Posted by Onideus Mad Hatter on 11/26/05 11:15

On 25 Nov 2005 23:22:51 -0800, "volfro" <vmaglione@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Oh no, child, you're confused. When I said "differently", I actually
>> meant BETTER. IE relies on DirectX transform filters to handle the
>> full aspects of the PNG format, which is VASTLY SUPERIOR to the
>> botched compatibility that's put into Mozilla based browsers. Really,
>> it's not Microsoft that needs to change, it's the other browser
>> makers.

>Oh, THAT explains why any form of alpha-transparency works in IE.

Sure does...provided you use the right code.

>> >Thanks for your suggestion for the PNG gamma though. I'm not entirely
>> >sure what you mean

>> I'm sure you don't, but that's not really so much my problem, I'm not
>> an instructor, I simply pointed out how the "problem" could be
>> avoided.

>It's good that I didn't ask you to teach me then. Jerk.

A jerk, huh? Well this ain't the real world, Kiddo, this here's the
Inet and I doubt anyone around here is gonna get too friendly with
ya...and the more you beg for handouts and ask for people to wipe your
ass for you...the more they're gonna rip into ya. We Netters don't
let things on the Inet get to us, so verbally attacking people on a
whim is seen as nothing more than idle entertainment. To an RL like
yourself though...well you gotta be careful, cause if I were to say
something like, "You're a dribbling little clusterfuck," yeah, you
would probably take it personally and get all upset...don't do that,
you'll last longer! ^_^

>> I found this one on the net, made a couple minor mods to it and put it
>> in an external js file for easy portability:
>> http://www.backwater-productions.net/detect.js
>>
>> The script is real simple and straightforward, I suppose you could
>> rewrite it from scratch if you really had the inclination.

>I don't know javascript yet, so I certainly wouldn't be able to rewrite
>it.

Sure ya could! A really great way of learning things is to rip them
all apart and then try and put them back together, analyzing what each
part does and how it functions while you're doing it. Often you can
do this by taking an existing, working script, and then delete out a
line of code and see what that does, that can help you determine what
that line of code was doing and how it was doing it. Once you know
what the line of code does, start experimenting! It's a very
rewarding way of learning something and it's learning at its truest
level, since slurping up answers out of a text book doesn't make you
anything more than a walking encyclopedia of someone else's knowledge
and understanding.

>Thanks for the script though. I'm not going to use javascript in
>this site though, I want it to be as widely accessible as
>possible--besides my lack of skills. I'll just use GIF and JPG.

Suit yourself, currently only around 5 to 10% of people online have
Javascript disabled (usually because they were messing with their
browser settings and didn't understand what they were doing), but you
can always include <noscript> tags with a pure text or alternate
fallback version of the site. For example if you look at my main
Backwater site with JavaScript disabled it shows a text version of the
site.

>> ...not really. No format is particularly "better" than another, it
>> really depends on the specific situation. Often in my sites I employ
>> a whole array of different image formats and use split form
>> techniques, using the "best" formats for the right parts.

>Well good for you. The PNG algorithm, though, produces smaller files
>at higher visual quality than GIF or JPG.

Nope, it sure doesn't actually.

But don't take my word for it, Kiddo...
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

From the official PNG format website:

"Note that for transmission of finished truecolor images--especially
photographic ones--JPEG is almost always a better choice. Although
JPEG's lossy compression can introduce visible artifacts, these can be
minimized, and the savings in file size even at high quality levels is
much better than is generally possible with a lossless format like
PNG. And for black-and-white images, particularly of text or drawings,
TIFF's Group 4 fax compression or the JBIG format are often far better
than 1-bit grayscale PNG."

>Besides full support for alpha transparencies (you know, the things that MS has yet to implement
>properly in IE--even with the "help" of DirectX).

IE fully supports PNG files, Kiddo, you just have to know how to code.

>> Again, you seem to be confused. The style in and of itself is not
>> new, it's most often associated with old timey banks, business, etc.
>> But the style isn't really the problem, it's the IMPLEMENTATION of the
>> style. Despite what you think I said, you misunderstood. For example
>> I've seen some sites that use grids and image overlays and it look
>> VERY nice...the point is that when they used the style they didn't go
>> at it like spastic tweenage muppet fuck strung out on pixie stixs.

>I never said I thought the style was new. I said your example of it
>was ugly.

>> Here's a good example of what the style being used in a general sense:
>> http://www.prosolutions.tv/templates/marble/

>That? It doesn't quite look like you "went at it like spastic tweenage
>muppet fuck strung out on pixie stixs", but it's still pretty ugly. I
>understand that banks et al use embossed gold letters, but usually, it
>looks good. Not bad. Like that.

See this is the same thing as before, you're expecting someone to do
all the work for you. I'm not here to hold your hand and wipe your
ass for ya, Kiddo. The only thing I'm doing is walkin you over to the
edge of the cliff and sayin, "You wanna fly?"

If you do...well you better grow yer ass some wings, hold yer breath
and make a wish, cause at most all I'm gonna do is show you a fuzzy
picture of some birds wings.

>Yeah, she wanted gold in it, but decided against it once I showed her
>some mockups using that scheme, as the gold is fairly ugly--besides
>being hard to portray onscreen, unless you use (again, ugly) embossed
>letters and dropshadows, which looks much like the Internet of 1998.

Kid, you weren't even ON the Internet of 1998.

*sigh*

....these kids today.

*Hatter puts in about 37 seconds more effort than he used to create
the first mockup*

http://www.backwater-productions.net/_images/M.png

If you think the plain gold looks cliche, then spruce it up, combine
filters effects while making selection alterations and make use of
layer blending. One neat idea, instead of just using a plain old
marble inside the gold, you could use a type of red/blackish lava rock
type pattern and if you were really feeling up to it, you could even
animate it to make the inner red/black rock portions glowing and/or
flowing. Again, these are merely IDEAS, I'm not giving you finished,
all ending designs here. Take a look at the logos I created on the
downloads section of my Backwater site, each one took me roughly one
hour to make and I went through about 30 or 40 different permutations
before I found what I really liked.

....just remember to keep track of your methodology, like nyah:
http://www.backwater-productions.net/_images/transtext.png

For fun, I ought to email your client with some of MY mockups and give
em my price quote. ^_^

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net

[Back to original message]