New home page

[Stephan Soller]

On 07.10.2010 14:56, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Stephan Soller"<stephan.soller at helionweb.de>  wrote in message
> news:i8k8k9$230n$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> On 07.10.2010 11:02, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>>
>>> Not explicitly as far as I'm aware, but then neither does HTML aside from
>>> URLs. And the PDF format does have provisions for files/data of arbitrary
>>> types to be embedded into it. So that could be used to embed HTTP URLs,
>>> or
>>> any other form of network-oriented links, or any other
>>> application-related
>>> information/instructions/data you want. Then you could build
>>> CSS/JS/CGI-like
>>> stuff on top of all that. And all of a sudden "PDF-readers" become a
>>> really
>>> shitty application platform just like what happened with HTML and web
>>> browsers.
>>>
>>
>> Interesting point of view. So PDF basically equals to HTML in that regard.
>> Never thought about it that way but you're probably right. :)
>>
>
> Well, they were both created as document formats ;)
>
>>>
>>> I usually like to minimize bitmapped stuff on pages too, just because
>>> it's
>>> simpler, it can still get acceptable results, and I'm no artist ;)  But
>>> then
>>> when the client has a design they want it to look like and it includes
>>> things that can only be done as images, well, then I just don't have the
>>> energy or patience to try to talk them out of it - I'll just toss in
>>> whatever I need to to make it work, even if that means tables, and be
>>> done
>>> with it.
>>>
>>
>> If I get a design from a client I do that to. I don't use tables but most
>> often a combination of floats and relative/absolute positioning but
>> usually with quite a lot of images in it. Even if they don't have a
>> finished design arguing about it often is a lost cause anyway. However for
>> my own personal project (or in case I have to do the design myself) these
>> new CSS techniques come in quite handy (if the environment allows it...).
>>
>> I used it for my [personal website][1] and it was quite handy. The only
>> images are the header image, icons and the background gradient. The
>> gradient only because I was to lazy to look up the proper properties and
>> do some cross browser testing (not sure if Opera support gradient yet
>> though).
>>
>> [1]: http://arkanis.de/
>>
>
> Not to complain, just FYI, this is what that page looks like for me:
>
> http://www.semitwist.com/download/arkanis1.png
> http://www.semitwist.com/download/arkanis2.png
> http://www.semitwist.com/download/arkanis3.png
>
> Interestingly, if I turn JS on, than it'll look a lot better *until* it
> finishes loading, at which point it goes back to looking just like those
> screenshots.
>

Thanks for the screenshots. May I ask which version of Firefox (if I see 
that correctly) your're using? The JS stuff is quite interesting since 
the page actually does not use JS at all. The only situation where JS 
should actually be involved is for IE (because you need to introduce 
unknown elements to IE before using them). I'm not aware that any 
version of Firefox interprets IE conditional comments (although there 
was talk about it once) so this behavior is somewhat concerning.

However this page uses quite new and still in progress browser stuff 
(HTML5, CSS3) so it'll give old browsers a very hard time. It's more 
like a showcase for the new stuff. Take a look at [this screenshot][1] 
to see how it's supposed to look like. It was made with font 
antialiasing on a standard TFT but the text might look a bit awkward on 
CRTs or TFTs with a different subpixel layout (usually the OS takes care 
of that when rendering text). There's also the [design prototype][2] 
which does not use the "new" techniques. It should work on your browser 
(at least most stuff, I never IEified it nor did extensive cross browser 
testing since it's only a prototype).

[1]: http://arkanis.de/projects/arkanis-development-v3/ubuntu.png
[2]: http://arkanis.de/weblog/2008-05-25-modern-ambience-design-prototype/

And finally there's also the [old design][3] which works in IE 5.5, 6 
and 7 (ditched 4, 5, and 5.01 and I'm not sure about 8). It took about 
two weeks to make it work in IE 5.5 and 6 if I remember correctly.

[3]: http://arkanis.de/projects/arkanis-development-v2/photo-ambience/

Happy programming
Stephan