#72164
05/19/2001 4:41 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211
Master Hacker
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Master Hacker
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211 |
This was taken directly from my CHP newsletter. All credits go to Tim Donahue/CHP.
A recently located instruction manual, scrawled on a series of old Denny's napkins, and located in the backseat of Tim Berners-Lee's car for over 6 years has revealed the lost 10 Commandments of Web Design - now made public, exclusively at Coolhomepages.com!
Commandment 1: Thou shalt be clear about what the hell thou art presenting to the user. Unless your user is the Amazing Karnac. Commandment 2: Thou shalt design the site so that it's appropriate for your audience. Don't use a dark Tomb-Raider theme if you're an online shoe store or a financial service. Commandment 3: Thou shalt not use java applets unless Moses himself comes to your office and insists that you should. Commandment 4: Thou shalt not force a user to wait for a megabyte or more of Flash file downloading as the first thing they experience at your site. Commandment 5: Thou shalt make the more important parts of any given page layout more prominent than the less important parts of your page. Look at the newspaper. The front page headline is the biggest. There's a good-sized page 1 photo keeps the page from becoming a visual wasteland of black type. There are headlines above each story. There are sub-heads within some stories. The body copy is legible, but not too big or too small. The author bylines are small. There is a menu somewhere on the page telling you how to find movies, sports, etc. The page is organized in easy to understand columns. There's a reason why every major newspaper in the world adheres to these basic design principles. Don't make your web designs look like newspapers. That's not the point! If you don't get the point yet, wash, rinse, and repeat the preceding paragraph. Commandment 6: Thou shalt not use too many colors. Thou shalt attempt to learn something about color harmony. Commandment 7: Thou shalt kern thy bitmapped type unless thou wantest to be known simply as "Shmendric, the Village Design Idiot" Commandment 8: Thou shalt look at thy site on a variety of browsers. Just because you're on a PC using IE 5.5 doesn't mean your users are. You can't accommodate every browser config for sure, but it's horrifying how many site submissions we get that ONLY look good on a PC on IE 5.5. Commandment 9: Thou shalt make sure your images are clear, and free of those dreaded Mad-Cow disease causing jaggies. Jaggies are not hilarious on your site. On somebody else's site, jaggies may be hilarious -- but not on your site. Commandment 10: Thou shalt not be accused of Flash-love. It's habit forming and causes hairy palms and blindness. Everything in moderation grasshopper. Use Flash when it's appropriate.
[ May 19, 2001 04:41 PM: Message edited by: Matt Jacob ]
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#72165
05/19/2001 4:51 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 755
P.I.T.A. / Programmer
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P.I.T.A. / Programmer
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 755 |
Hmm, sitting in his car for 6 years? Thats a hell of a foreshadow, considering I don't even think IE 1.0 was out yet. And to think, the napkin FOUND right as IE 5.5 was the current browser!!!
"Annnnnnnndd now, opening for Iron Maiden...... WYLD STALLYNS!!!" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted "Theodore " Logan
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#72166
05/19/2001 5:02 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211
Master Hacker
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Master Hacker
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211 |
hehehe. hey, i don't write the articles, i just steal 'em and bring them here! but, maybe there was a secret beta of ie5.5 back in 1995?
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#72167
05/20/2001 5:04 AM
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Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 1,379
Programmer
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Programmer
Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 1,379 |
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#72168
05/20/2001 1:44 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211
Master Hacker
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Master Hacker
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211 |
0sil8 is cool.
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#72169
05/20/2001 6:39 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 2,223
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 2,223 |
11: Thou shalt use plenty of comments in your code such as for Matt shall be immortalized for all time as the Great Prophet of HTML. [ May 20, 2001 06:42 PM: Message edited by: navaho ]
Picture perfect penmanship here.
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#72170
05/20/2001 10:06 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211
Master Hacker
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Master Hacker
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211 |
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#72171
05/21/2001 3:18 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 26
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 26 |
I wouldn't lose sleep on your site not looking good with a different browser. Considering 95% of the people who surf the web use Internet Explorer.
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#72172
05/21/2001 5:25 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 305
Member
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Member
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 305 |
PHA,
Even if your statistics were right (and they're not) you would have just alienated 5% of your visitors. Not making cross-browser compatible sites is lazy.
Most sites I've visited that look fine in IE but bad in Opera or NS are actually bad because the webmaster can't write proper HTML, and it isn't because NS doesn't support the latest CSS, or DHTML.
[ May 21, 2001 05:26 AM: Message edited by: CTH ]
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#72173
05/21/2001 6:55 AM
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Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 1,379
Programmer
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Programmer
Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 1,379 |
A site that doesn't work in NS is a failed site. A site which looks a bit different is 'ok'. Just a thought
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#72174
05/21/2001 1:39 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 21,079 Likes: 3
I type Like navaho
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I type Like navaho
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 21,079 Likes: 3 |
yep, usually a table problem... would only help rendering speed in IE if the tables were formatted correctly, so your browser doesn't have to figure out what you mean, and cuts down on the number of abusive emails from the NS/Opera crowd
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#72175
05/21/2001 4:02 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 26
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 26 |
I'm not saying that you shouldn't design your web page to not work with NS or Opera. I am just saying that you should make sure your page looks ok in IE before you worry about the other browsers. In the end my pages usually look great across different browsers, with the exception of Netscape for Linux, theres no hope there. And it's not HTML thats hard to write for cross browser compatibility. It scripting languages that are hard.
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#72176
05/21/2001 4:15 PM
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Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 1,379
Programmer
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Programmer
Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 1,379 |
I don't have a problem with Netscape for linux. It's the same rendered as windows (ignoring form fields). huh? Just a thought
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#72177
05/21/2001 4:58 PM
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Joined: Jan 1999
Posts: 568
Moderator / Fish
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Moderator / Fish
Joined: Jan 1999
Posts: 568 |
yeah, huh? I haven't had a problem with Netscape for linux at all when I've used it. But I use konqueror most of the time.
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#72178
05/21/2001 4:59 PM
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Joined: Feb 2000
Posts: 4,625
Member
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Member
Joined: Feb 2000
Posts: 4,625 |
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#72179
05/21/2001 8:21 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 26
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 26 |
Exactly, buttons, and form fields look like crap.
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#72180
05/22/2001 2:43 AM
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Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 1,379
Programmer
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Programmer
Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 1,379 |
Have you even used it? That would be called a deficiency with the shell, not the browser. You might also have noticed that form fields and buttons looks different on windows and macOS. This must surely be a bug in the browser!
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#72181
05/22/2001 4:07 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 169
Member
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Member
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 169 |
forgive me father but I have sinned My web site braked only 1 through 10 but that it
Some men live for others and make their presence known Some men live in seclusion and choose to live alone... Some men live for justice and walk inside the law But of these men, the group I'm in are the men behind the wall... - Gato Suertudo
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#72182
05/25/2001 10:09 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 2,223
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 2,223 |
Picture perfect penmanship here.
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#72183
05/25/2001 11:46 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211
Master Hacker
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Master Hacker
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211 |
rofl! all your alt="hi matt!"!! that's some great stuff right there. the penny, err, mark's arcade was my favorite, sorry scats. all your alts are belong to me!
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#72184
05/26/2001 12:44 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 37
Member
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Member
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 37 |
Uh, aren't there s'posed ta be only 10 commandments? hehe
[ May 26, 2001 12:44 PM: Message edited by: -ecliast- ]
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#72185
05/26/2001 4:51 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211
Master Hacker
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Master Hacker
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211 |
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#72186
05/26/2001 8:20 PM
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 711
Spotlight Winner
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Spotlight Winner
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 711 |
You should be most aware of the 11th, Matt...
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#72187
05/26/2001 9:14 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 1,290
Addict
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Addict
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 1,290 |
Another one to add,
"The best way to find errors in your pages, is to upload it and go live.."
[ June 18, 2001 04:06 PM: Message edited by: JC ]
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#72188
05/27/2001 12:34 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211
Master Hacker
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Master Hacker
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,211 |
pft, navaho's commandments do not count!
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#72189
05/27/2001 12:58 AM
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 711
Spotlight Winner
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Spotlight Winner
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 711 |
Sure they do, he's Ultimate™ now, remember?
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