[OT] Web formats/etc.

Bri's pages are easy to read. Most of the 
problems in converting stuff to stargrunt.ca's 
formats are this: We have a stated goal to keep 
the pages short. This means for some of the 
chapters in Los' work, I have to paginate it into 
a bunch of HTML pages. For cleanliness, we 
hand code our HTML. And we use CSS/SSI or 
something of that sort (tagging text using span 
tags and a class identifier) to markup for 
formatting. And of course if we have to embed 
images, since we focus on load speeds, we 
have to tune their size and color depths etc.

So converting an article is a bit of an effort 
(Adrian is faster at it than me and probably 
better at it too). Maybe one day, if I'm feeling 
sharp, I'll write some software to make 
conversions from normal formats automagical. 

On the matter of light text, dark background - 
we thought about that. Adrian has some 
thoughts at the time which I'm sure he'll share 
with everyone (he is both an industrial designer 
and a web geek so he has some background to 
speak to this). Me, I too like light text on dark 
background, but I've seen some that I found 
hard to read. The real clincher against this in 
my books is if you've ever had your printer go 
through half a cartridge of ink trying to print 
white on black (rather than reversing the stuff 
to print). 

Part of how we plan to get around this on 
stargrunt.ca is providing printer-friendly 
versions of our web pages (pretty much just 
the content white-on-black), but that is a 
project in the offing yet. 

BTW, we're working on our links section, so if 
you want us to link to your page, go to 
stargrunt.ca (to our feedback form) and send 
us your URL. Provided there's nothing 
scandalous, we'll probably throw up a link! 
(Note: We must have some fairly broad 
standards..... I've linked the NRE.... *grin* - Hi 
John!)

My main goals in web design are this: 
- Usability on all browsers (Adrian just fixed an 
SSI thing and now Opera renders the site well, 
as does IE, NS (maybe not the oldest one...), 
and Mozilla - even Lynx works after a fashion)
- Download speed (I'm on 31kbps max - 26-28 
kpbs more commonly so I sympathize)
- Readability (note, our black text is NOT 
displayed on an actinic white - it is displayed on 
an off white colour)
- Common look and feel across all sub-pages

Adrian and I want everyone to be able to visit 
the site, have it load quickly, have it look 
passably attractive, and have the information be 
available and indexed in a semi-useful fashion. 
And we don't want to impose technical 
limitations (only works on IE forex) on our 
viewers where at all possible to avoid. And 
annoying things like flashing stuff, music, flash 
animations, etc. are not used - yes they can do 
some cool looking stuff, but we'd rather be 
slightly less cool and a lot more accessible. We 
hope the content makes up for the lack of "gee 
whiz" modern graphics stuff. :) 

BTW, just a nod of thanks to all of our friends 
and contributors for the help so far. The 
domain is registered through 2004 right now 
and with any luck the site will continue to grow 
and mature. 

And soon, if I'm "infinitely liesured", I might even 
have some extra time to work on things..... 

Tomb

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Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Dice.
-- Mark 'Indy' Kochte
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