🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <32e2cd35.31212344@news.golden.net>, liam@htmlhelp.com (Liam
Quinn) wrote:

> On Mon, 20 Jan 1997 00:12:23 +0100, weigle@snip-to-mail.algonet.se
> (Thomas Weigle) wrote:

<...>

> Well then...  The WDG site does not exist to entertain, so how can you
> compare it to SiegelSites?  Some of the most popular sites on the Web
> are ones like Yahoo and AltaVista, which allow people to look for
> *information*.  Yes, you could probably find entertainment through
> Yahoo and AltaVista, but information is at the forefront, regardless
> of what magazines say.

You'll probably see that when people use Altavista or Yahoo, most of them
search for entertainment stuff, such as an artist, or their favorite game
show, or similar things. They then continue to this site where they want to
be treated to some nice images, or video clips, or .au or .ra files.
Netscape's home page isn't visually inviting either, but it still gets a
lot of hits because people know that that's the place to grab Composers and
Communicators and Cool Talk and other nifty stuff that they want.

> >It's not strange to see 'graphically advanced' being
> >celebrated in magazines, etc. These people clearly want this feature, even
> >if it happens to mean that a standard is being flouted.
> 
> Last time I checked, people didn't want to wait for entertainment.
> It's simply too slow on the Web.  Why not just turn on the TV if you
> want to see good pictures and video for entertainment?  In almost all
> parts of the world, TV is cheaper than the Internet, and you don't get
> busy signals :)

No busy signals, no, but you can't affect what you see very much. On the
Web, you are free to surf and grab instant information about Bon Jovi or
the Love Boat or Spice Girls or whatever you happen to like.

> I wonder how they would feel if they knew that one site could be made
> for all, at a fraction of the cost you're charging them.

They would probably say "No. That's not us. We won't pay you $ 50 000 for
that." Then they would come to us and pay us $ 200 000 to get something
that's them, even if it happens to shut 5% of the Web out.
 
> Do you ever wonder why the Web is so different from print media?  Why
> it has enjoyed such success in spite of this?  Think about it and get
> back to us.

Because it is new. If Netscape hadn't happened to the Web, it would not
have grown this large. Huge ad campaigns featuring nice looking ("best
viewed with Netscape *.*") Web sites have helped promote it.

> >People are already raving about the coolness of layers and absolute
> >positioning in Netscape 4.0.
> 
> I'm not.

So? Perhaps because you're not one of the 45-70% of Netscape users out
there. Or one of the 30-45% of MSIE users?

> People are always asking how to have their background image so that it
> doesn't tile.  The answer is Cascading Style Sheets, but that won't
> work on Netscape.

Netscape has their own answer: tables with background images. Or layers.

As a matter of fact, style sheets are not easy to learn. To get them to
work correctly is probably an enormous feat for most people, so they simply
want a tag that says <body background="etc.gif" notile>.

> What are your needs, and in what way are they not fulfilled by HTML
> 3.2 and Cascading Style Sheets?

Layers, to begin with. True multimedia. Most of the typographic issues are
handled by style sheets, fortunately.
 
> >How about relatively absolute positioning? Absolute positioning in percent
> >would be possible.
> 
> What is "relatively absolute", other than an oxymoron?  Positioning in
> percent isn't absolute.

I'm not talking about absolute positioning in relation to a 'page' here,
rather in relation to other objects. I want to be able to define exactly
how far from each other objects should be, and since this can cause some
pretty messy results, it would be better to define it in percent from the
left and top edges of the window. This way you could place objects in a
nearly exact relation to each other, while still keeping them flexible and
not locked into position in relation to the window.

> People will want whatever Netscape gives them if Netscape convinces
> them that it is k00l.

Yes, and a few minutes are enough for lots of people to be convinced that
layers are k00l.
  
> The W3C is not competing with Netscape.  That would be like the
> European Union competing with Belgium

Well, the problem would be if Belgium only partially acts as a member of
the EU, while they are actually striving in another direction in reality--a
direction that's on a collision course with the EU..

//thomas
--
: Web Designer at Icon Media Lab and generally a nice guy too.  :
: Work: thomas@iconmedialab.se -- <http://www.iconmedialab.se/> :
: Home: weigle@algonet.se -- <http://www.algonet.se/~weigle/>   :
: Opinions expressed are mine and not those of my employer.     :
.................................................................