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| HISTORY OF THIS WEB SITE |
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You're viewing the sixth complete revision for this Web Site. With each
revision, newly learned design techniques and methods are incorporated
to produce the final product. In many instances, some of these are
experimental in nature. Beyond that, the sole intent and purpose of
this Site is to be a loosely structured Web resource in subject matters
that are of particular interest to myself.
For you, the visitor, it is meant to be educational, and in some
abstract way, of a useful sort. If you have any suggestions, comments,
questions, or links to share, then they are all most welcome!
—Just drop me a line.
The target audience for this particular page is that which has an
unbearably fascinating interest in wanting to know how this Web Site
has grown up and matured over the years. It is a cumulative history,
which means it is lengthy and dry in parts, so you have been warned.
1]
IN THE BEGINNING...
The first two versions of this Web Site were fairly basic in nature.
In fact, the very first instance was rather simplistic, and consisted
of mostly textual content with little or no graphics. For the second
version, more material was added. That was also the first version to
include graphics (borrowed ones), and a couple of scanned photos. It
was not very exciting by today's standards to say the least!
For version 3, the Web Site paid an overly excessive visit to a number
of annoying, flashy techniques. It was frames based and included pesky
embedded media and extremely rudimentary JavaScript. It was more of a
wanton exercise and did not really work too well considering that very
few Web Browsers could handle 95% of those features! Adding insult to
injury, badly misused Image Maps made the Site very sloppy (and that is
being kind). This was also the first version of the Web Site for which
custom made graphics were used.
2]
AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT...
The fourth Site revision was more conservative in its design approach.
Most of the changes were of a structural nature, and the entire Web
Site was designed to be quick loading (this was in the days when a fast
connection consisted of a 33.6KBps dialup!). This revision was notable
for implementing the concept of colour coded sections, where material
was unified by way of unifying colour themes. Credit for this approach
goes to my having read up extensively on Web Site design techniques, in
particular a book called "Web
Pages That Suck", by Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis.
True, some newer bells and whistles were retained, but they were
relocated and made accessible by specific visitor choice (which is more
considerate than the previously implemented 'brute force' method).
Until this time, I was coding exclusively for HTML 3.2 compatibility.
In version 5 however, I also incorporated portions of the newer and
more advanced, HTML 4.0 specification. This offered a number of
powerful features which greatly enhanced presentation. Once more,
JavaScript code was incorporated into the Site, but this time in a more
non-intrusive and functional manner so that if support for wasn't
available, the Site would not break! I also experimented with Image
rollovers in this version. Finally, the Web Site was put together in a
completely modular fashion, allowing entire segments to be moved or
deleted without causing the whole Web Site to self-destruct.
3]
THE FUTURE... NOW!
So, what's hot in this version? Visually and structurally, this version
of the Web Site is still colour coded and modular. In fact, some of
this modularity goes as far as placing certain portions on other Web
Servers (necessary due to space constraints). The big changes are all
of a technical sort: All deprecated HTML code has been removed in its
entirety. Only HTML 4.0 specification compliant tags are in use. In
addition, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used to control formatting
across the entire Site. JavaScript is again used, but less extensively
than in the previous version.
4]
HOW IT ALL GETS DONE...
The primary editor used to create this site is Macromedia
HomeSite. HomeSite is a first rate design tool that is very easy to
learn and use. It includes a rather thorough HTML reference, online
help system, and comes bundled with Bradbury
Software's TopStyle Cascading Style Sheet editor. HomeSite is a
commercial product, but a trial version is available for download.
I also use Sausage
Software's HotDog and Chami's
HTML-Kit (a shareware product) on occasion, both of which have
specialized features that are geared towards very specific tasks. For
quick, local edits, I use a DOS based ASCII Text editor called
PCWrite,
and on Web Servers I use vi
(or its clones) in similar fashion.
The graphical objects (bullets, dividers, backgrounds, icons and logos)
are, for the most part, custom made. I use several commercial programs
for the purpose, mainly one called Picture Publisher.
Unfortunately, this application was discontinued when the company that
produced it was acquired by Corel. To manipulate digital photos, I use
Jasc
Paintshop Pro, and for image optimizations, ULead
SmartSaver is my preferred tool.
5]
COMPATIBILITY NOTICE:
Select parts of this Web Site implement (or may implement) JavaScript,
Java Applets, Frames and Plug-ins. In order to get the most from this
or other Web Sites, it is recommended that you utilize the latest
release of your preferred Web browser, as well as the more popular
plug-ins. Older browsers may not render this Web Site unviewable, but
will most likely not support all of its features and enhancements.
6]
CHANGE LOGS:
- Version 6
- Version 5
- Version 4
- Version 3
- Version 2
- Version 1
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