is
> aimed at those who are not overly conversant with GUI concepts, it may
> serve their purposes to call these links "buttons" for the sake of
> simplicity. However, if you review the page source, you'll see that
> the menu items are substantially identical to the links you'd find on
> any webpage (i.e. they are all anchors, as indicated by the <a> tag).
> If you'd like a more comprehensive description of anchors and buttons,
> see the HTML 4.01 specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/), in
> particular chapters 12 & 17.

One of the advantages of Freeway 5 Pro, and to me a very important and big
advantage, is that it gives those of use who are not HTML geeks a way to
develop websites. Just as there are high level programming languages that
free one from the underlying nitty-gritty of the hardware there are programs
such as Freeway that free us from having to learn HTML and such.
Incidentally, I find it interesting that the W3C Markup Validation Service
shows that websites produced in Freeway tend to have far few errors than
sites produced by other means. For instance, all of the pages of the ECR site
pass 4.01 Strict except the home page which has two errors which result from
my including an action, not written by SoftPress the authors of Freeway,
which allows random selection of a graphic. Compare this to the results
obtained from such as the Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft websites.

> BTW... this tool is rather dated in the way it format pages using
> tables & transparent GIFs. That was considered fine some years ago
> but is now deprecated in favor of using CSS to handle positioning.

Again, I can't comment as I'm not versed in HTML and such.

> BTW2... why is all of the text rendered as GIFs? That technique is
> usually reserved for logos and other text that requires an uncommon
> type face. It's pretty unusual for text rendered in Times Roman or
> the like and can have a downside. If your cellphone has a browser
> be sure to check your page for readability on a small screen.

That the text is rendered as a GIF is my choice. This is a reaction to the
massive layout corruption that generally occurs when the text is rendered
otherwise and the receiver chooses to magnify the site. I guess I'm just not
a fan of so-called "liquid layout" and I think that there can be better
solutions for viewing when the screen area is limited, a good example being
the iPhone and iPod touch.

And....

Many thanks for participating in the discussion!



--
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft(a)mac.com

From: TaliesinSoft on 5 May 2008 23:55
On Mon, 5 May 2008 22:43:26 -0500, dorayme wrote
(in article <doraymeRidThis-894FAB.13432606052008(a)news-vip.optusnet.com.au>):
[joining in on this thread regarding website behavior]

> This is quite correct. It is a very bad idea to deliver text by pictures
> because it does not cater for those who want their text bigger or in
> their own chosen font.

On my Mac I can use the scroll wheel on the mouse or the touchpad on my
MacBook Pro while the Control key is pressed to magnify or reduce the size of
the website page I am viewing. This technique enlarges *everything* on the
page proportionately, to me a much better way than just enlarging the text
and shoving evrything else on the page hither, thither, and yon.

As an aside, the same underlying capability exists on both the iPhone and the
iPod touch with the two-fingered stretch or reduce action.

--
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft(a)mac.com

From: dorayme on 6 May 2008 01:10
In article <0001HW.C44540C5000B4A7BB01AD9AF(a)News.Individual.NET>,
TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft(a)mac.coom> wrote:

> On Mon, 5 May 2008 22:43:26 -0500, dorayme wrote
> (in article <doraymeRidThis-894FAB.13432606052008(a)news-vip.optusnet.com.au>):
> [joining in on this thread regarding website behavior]
>
> > This is quite correct. It is a very bad idea to deliver text by pictures
> > because it does not cater for those who want their text bigger or in
> > their own chosen font.
>
> On my Mac

Can I stop you right there? <g> A website is not *for* *your* *mac* so
this is quite irrelevant.

> I can use the scroll wheel on the mouse or the touchpad on my
> MacBook Pro while the Control key is pressed to magnify or reduce the size of
> the website page I am viewing. This technique enlarges *everything* on the
> page proportionately, to me a much better way than just enlarging the text
> and shoving evrything else on the page hither, thither, and yon.
>

When you see a webpage design breaking when the text is enlarged by the
user, you are seeing an incompetent webpage. You should not be taking
your lessons from such wepages. You are avoiding *this* fault by a worse
fault. I am confident that even the Freeway 5 developers would shake
their heads at such a lack of confidence in their product.

--
dorayme
From: dorayme on 6 May 2008 18:14
In article <0001HW.C445BD730028830FB01AD9AF(a)News.Individual.NET>,
TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft(a)mac.coom> wrote:

> Well I can only surmise then that the websites of such as Apple, Adobe, and
> Microsoft are, to use your word, "incompetent". As far as Freeway goes, I
> have the utmost confidence in their product. That I dislike the so-called
> "liquid lalyout" and the accompanying behavior has nothing to do with
> Freeway.

You hardly need a program like Freeway if you are just going to dump
pictures of text on to the page rather than proper html text. There is a
sense in which you are voting a no confidence in your program. Honestly
T, don't do this! Just trust on this if you cannot see what a terrible
practice it is.

As for Apple sites etc, the serious point is simple: in so far as pages
break up and become ugly and difficult to use for people who have
different eyesight to the designers, so far are they incompetent, yes.
There is no doubt about it. I have not looked at your cases because you
have not given specific URLs (and probably you should not as this is
likely to be too OT for most folk here...)

--
dorayme
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