help (not related to skins)

[dam]

I finally started redesigning my site.I have a problem though.What resolution should i optimise it for.I hear that people still use 800 x 600
I use 1024 x 768


Weird : I tried posting a poll.The page never showed up.So forget the poll.

[simon snowflake]

just add borders, and design the center as if its on 800x600 and it will work ok and still look good in higher resolutions.

[Atmo]

I'd say design it to fit an 800x600 window but design the graphics so it can stretch to a larger window if need be.

I've designed my new site and gsx is coding it with that in mind.

[dam]

Mind explaining that with a lil more detail.Or do I have to wait for gsx.

[Atmo]

gsx could explain it far better than i could. Im still learning.

Just to put it simply, if you design your site so it has areas that can be tiled (like the playlist in a skin) you can set up the tables so certain pictures can be tiled and allow it to stretch to fit the browser window.

[dam]

Ok.Ill try.

[BlueBalls]

go go my site, mine stretches, thats what he means, the background on mine gets a bit bigger evenly on both sides

[skinme!]

That's a damn nice site you got there BlueBalls. And it loads really quickly, considering its graphics intensive.

[gsx]

hello

Not too hard. Heres the deal. Just make a site in PS, or PSP, or Paint or whatever you like. Then cut it up into pieces.
These pieces should then be fit together perfectly using tables as a backbones, or cage for your graphics.
I dont recomend using COLSPAN or ROWSPAN tags, but rather make tables within tables. Its easier to work with the code and debug that way.
To 'tile' as atmo said, simply make a table with your graphics, and set the height/width of the cells with graphics in them to 1, this means they will fit perfectly arround the graphics with no spacing.
now make a graphic which you would like tiled. Set the cells width to the width of the graphic, and put this code to tile it:

code:
<TD WIDTH="100" BACKGROUND="backgroundgraphic.jpg">

the background tag make the image 'backgroundgraphic.jpg' tile across the cell. You might also define the cells hight depending on how high u want it to be. use HEIGHT="100%" if you want it to fill up all the space.
This also saves loading time, so if you have any areas with a large graphic thats repeatring itself, its great to use this technique.
PM, or preferably email me if you have any more questions.. i dont think i explained that too well.

NOTE:

If you dont want spacing between ur images, be sure not to put any spaces in your html. aka:

code:


  <TD><IMG SRC="pic.gif"> </TD>

</TR>

<TR>

  <TD><IMG SRC="pic2.gif"></TD>

will cause a space between pic1 and pic2, you dont want this if they are on top of each other.
To fix the problem remove the space after the pic img tag.

Enjoy. Hope this isnt too long... sorry

[edit] be sure to set the table's cellpadding and cellspacing values to 0[/edit]

[PeaceMaker]

also set the frame border to zero <frame border="0">

but i suppose this should be done in the frameset though.

[dam]

Thanx guys.

[skinme!]

ewww... frames. yuk.

Anyway, CSS is the way to go... but maybe that's a little to advanced for beginners. In my new site design, the CSS code is longer than the HTML.

[J_Bloggs]

Yeah CSS is cool, better than tables and frames (espeally tables)YUK.

[marc falk]

i made <plug>mine</plug> look vaguely decent at everything from 800x600 to 1600x1200 by horizonally centering to text into a table, and vertically centering it inside the table...

fsnl
sparky

eo: John Digweed live from Twilo 99 05 16

[gsx]

Originally posted by J_Bloggs
Yeah CSS is cool, better than tables and frames (espeally tables)YUK.

I use CSS and tables, and count live without either...

[PeaceMaker]

ur links do work there gsx

[gsx]

Originally posted by PeaceMaker
ur links do work there gsx

my wha?

[buddy139913]

Okay, just wondering, why do so many people hate frames? Whats wrong with them? When there are on or two, there's nothing wrong with them, but I can see a problem with 3+. Basically, WHY DO PEOPLE HATE FRAMES?

[TrueInsanity]

I dont see why people dont like frames i have worked and used them for a long time and find they are more surfer friendly IE not having to reload the menu and logo/banner everytime thay change page, there are bad points like when someone links your site and it opens in side there frameset or thay use to meny and make the useable area smaller more than ever at 800 X 600 res

[binary hero]

well, the given excuse is that really old browsers don't support frames, but i just think you can do so much more with a table, for example, if you want a navbar at the top, a shoutbox at the side, reletad links at the bottom, text in the middle and a picture of your dog on the other side, doing that with frames could be a right bitch...so use a table.

plus frames tend to make pages look outdated (yeah! we will have red/green text on a black background too...)

[J_Bloggs]

Every HTML tag has a purpose, it just depends on how you use them and personal choice. Compatiblity comes into it as well. Search engines don't like frames, thats why some people have splash screens.

[Nini]

Originally posted by BlueBalls
go go my site, mine stretches, thats what he means, the background on mine gets a bit bigger evenly on both sides

there are some rollover images missing for me,btw

I love frames, hehe
My new site is using them extensively for the reason that i like to be in control of the scrollbars and the header loads only once.

<reminder>Hey marc, you have still "false" ring code </reminder>

[TrueInsanity]

i love frames they let me use high graphic interfaces with out having to reload the menu every time and allows me to use rollovers direct from my graphics prog

[hinata]

just have it 800X600

[buddy139913]

Wow, I'm happy there are so many people out there who like frames like me! Woo-hoo! I would use them on my websites, but unfortunately, I can't afford domain names, or wespace, so I gotta use the free website hosters who make it darn near impossible to have frames. Wow, that was a long sentance.

[skinme!]

From a user's point of view, frames are bad because they're not indexed properly by search engines, incorrect linking and design can lead to you be isolated from a navbar and Netscape doesn't always handle them properly.

From a designer's point of view, frames don't index properly in search engines and personally, I don't like the way the page scrolls when you have a navbar in a frame above it (ie. it just seems to disappear at the top.

IFRAMEs seem to be all the rage at the moment. They carry the same problems as FRAMEs with search engines, but personally, I like how they can be placed on a page with scrolling.

However, I think the argument for not having to reload graphics is false. Unless through META tags you specifically tell the UA not to add graphics to its cache (and even this order isn't usually followed), most users will find that images do get cached and thus not downloaded twice but rather loaded from the hard disk.

As for TABLES vs CSS, I do not think this is a good argument. I do not like the line the w3c is taking. I think CSS complements tables and should not replace it, as they would wish. Absolute positioning is tricky and even less reliable on different resolutions than tables. The argument for more disabled-friendly is a blunt one. If a page contains information useful to a blind person, which would not be the case with a site showcasing a skinner's skins, a link to a text online page is a far better idea than forcing that site to be aural-UA (what would you call them??) compatible.

I do not like their line that FONT tags are evil and that we should all use H1-H6 to deliminate headings and stages of text. That is all fine and good for informative webpages and only so because of the advent of CSS. I think that forcing people to change their focus will never happen so long as the main focus for the WWW is on visual UAs.

Also, I think the line taken against the scrollbar property of IE by the w3c is also pretty pathetic. They make out that such non-standard code is akin to a major crime. I think that non-standard code which would be used in actual setting out of the page and would encourage browser-specific coding should be viewed in such a manor but such code as the scrollbar-color CSS code does no damage - it degrades perfectly in non-IE browsers (they just ignore it).

In conclusion, I think that in the majority of cases TABLEs can take the job of FRAMEs and improve the site. I welcome CSS as a companion to HTML but think that the w3c is becoming less-in-touch with what designers and users want. Such silliness as their hatred of IE's scrollbar-color code and their desire for CSS to do everything, making HTML largely redundant is affecting their reputation and the development of webtech as a whole.

[Jellby]

Was it skinme or dbleja?

[gsx]

thats the first long thread i have read on this forum. I fully agree with you. I like CSS for its form tag manipulation, and i also use CSS to format my text.
I stick to tables when it comes to formating images into a design tho. I understand it this way better.
I guess the reason i dont like frames is cuz its hard to link everything together, and i dislike when the scroll bar comes up in one of the header or menu frames.
These are just my views, but il finish it off by saying html should not be completely wiped out, but as skinme said, CSS and html should be integrated to make the best out of it for the designer, viewer, and browser.