Code Rap

[via iLibrarian]

Why not just One BIG Picture?

I had a student ask me once,

"Why don't we just design web pages in Photoshop and then load the picture as the whole page. It would look so much better!"

I stammered on about file size but I don't think I was very convincing as the student countered with,

"What about slicing the image up Mr. G? Huh! What about that? The files would be smaller!"

I answered with that sly teacher ploy,

"Wasn't that the bell?"

Wish I had this article, PSD to Web Page which is much more articulate than I in explaining why it is better to use good html/css design. In a nutshell, the reasons one big image is less desirable are:

1. Requires tables to hold sliced images.
2. Hard to manage and update.
3. And a biggie....not search engine friendly.

I am so much smarter if I get one or two months to think about my answers. I wonder why my students never understood how clever I am?

Mischook, Stefan. "PSD to Web Page." Killersites.com Blog. 20 Sep 2007. Killersites.com. 22 Sep 2007 .
[Image: Ruminer, David . "Scary Monster Man." Private Collection. 2005.]

Size Matters

If you teach web design, you might be interested in this article at A List Apart that discusses issues related to the new Apple devices that display web pages. The section that caught my attention was that the file sizes of the various components of your page are once again important.

This hearkens back to a day, when a younger version of myself was learning html. Machine memory was more expensive and scarce. My instructors nagged about file size all the time. Pages loaded faster if your files were smaller. Pictures definitely came up quicker if you optimized them for the web. Then broadband got faster and storage got cheaper. Designers stopped worrying so much about file size.

Enter Apple and their new hand held viewers. Like the computers of old, they have limited ram and memory capabilities. This means pages that have been built with size in mind, will open faster. The article gives a nice overview of building sites that are iPod friendly.

[Image: "iPod Touch." Apple. 2007. Apple Inc.. 22 Sep 2007 .]

Lorem Ipsum: Fake Text

There are times when working with a web page or a desktop publishing layout that you need to fill in an area with text. Sometimes the actual text for the project isn't ready. You could repeat a series of words. You could type jumbled letters over and over again. Both these solutions look fake and are a little distracting to the eye.

Thus the need for Lorem Ipsum. This site generates a passage of text in Latin. When you paste it into your project, it looks like readable text. It fools the eye. It allows you to look at the visual layout of a piece without getting distracted by all that pesky content. It lets you treat the text as just another part of the page design.

What I like about this particular site (there are others on the web) is it lets you specify the number of words or paragraphs. This page also gives some interesting background on the origins of Lorem Ipsum. It is free but the author does ask for donations from frequent users.

["Lorem Ipsum-All the facts-Lipsum generator." Lorem Ipsum. Jan 2006. 11 Sep 2007 .]