What is your website design
philosophy?
I design my web pages based on the principle that function is
the most important aspect of a page. Therefore, I do not believe in using elements such as
Flash, JavaScript, or frames unless the function of the page requires it. I try to keep my
code relatively clean so that it doesn't take a long time for my pages to load. I do not use a
graphic where text would suffice.
I do not use JavaScript unless I absolutely must to do what I
want to do. For example, I use JS on my haiku page because it would become very cluttered
if I put all those little bits on the page by themselves. I didn't want my visitors to have
to scroll for a mile to see them all.
I try not to annoy my visitors. I don't use popups (The company
that provides my URL redirection, though, does, so if you came here through one of those,
I apologize), popunders, automatic refresh, or cookies. I avoid using annoying design
elements, such as <MARQUEE> and <BLINK>. I don't fiddle with the fonts beyond
their colors, and I choose my colors based on readability. They are
based on my readability. Modern browsers allow the user to select his or
her own colors, so I won't use any other standard to pick my colors. I
don't switch font colors unless I have a very good reason. I use solid
backgrounds to maintain readability. I don't switch designs between
pages on my site, with the exception of the Poland section and some of my writing pages.
In all and in short, I endeavor to create web pages that don't
suck.
My philosophy is simple: Utility is more
important than beauty; beauty is more important than warm fuzzies.
Browser Compatibility List: (All browsers are Windows™ versions unless otherwise specified)
Full Compatibility:
Lynx 2.8.3 <cross-platform, text-only> - Non-text elements fail gracefully. All other website functions work properly.
Mozilla 1.5.0.1 - All website functions work properly.
MSIE 5.50 or above - All website functions work properly.
Opera 7.02 - Most website functions work properly. Some positioning elements kludgey.
Partial Compatibility:
K-Meleon 0.6 - All images work properly. Many JavaScript functions fail (See Netscape Communicator 4.8).
Konquerer <Linux> 3.0.0-12 - Severely broken JavaScript. PNGs display properly, but height markers are ignored and positioning is off. Does not properly display glyphs. Recommend Mozilla, instead.
Netscape 7.02 - Most website functions work properly. Has some trouble with div structure.
Netscape Communicator 4.8 - All images work properly. Many JavaScript functions fail (I won't code the Netscape work-arounds).
Some Positioning elements are kludgey, but this is fixed in later versions of NS.
Why are there almost no GIFs on this
site?or
Why are your graphics broken?
If you can see the image to the left of this line (It looks like a fish), your browser
displays PNG graphics; if you still see a broken image somewhere, please
report it immediately. Please!
Can't see the fish?
Some browsers, especially older ones, do not
properly support PNG graphics. Some of them exhibit this problem by
using a "missing image" placeholder. If you can't see the little
fish, your browser is probably one of these. I apologize for this. You
can find a list of browsers that support PNG (and what PNG functions
they don't support) on the libpng website. I tested this in K-Meleon
0.6, MSIE v5.50, Netscape Communicator 4.8, Netscape 7.02, and Opera
7.02, and the images work fine. If your browser doesn't support
PNG, I'm afraid you'll have to get one that does if you want to see the
graphics on this site.
Related Pages:
PNG Browser Compatibility List
Why there are almost no GIF images on this site?:
Now that the united States patent on the LZW algorithm
has expired, there is no reason of legality to not use GIFs, but there are still
technical reasons not to use them. PNGs are smaller and better than GIFs. For more
information about the PNG format, click the "PNG Info" link below. You
can find more information on the GIF/LZW patent issue at burnallgifs.org, and you can
find more info about PNG at the libpng site.
How did you make this website?
I used a variety of tools to produce this website.
For the HTML coding, I use
Glimmer, a powerful tabbed notepad with syntax highlighting. If you use Debian, you can apt-get the package
glimmer. If you use Windows, check out
PFE.
For the images, I use The GIMP. GIMP stands
for GNU Image Manipulation Program, and it is open source. You can find
it at
The GIMP Website for a variety
of platforms. The quality of the images on this website is due to
my poor art skills, not to GIMP.
For scanning images, I have used an
HP™ Photo Scanner and a Visioneer™ OneTouch™ 8100
flatbed scanner. I use a Canon™ Snappy™ LX to take most of my photographs.
I use a variety of online tutorials for
reference when I am working with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other code.
Here are some of them:
Webmonkey -
W3Schools' CSS Tutorials -
HTML/CSS Demonstrations
