Can you hear me?
Dudley Hanks
the time to drop by and test it for me.
http://www.geocities.com/hanks.dudley/index.html
Thanks,
Dudley
Vance
On the opening page, Dima's picture lies over the title and hides it.
The black narrative text lies on top of the image and is nearly
impossible to read conveniently, the same with the links. The sound
is good, though. Frames might be a good idea for layout, but I know a
lot of people don't like them.
Vance
Rob Morley
hanks....@gmail.com says...
> I'm trying a new feature on my site, and I'm wondering if someone might take
> the time to drop by and test it for me.
>
> http://www.geocities.com/hanks.dudley/index.html
>
No sound with Firefox 2, but the layout is fine. Everything works with
Internet Exploder 6.
Jürgen Exner
The layout of that page is quite poor. Because a picture says more than
a thousand words I added my comments into a screenshot:
http://mysite.verizon.net/jurgenex/images/comment.GIF
Sorry, but you asked for it :-(
jue
Dudley Hanks
"Jürgen Exner" <jurg...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:nv40141341tdan0va...@4ax.com...
Yes, I did, and I'd love to know what you posted. But, reading text from a
screen shot with a screen-reader is just about impossible. So, I guess I
won't be able to learn from your expertise.
But, hey, thanks for taking the time to visit my site.
Take Care,
Dudley
Dudley Hanks
"Rob Morley" <nos...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.227a24953...@news.individual.net...
Thanks, Rob, for the feedback.
The sound is mp3 encrypted. I'll try changing to a different audio file
format, but my site disk-space and bandwidth are a bit limited with
geocities. I'm working on getting a site with more useable limits, but
that's going to take at least a week or so.
Take Care,
Dudley
Dudley Hanks
"Vance" <Vance...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c6ac1fb5-5d99-4e68...@q24g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Vance
Thanks, Vance, your comments give me a good idea of how things ended up.
With speech, the colours don't matter much, everything gets read
sequencially. I'll have to pay more attention to the colour scheme in
future versions.
Regarding frames, I'm working my way in that direction. At present, I'm
just using a text editor I compiled, superpad, to put the pages together,
and I'm learning all the tags as I go. I should have some basic frames
worked out in a few days -- maybe a week or so.
Also, I'm guessing all the Geocities / Yahoo advertising squeezes things
together a fair bit. As mentioned in another message, I'm working on
getting a better site. Hopefully it will be ad-free.
Take Care,
Dudley
Jürgen Exner
>
>"Jürgen Exner" <jurg...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:nv40141341tdan0va...@4ax.com...
>> "Dudley Hanks" <hanks....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>I'm trying a new feature on my site, and I'm wondering if someone might
>>>take
>>>the time to drop by and test it for me.
>>>
>>>http://www.geocities.com/hanks.dudley/index.html
>>
>> The layout of that page is quite poor. Because a picture says more than
>> a thousand words I added my comments into a screenshot:
>> http://mysite.verizon.net/jurgenex/images/comment.GIF
>>
>> Sorry, but you asked for it :-(
>
>screen shot with a screen-reader is just about impossible. So, I guess I
>won't be able to learn from your expertise.
Ooops, sorry, I didn't know that. Trying a verbal description:
- The main text is cramped into a very narrow column on the left side,
while there is plenty of empty space farther to the right, even between
the text and the picture.
- The right half of the text for the links is running into the picture
and is therefore unreadable
- there is a huge space underneath the picture. Why? In particular as
you squeeze all the text into a narrow column, making it hard to read
because of the very short lines
- the text boxes for email and comment are halfway under the text and
halfway under the empty space under the picture. That is confusing.
In the meantime I also experimented a little bit more and found out that
probably you didn't take into account that people are using browser
windows in many different widths. In some widths the page looks pretty
nice. In many it looks just awful. Experiment for yourself by changing
the width of your browser window and you will notice how elements are
jumping around and sometime are ending up in in really bad layouts.
I had one size, where the first part of the title "Light, Sight, and"
was on top of the page to the left of the picture and the last word
"Photography" was moved underneath of the photo as if it were a caption.
Not good.
jue
>
N
news:MqVPj.1889$XI1.1092@edtnps91...
Dudley, can you read if the text is large?
Rudy Benner
If you click on the CLOSE tab for the advertising, the layout becomes much
better.
Peter
I hope when I finally overcome my lack of inertia you give my site such
constructive criticism.
BTW my thinking is that a sampler site should contain no more that 20 - 30
images, any thoughts on this?
--
Peter
Peter
works fine tie I.E. 7.
I will not repeat the comments below.
--
Peter
Dudley Hanks
"Peter" <pete...@nospamoptonline.net> wrote in message
news:48106fa1$0$13855$8f2e...@news.shared-secrets.com...
Thanks, Peter, I appreciate the feedback.
I'm trying to figure out what browsers have problems with the sound, and
whether or not the layout gets screwed up for users who run smaller window
sizes.
The newer versions of IE seem to do fairly well.
Take Care,
Dudley
Dudley Hanks
"Rudy Benner" <rudolf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fuppl1$j23$1...@aioe.org...
Thanks, Rudy, I never tabbed far enough into the advertising to find that
close button. After I get onto an ad-free site, that won't be a problem,
but, for now, I'll try to add a hint about clearing the ads.
Take Care,
Dudley
George Kerby
On 4/24/08 12:04 AM, in article nv40141341tdan0va...@4ax.com,
"Jürgen Exner" <jurg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
If you got rid of the useless Yahoo ad bar on the right side, the layout
would be just fine. No problem in Firefox or Safari on the Mac.
But, Dudley, there seems to be a lack of any audio. I assume that there is
supposed to be a soundtrack.
Dudley Hanks
"N" <n@st.y> wrote in message
news:481033f0$0$1631$5a62...@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...
If I blow the image up to where only two or three characters fit on the
screen (I have a 17" wide screen monitor), and, if I can get light
characters on a black background, I can "see" the text. However, at that
magnification, it's not practical to crawl around the screen looking for
words. It just takes too long.
Using Omnipage, I can process an image and extract the text, but screen
shots have too many elements interfereing with the text. Also, the program
trys to make sense of fragments and peice them together into
semi-intelligent statements. It isn't always successful.
I've learned from experience not to bother with screen shots.
Take Care,
Dudley
George Kerby
On 4/24/08 6:04 AM, in article fuppl1$j23$1...@aioe.org, "Rudy Benner"
<rudolf...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you!
Dudley Hanks
Thanks, Jurgen, that really helps.
For me, it doesn't matter how I size my browser window, my screen reader
just puts everything into a sequence and starts reading from the top. I can
use keyboard commands to jump from heading to heading, link to link, table
to table, etc. But, I never get a sense of what the graphical layout is
like. If things are physically on top of each other, it doesn't matter to
the reader, it just pulls out the text and reads it.
However, the reader can only do that with text displayed in an application
workspace. Once it has to extract text from an image, it gets a lot
clumsier.
At present, I'm coding my page with a very simple text editor, so I'm not
sure how the various browsers slap my text onto a monitor. I've analyzed
the coding of a few other pages, but, as of yet, I haven't come up with any
"rule of thumb" to use as a template.
As I work my way through the books I'm scanning (using omnipage), I'm sure
my pages will start to look better.
Once again, thanks for taking the time both to stop by my site, and to
clarify your comments. I've learned quite a bit from what you've said.
Take Care,
Dudley
Dudley Hanks
"George Kerby" <ghost_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:C435EE38.422B%ghost_...@hotmail.com...
Thanks, George, I'm starting to get a sense of what the lowest common
denominator is for the various browsers out there.
Regarding the sound, it's not a musical sound-track; rather, I just
recorded a few introductory words that play when the page is loaded. A
musical sound-track may come later.
Take Care,
Dudley
Jürgen Exner
>>> I'm trying a new feature on my site, and I'm wondering if someone might
>>> take the time to drop by and test it for me.
>>>
>>> http://www.geocities.com/hanks.dudley/index.html
>I'm trying to figure out what browsers have problems with the sound, and
As for that: personal tastes vary but I for my part am very happy with
the blessed silence I am getting from Firefox.
Whenever a web page is blaring at me I hit the mute button on my
keyboard or most often just close the page to never come back. Same with
fancy flash animations (luckily Firefox can block).
This is one of those cases, where less is often more.
jue
N
>
> "N" <n@st.y> wrote in message
> news:481033f0$0$1631$5a62...@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...
>>
>>
>
> If I blow the image up to where only two or three characters fit on the
> screen (I have a 17" wide screen monitor), and, if I can get light
> characters on a black background, I can "see" the text. However, at that
> magnification, it's not practical to crawl around the screen looking for
> words. It just takes too long.
>
> Using Omnipage, I can process an image and extract the text, but screen
> shots have too many elements interfereing with the text. Also, the
>
> I've learned from experience not to bother with screen shots.
>
> Take Care,
> Dudley
>
>
Windows Mouse Driver 6.2 and possibly earlier, I don't know, allows a mouse
button to be set as a magnifier.
This creates an enlarged rectangle on the screen. You can modify the size
and shape and magnification of the rectangle.
The centre of the rectangle follows the mouse pointer around the screen.
Paul Furman
>>
>>>> http://www.geocities.com/hanks.dudley/index.html
>>>
>
> Regarding the sound, it's not a musical sound-track; rather, I just
> recorded a few introductory words that play when the page is loaded.
Better to have a link or button that says:
<a href...>listen to introductory narrative</a>
because automatic sound on a web page is disturbing to many people.
Although this may be an exception as it's pointed at people who might
rather have sound.
Ron Hunter
Some people just LOVE to have loud music blast them out of their seats,
or strange noises assault their senses. I am NOT one of them, and ANY
site that produces sound without specifically being ASKED to do so will
find me scarce after the first couple of seconds.
I suggest that if your site plays sound, you ASK the user if he/she
wants sound, but default to SILENCE.
Dudley Hanks
"Ron Hunter" <rphu...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:3bWdndivKvYXSI3V...@giganews.com...
Yes, this is the general drift of the feedback I'm getting.
As a test of the sound coding, I wanted to make sure that it played, so I
put it in as a background sound. But, suspecting that it might be
considered a bit intrusive, I tried to keep the time period to a few
seconds. Also, I tried to give potential users a bit of a warning by using
the "Can you hear me?" title on my post.
Upcoming versions will tie sound to a button and give users the option of
"the sound of silence."
Thanks for the feedback,
Dudley
Dudley Hanks
"N" <n@st.y> wrote in message
Yes, I'm aware of that. Also, Windows Magnify does a fairly good job of
bumping up the size of the characters displayed in the rectangular area.
The catch is that the more I bump up the text, the smaller the highlighted
rectangle becomes. So, While the characters are half or three-quarters the
height of the screen, the highlighted mouse pointer / rectangle is only a
small blip on the screen and I can't make it out. Also, the text that I
want to hover the mouse over is invisible to me, because of its small size,
so I couldn't find it even if I could make out the highlighted mouse
pointer. It's all a viscious circle.
Believe me, I tried to read my monitor as long as I possibly could, and I
only reluctantly gave in and started using a screen-reader. This aversion
to speech was made even more difficult given my love of photography and my
desire to appreciate good graphical images.
So, when I say I can't read the screen even with the aid of magnification, I
actually can't. The only caveat to this is that I sometimes tie in
magnification with my screen reader when I encounter characters the screen
reader can't (or won't) read. When this happens, I navigate to the
offending text using speech and then examine it as best I can in the
magnified area. Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn't.
Take Care,
Dudley
Dudley Hanks
For my purposes, I doubt I'll go the flash route; I'm having enough trouble
mastering html -- although, I might try a bit of javascript if I can find a
book that scans properly.
Regarding background sounds, I've heard the message "loud and clear" from
you and others that I should tie it to a button. I will do that in upcoming
versions of the site.
I find it interesting, though, that firefox doesn't play mp3s. Is it
because of a setting that the user selects? Ie, does it block all sounds,
or does it just not play mp3s?
Take Care,
Dudley
Dudley Hanks
"krishnananda" <k...@ashram.in> wrote in message
news:4810d64b$0$4110$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
> In article <6P3Qj.11862$GE1....@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com>,
> button, the best part of an <onload> mp3 or wav is the "Mute" button.
>
> A suggestion for your coding: using tables is a good way to divide up
> the page; however, the table definition should contain specific cell
> widths based on percentage of total width, or absolute pixel size. With
> no specific instruction from the page, your tables rely on the browser
> to assign widths. This can run into problems because the picture of Dima
> is so big. You will probably have more luck with the title in one cell
> spanning the whole table, the photo of Dima in one cell directly below
> also full span, then start your text below divided into however many
> columns you want.
>
> Also acquaint yourself with the table-compositor's best friend, the
> non-breaking space, HTML entity: or Hex:   . Put one in each
> empty cell to maintain the widths.
>
> Or you can explore the possibility of using Flash. That gives you much
> more control but some people will find it painful, and possibly your
> screen reader may not be able to read it. Also, mobile web devices like
> BlackBerry can't render Flash, but you can't please everyone.
>
> Also, the Macintosh rendering engine assigns font sizes based on 72dpi
> while Windows assigns based on 96dpi. Current practice advocated by the
> W3 Consortium is to use cascading style sheets, which overcome these
> built-in differences.
>
> An excellent Windows HTML editor is UltraEdit
> <http://www.ultraedit.com/> actually a general purpose programmer's
> editor with libraries built in for web design and programming. They have
> a free trial you can download. If you use a Mac then BBEdit
> <http://www.barebones.com> is my personal favorite editor.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> --k
Thanks for all the suggestions.
As a newbie to the field of html tables (pun intended), I'm trying to figure
out all of the uses they are good for. Having only used tables for data
tables in word-processors, the concept of laying out a whole page with a
table is a bit foreign to me, but I'm starting to see the logic behind the
concept.
My next version will incorporate many of your suggestions.
Thanks for taking the time to clue me in,
Dudley
Paul Furman
IE uses Microsoft html code which does not exist in the standard
specifications. Other browsers have no reason to haphazardly adopt stuff
that Microsoft invents. There are also some cases where IE is incapable
of reading standard html but normally there are ways to do what you want
by following the standards. Apparently <bgsound
src="IntroMessage.mp3"> is not the right way to add sound to a web site,
I'm not sure what is.
Some standard references:
http://edgehill.net/Misc/html-coding/reference
http://edgehill.net/Misc/html-coding
PS Would indenting the html help or hinder you in reading the coding for
the tables? The code is a LOT easier for me to read when indented but
maybe no help to you or not even practical.
> Take Care,
> Dudley
>
>
David J Taylor
[]
> Some people just LOVE to have loud music blast them out of their
> seats, or strange noises assault their senses. I am NOT one of them,
> and ANY site that produces sound without specifically being ASKED to
> do so will find me scarce after the first couple of seconds.
Seconded - it's an immediate press of the Home or Back button if some
sound disturbs my environment!
David
Dudley Hanks
"Paul Furman" <paul-@-edgehill.net> wrote in message
news:fJeQj.22368$%41.1...@nlpi064.nbdc.sbc.com...
Thanks for the info, Paul. I'll check these docs out.
Regarding indenting, that's a visual thing; it doesn't help at all when
using speech. At best, some screen-readers will beep on the tabs, but that
just gets confusing when multiple indents are used.
For us blind guys, the blank line is a sort of equivalent, or strategically
placed comments.
I will probably go to Microsoft Word once I upgrade to a better site. But,
html docs produced with Word seem to be a lot bigger than minimal
requirements. When you've only got 15 megs of disk space and a 4 meg
bandwidth per hour, the Word html docs can pose a problem. Besides, that
still puts the coding in Microsoft's ball park, and it probably won't make
my pages more universally acceptable.
I'll keep working my way through the books I'm scanning, as well as the docs
you pointed to, and I'll get a more workable solution, shortly.
Take Care,
Dudley
Dudley Hanks
> In article <fJeQj.22368$%41.1...@nlpi064.nbdc.sbc.com>,
> Paul Furman <paul-@-edgehill.net> wrote:
>
>> Apparently <bgsound
>> src="IntroMessage.mp3"> is not the right way to add sound to a web site,
>> I'm not sure what is.
>
> if you must know, the correct tag to use is:
>
> Attribute for <BODY ...>
> onLoad = "script command(s)"
>
> So, in your example:
>
> <BODY onLoad="play(annoying.mp3)">
>
> But don't, please don't, use this example because the user cannot stop
> it except by closing the window.
>
> --k
Don't worry, K, I won't use it.
I think I've got frames figured out, now, so, if I want sound in the future,
I'll set up a page that invites people to watch and listen to a presentation
that will appear in a frame after a link has been clicked.
I think that should satisfy my urge to go multimedia without offending
people's personal preferences too much.
Take Care,
Dudley
John Turco
Justin C
Dudley. Don't use tables for layout. It's not what they were designed
for and they, therefore, don't do a very good job of it. I have to
admit, it's amazing what they *can* be made to do, but don't expect it
to be easy, or the code to be easy to debug later. I know, I've done it.
As I mention in another post, use something that's designed to manage
content for you. Instead of spending half a day on layout and forming a
template from it, spend that time on layout and then forget about it.
There are various content management packages out there (Google for CMS
and be overwhelmed). What most of them do is, once the site is set up,
allow you to visit the site as an administrator and post an entry in a
basic text-box, this will then be laid out as per your layout. If you
want to tweak the layout you edit the master document and presto, the
whole site reflects the change.
I'm using WordPress, but I guess all the others offer similar. I find
the ability to send an email to a secret email address and have that
appear as a blog entry very useful. Wordpress also has a plugin for
markdown - it's similar to markup (as in HTML) but has a lot less tags
to learn. You just write your post including picture links, bold,
off-site links, whatever, upload pictures to the defaul upload directory
(FTP or upload manager from the admin pages of the site) and the page is
done. You never have to look at the code in your template again and
there's no possibility of screwing up layout, the CMS takes care of it
all. All you need is a server with PHP enabled.
Drop me an email if you'd like to discuss this further.
Justin.
--
Justin C, by the sea.
Justin C
In article <c6ac1fb5-5d99-4e68...@q24g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Vance wrote:
> On Apr 23, 8:46 pm, "Dudley Hanks" <hanks.dud...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm trying a new feature on my site, and I'm wondering if someone might take
>> the time to drop by and test it for me.
>>
>> http://www.geocities.com/hanks.dudley/index.html
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dudley
>
> On the opening page, Dima's picture lies over the title and hides it.
> The black narrative text lies on top of the image and is nearly
> impossible to read conveniently, the same with the links. The sound
> is good, though. Frames might be a good idea for layout, but I know a
> lot of people don't like them.
No, no, no! Don't use frames! Use CSS it does a *much* better job of
layout.
Better still use blogging software (WordPress is good) as a content
management system. Once you've got your theme/layout sorted all you have
to do is throw content at it.
Dudley, if you want to discuss doing as I suggest, I'd be happy to
discuss it, or offer help with set-up. Drop me an email, the reply
address works for another ... 70 days or so.
Lastly, don't use sound! If I'm listening to something already it
interferes. If my wife is watching the TV I get some nasty looks until I
turn it off. Photography is why people will be looking at your site,
it's something you have in common with those who visit; your taste in
music is very unlikely to coincide. Number one item in the "ways to
irritate your visitors and drive them away" is "music" <URL:
http://domainnamestuffetc.com/process_101_p3.htm>. A lot of designers
recommend that you don't do it.
If you're a multi-national with frequent TV ads with which someone
visiting the site might be familiar with, then the music might do a bit
of brand re-enforcement. Otherwise I think it's unlikely. It annoys the
hell out of me and I'll go elsewhere very quickly.
David J Taylor
[]
> Lastly, don't use sound! If I'm listening to something already it
> interferes.
Seconded. Extremely irritating, and a sure way to make me press the Back
button P.D.Q!
David