On 6/4/10, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> wrote:
> See also this discussion I was once involved in:
> http://tinyurl.com/3ysen6d
> and in particular Alan J. Flavell's comment (number 12 in the tree).

This thread reminds me of another "bug" report I got a few months ago: "please use 980px fixed width, not fluid layout". Yeah, I did the fluid layout (which is the easier way to do it anyway!), which looks exactly like what they want on 980, AND scales up and down, and they insist that it be changed anyway.

Another ridiculous one was when the insisted on using html image maps for text yuck!), so the link's font matches exactly. Thankfully, he backed off that one.

It's incredible what people will do.

Stewart Gordon wrote:
> Adam Ruppe wrote:
>> On 5/31/10, "Jérôme M. Berger" <jeberger@free.fr> wrote:
>>> Pt is an absolute measure
>>> (there are exactly 72 points in an inch)
>>
>> Huh, I read somewhere that it wasn't defined on screen, but only for printers. I guess I was wrong - the measuring tape agrees with you. Though, it still comes out different on my Linux box than it does on the designer's Mac, leading to bug reports whenever I try it.  I really don't know why, but I've gotta deal with it somehow.
> <snip>
> 
> This is because an inch in the context of screen measurements doesn't correspond to an actual physical inch.  Rather, there is a setting somewhere in the OS that determines how many pixel side lengths constitute a logical inch (or centimetre or whatever).  On Windows, the factory default is 96dpi.  Other OSs might have different defaults.  In any case, it isn't right to work against this setting.
> 
	Yes and no. Most modern monitors include a small ROM that can be
read by the OS to get the monitor characteristics, including
definition (width and height in pixels) and dimensions (width and
height in centimeters) from which the resolution (dpi) can easily be
computed. I know Linux does it and I believe recent versions of
Windows (i.e at least from XP) do too.

		Jerome
-- 
mailto:jeberger@free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger@jabber.fr

Matthias Pleh wrote:
>> PS: btw, do you know browsershots? http://browsershots.org It allows you to see screenshots of how a web page looks on a wide variety of OSes and browsers (although of course you won't see the differences due to the screen that way).
> Hey, really cool site. But it seems, that my testpage was already tested.

	Uh, probably by me ;) sorry. It should be possible to re-test soon
(I don't remember how long you have to wait between tests unless you
create an account).

		Jerome
-- 
mailto:jeberger@free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger@jabber.fr

"Adam Ruppe" <destructionator@gmail.com> wrote in message news:mailman.107.1275674543.24349.digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com...
> On 6/4/10, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> See also this discussion I was once involved in:
>> http://tinyurl.com/3ysen6d
>> and in particular Alan J. Flavell's comment (number 12 in the tree).
>
> This thread reminds me of another "bug" report I got a few months ago: "please use 980px fixed width, not fluid layout". Yeah, I did the fluid layout (which is the easier way to do it anyway!), which looks exactly like what they want on 980, AND scales up and down, and they insist that it be changed anyway.
>
> Another ridiculous one was when the insisted on using html image maps for text yuck!), so the link's font matches exactly. Thankfully, he backed off that one.
>
> It's incredible what people will do.

An appropriate image: http://www.semitwist.com/download/fp2.jpg

The best types of people to work for are real experts and complete novices. Actual experts, obviously, becase they're (by definition) not idiots. And novices because they *know* that they don't know anything and would rather not give any thought to it anyway, so they leave you alone and trust your judgement. The worst people to work for are the tech enthusiasts: the ones that know just barely enough that they *think* they're capable of having a coherent opinion.

Adam Ruppe wrote:
> On 6/4/10, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> See also this discussion I was once involved in:
>> http://tinyurl.com/3ysen6d
>> and in particular Alan J. Flavell's comment (number 12 in the tree).
> 
> This thread reminds me of another "bug" report I got a few months ago:
> "please use 980px fixed width, not fluid layout". Yeah, I did the
> fluid layout (which is the easier way to do it anyway!), which looks
> exactly like what they want on 980, AND scales up and down, and they
> insist that it be changed anyway.

Do you ever manage to get reasons (or even excuses) out of your clients for their ridiculous requests?

That said....

One excuse I've heard for fixed-width layout is that very wide layouts are less comfortable to read.  But if that's the case, they can resize their browsers!  Like what I said about font sizes, people set their browsers to a width that is comfortable for them.

Others claim that some layouts just can't be made fluid.  But that's still no reason for a client to insist on it.  And I suspect that in the majority of cases the claim is due to the limit of the coder's skill, an attempt at making the design too complicated or some linear combination of the two.

But those who feel they must set a width can at least
* specify it in ems or some other relative unit
* set it as a max-width, so that nobody has to scroll horizontally as a result.

> Another ridiculous one was when the insisted on using html image maps
> for text yuck!), so the link's font matches exactly. Thankfully, he
> backed off that one.

Yes, people who gratuitously do text as images are another silly thing.  But really puzzlingly, some people can't for their lives set appropriate alt attributes even on such images as these.

Text links can actually look better these days, now that we have ClearType.  And now that we have CSS, there's plenty of room for their links to be customised.  When I took over
http://www.lrca.org.uk/
among the many improvements I made was to replace the image links in navigation columns with text links.  The backgrounds of these links are the same as they were.  This killed a few birds with one stone:
- looks nicer, at least with ClearType enabled
- zooms well
- don't have to create a new image every time I want to link to something new
- don't have to fiddle around with relative image links

FWIW I've just been reminded of this:
http://webtips.dan.info/wysiwyg.html#HallOfShame
(the entry is out of date with respect to the particular site, but still....)

Stewart.

On 2010-06-05 21:16:32 -0400, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> said:

> Yes, people who gratuitously do text as images are another silly thing.   But really puzzlingly, some people can't for their lives set appropriate alt attributes even on such images as these.

Speaking of text as image, having the top header in the new wiki4d layout be a background image with no "real" content in the HTML markup doesn't ring very well with me. Actually, having a <img> element with a proper alt="D programming lanuage" attribute instead would be better for those with stylesheet or images turned off, printed form (which often remove backgrounds including background images), screen readers, and search engines.


-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin@michelf.com
http://michelf.com/

On 6/5/10, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Do you ever manage to get reasons (or even excuses) out of your clients for their ridiculous requests?

The fixed width one most recently was so it would "look good on the iPad". Among older ones were wanting to use an elaborate background image (fairly legitimate, assuming you accept such images as being legitimate in the first place) and silly insistence that the columns look the same as the fixed width psd.

> But if that's the case, they can resize
> their browsers!

Amen. Sometimes I feel that I'm the only person who doesn't run his browser maximized. (In fact, I rarely maximize any individual window.)

> Others claim that some layouts just can't be made fluid.

The most annoying thing is the web is fluid by default - you have to fight it to make it fixed width! But, meh, people are stupid.

> * set it as a max-width, so that nobody has to scroll horizontally as a result.

This is the compromise solution I usually go with, unless specifically demanded not to.

> Yes, people who gratuitously do text as images are another silly thing.
>   But really puzzlingly, some people can't for their lives set
> appropriate alt attributes even on such images as these.

You know what annoys me? alt="image". Ugh. Or another bad one: alt="logo". gah, these people have obviously never browsed the web without images! Perhaps, worst of all, alt="left_rounded_corner". Ew!

> Text links can actually look better these days, now that we have ClearType.  And now that we have CSS, there's plenty of room for their links to be customised.

For my newest work site (the one rewritten in D from PHP actually), I went wild with the css. The design had image links all over the place. I replaced them with this:

<a class="button" icon="arrow" href="">Text</a>

The icon attribute there is rewritten on the server side to be an img right before the inner text. I used a custom attribute to make the code prettier.

Anyway, the css transforms that regular link into a button, with a gradient background, rounded corners, an icon, fluid width and height (height isn't ideal if it changes though, since the gradient is fixed height. But it uses a solid background color to still look pretty good), hover and active styles - it is really a beautiful result, with the one exception of the icon, which doesn't scale well, being an image.

But, best of all, it is easy to reskin without going back to the image editor! (I also use a small D cgi program to generate the gradients for me, because realistically, css gradients don't exist, so they are specified in the css too.)

I really like it.

> - don't have to create a new image every time I want to link to something new

That's the best advantage ever. Going to the image creators wastes huge time.

Adam Ruppe wrote:
> On 6/5/10, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> wrote:
<snip>
>> Others claim that some layouts just can't be made fluid.
> 
> The most annoying thing is the web is fluid by default - you have to
> fight it to make it fixed width! But, meh, people are stupid.

Taken the words out of my mouth there.  I once came across this:

http://www.wiltshirefarmfoods.com/accessibility.asp
"Wiltshire Farm Foods has worked hard to make this site as accessible to as many customers as possible, whether you have a disability or are simply not using the latest technology."

I guess this shows how content writers and coders are often not on the same wavelength.

I've a feeling I've come across a delusion that websites have to be explicitly programmed to make browers' built-in text size settings work.  But I'm not sure....

<snip>
> You know what annoys me? alt="image". Ugh. Or another bad one:
> alt="logo". gah, these people have obviously never browsed the web
> without images! Perhaps, worst of all, alt="left_rounded_corner". Ew!

Sometimes you even see images explicitly mislabelled as being purely decorative (alt="").  You may have noticed from the page I linked to before that this is one of the many things WebPlus likes to do of its own accord.

<snip>
> Anyway, the css transforms that regular link into a button, with a
> gradient background, rounded corners, an icon, fluid width and height
> (height isn't ideal if it changes though, since the gradient is fixed
> height.
<snip>

One possibility is to make the background image tall enough to allow for this.  Either do the gradient over the default height and pad it with solid colour, or use a sigmoid gradient.  But it would be better if only CSS provided a means to scale the background image....

Stewart.

"Stewart Gordon" <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:huj8co$odr$1@digitalmars.com...
>
> Taken the words out of my mouth there.  I once came across this:
>
> http://www.wiltshirefarmfoods.com/accessibility.asp
> "Wiltshire Farm Foods has worked hard to make this site as accessible to
> as many customers as possible, whether you have a disability or are simply
> not using the latest technology."
>

I absolutely love this part: "or are simply not using the latest technology." One of my [many] huge pet peeves about the web is how there's so many sites out there that feel it's their duty to try to push/shame/scare people into using the alleged "latest and greatest".

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Stewart Gordon" <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:huj8co$odr$1@digitalmars.com...
>> Taken the words out of my mouth there.  I once came across this:
>>
>> http://www.wiltshirefarmfoods.com/accessibility.asp
>> "Wiltshire Farm Foods has worked hard to make this site as accessible to as many customers as possible, whether you have a disability or are simply not using the latest technology."
>>
> 
> I absolutely love this part: "or are simply not using the latest technology."

Indeed, you could well ask how you can have to work hard not to use any of the ultra-modern features webmasters of the 90s had no trouble not using.

Though I suppose one challenge is remembering which features CSS had in those days.

> One of my [many] huge pet peeves about the web is how there's so many sites out there that feel it's their duty to try to push/shame/scare people into using the alleged "latest and greatest".

I know.  Apparently some makers of lesser-known browsers even feel it's their duty to try push/shame/scare people into using SOTA mass-market browsers instead of their own.  Go figure.
http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/intro.html
(Maybe I'll ask him if he has anything resembling a list of current examples....)

Stewart.