2 ways to make sure your Atari site is great

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It doesn't take a lot of time or money to emulate great web sites like AtariAge. Here are two things you can do right now to make sure your site is also on it's way towards greatness.

 

 

Define the Width and Height of all Images

 

When I try to read the text on some sites while the images load, the text jumps around because the width and height of each image was not defined. This is irritating because it causes pages to load slower, and makes them unreadable until all of the images have finished loading.

 

Here are some quotes about this subject from different helpful web sites with links showing where they came from.

 

From:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/1401/

"You can also use a common trick to display your information more quickly. For each image, define the width and height. The browser will reserve that space for the image and display the text more quickly. Your reader will have something to look at while waiting for the images."

 

From:

http://www.upnaway.com/~kareneh/hints2.html

"Define the width and height attributes of each image as this allows the rest of the page to load faster while the images are downloading."

 

From:

http://www.thelinksarchive.com/Articles/We...eitsnappy.shtml

"Another way to speed up the load-time for your web site is to make sure that you always define a WIDTH and HEIGHT for every image on your page."

 

 

Make sure your text is readable

 

Many web sites have busy backgrounds which make the text almost impossible to read. Some are better than others because they use bold text which usually helps a little.

 

Many web sites are clueless and have things like dark, heavy background images with thin black text over them. The only way you can read the words is to highlight them.

 

If you feel the desire to use a detailed background image, do what most great web sites do, fade it out until it's almost invisible. That way people still get to see your extraordinary, legendary, miraculous, earthshaking background image, but they can also read your text without having blood drip from their eyes.

 

Another thing to think about are the colors you use. Most people don't use red letters on a blue background, or blue letters on a red background because they know that the human eye cannot focus on red and blue at the same time. The text seems to vibrate which causes eye strain. Many kids read about that before they are 10 years old, but you will still see it on some poorly done web sites.

 

Here are some helpful sites on readability:

 

Making a Background that Works

http://www.justkiss.com/psp/basics4.htm

 

Busy Background

http://www.delta.edu/~emptrain/usability/b...background.html

 

Bad Web Sites

http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/badwebsites.html

 

The Sev Guide to Web Design: Readability

http://www.sev.com.au/webzone/design/readability.asp

 

 

As a bonus for reading this far, here's a third thing that can help make your site even better. You can click here to read a few selections from the great out-of-print book HOW TO WRITE BETTER IN ONE HOUR by George Mair. Writing text for your web site should become even easier after you read this short page .

 

 

I hope this information was useful.

 

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Duane Alan Hahn

 

[ 05-25-2001: Message edited by: F of i ]

[+Random Terrain]

Does anyone else have any good tips on improving web sites? Feel free to post them here in a reply or in a separate post. If you also know of other good web sites that have tips, please post them too.

 

Thanks.

[jahfish]

if you're into flash sites ... check out www.flashplanet.com

 

they have many tutorials and ready-to-use source files that you can just download and use ...

 

there a guy called mook in the uk, he's got some pretty good tips on his site, but i can't find his link right know ...maybe you'll find him with a search engine ..

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Cool!

 

 

Thanks,

 

D.A.H. from the F of i

[Mindfield]

Just a few I've sort of picked up on through the years...

 

BACKGROUNDS:

 

- If you're going to have a busy background, at the very least use an art program to fade it and give it that washed-out look. This makes it easier for text to be readable overtop of it.

- Make sure your backgrounds tile properly (edges line up seamlessly). Few things are more distracting than a strong background with jarring seams. Use a program such as Repligator or similar such programs to create or generate seamlessly tiling backgrounds.

- Create a site colour scheme that compliments your background; for dark backgrounds, use light text, and for light backgrounds, dark text.

 

COLOUR COORDINATION:

 

- Whenever and wherever possible, try and avoid using default colours. Custom colours always add a touch of professionalism and flair to your site that sets you apart from others. I dunno about you, but I grew tired long ago of sites with cyan text on black backgrounds.

 

BROWSER COMPATIBILITY:

 

- Nothing's worse than going to a site that caters to a specific browser because of its capabilities. Some people may think DHTML effects are cool, but I find it irritating, and don't use IE myself anyway. The best way to draw the greatest audience is to make sure your site works in the major browsers -- Netscape and IE primarily, but feel free to test it in Opera or Mozilla. If you want to ensure compatibility and know a little Javascript, write some compatibility code into your pages that can detect what browser is being used and then display things or run scripts accordingly. If you want some compatibility code, or want to learn about how to detect browsers and respond appropriately, try www.javascripts.com

 

IMAGES:

 

- If you want to make an image transparent, choose a background colour that is not featured in the main body of the picture and use that as your transparency colour, otherwise you may end up with parts of the main body of the picture being transparent.

- Don't use DHTML to place pictures on a page. This can have unexpected and often eye-jarring results in different browsers, especially with those whose users have altered the default font size.

 

FRAMES:

 

- If you're going to use frames, use them properly. Always point links to their correct target frames, and when a link points to an image, or someone else's page, always use the _top or _new targets so that the pages do not open up inside your frames.

- Size your frames with a slightly generous margin of error. Tightly sized frames that, on your machine, just fit what you want, may come up short on another machine with a different font size or browser. This becomes even more problematic when you disable resizing and/or scrollbars within that frame.

 

ORGANISATION:

 

- Organise your page. Having a single page with everything on it is fine from a functionality standpoint, but having buttons pointing to specific, separate pages of interest makes things neater and easier to wade through, especially when there are a lot of images involved.

 

COOL OR UNCOOL?

 

- Okay, I've seen far too many pages that have loads and loads of images and Java applets that either have nothing to do with the page, are just on the fringe of the page's theme, or are simply there because they look cool. Yes, they may look cool by themselves, but frankly, when you start to overpopulate your page with stuff like this it becomes annoying and makes the page load even slower. Java applets like that ubiquitous "water reflection" applet have been used and overused so much that having another page with it just becomes trying. Think "less is more." A tastefully understated page says a lot more about its content and its webmaster than a busy, overdone site loaded with "cool" stuff. It loads faster and looks cleaner. Feel free to make it as stylish as you want, just remember not to overdo it.

 

Just my 2-1/2 cents.

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Mindfield:

 

Thanks for that. I also hate visiting pages that have stuff flipping and flopping and bouncing and flashing. It's trashy looking.

 

Sites like those always remind me of loud mouthed trashy women with loud clothes and high hair. All they need are some pink flamingos and a car up on blocks to make their site complete.

 

 

D.A.H. from the F of i

[Mindfield]

Heh... I'd never thought about it that way, but that works, too. I've always viewed such sites as amateurish, being someone's first attempt at a web page and therefore in posession of no sense of style, grace or, for that matter, sense. Particularily offensive are those pages littered with loads of generic animated GIFs -- y'know, like those animated explosions, or the little stick figure banner that waddles over and piddles on some logo... yeah, they were cool or funny once upon a time, but the 756th time I see it, I start getting just a tad bored...

 

Good use of accentuating images that go with the theme (preferably not animated or, at least, not so obviously animated as to distract your attention from the real content), a good layout, and good colour schemes will get me coming back more often than pages that look like a carnival exploded all over them. In fact, usually when I start seeing a page load that wouldn't look out of place being displayed outside a cheap Las Vegas casino, I go elsewhere.

 

Another thing that bugs me is when I see a page with images that have been anti-aliased for use on a background colour other than the one on the page -- y'know, the ones with white fuzz around 'em meant to be placed on a white background but, in fact, are on black. Yecch...

[utamav91]

The one thing I've noticed too, is that my website looks dramatically different on Mac as compared to PC. It's amazing how the really BIG corporate websites look good on any system/browser.

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Mindfield:

 

About what you said on images, "...the ones with white fuzz around 'em meant to be placed on a white background but, in fact, are on black."

 

I see that a lot. I don't think they even look at their pages when they're done. It would take 5 minutes to get rid of the problem with any paint program. Even someone with little artistic skill could fix it.

 

 

utamav91:

 

I wish I had the money those big corporate websites have so I could test my web site out on everything.

 

Everything will become easier when Bill Gates takes over the world. Everyone will use PCs with 24bit color 800 x 600 screens using Internet Explorer 11.0 and all will be right with the world.

[zekish]

Good points on everything. I just wanted to add a couple things off the top of my head.

 

For one, with images there's so many things you can do to improve on them it's hard to even know where to start. Most folks don't consider editing the image so that it's the best it can be for web display. In Photoshop this is made easier by the "save for web" feature. You can adjust your jpeg and gif quality accordingly so the image will load faster and a host of other options, including changing your matte color (so it doesn't have those white edges on black backgrounds).

 

This annoying edge thing is usually the fault of someone who grabs images off of other sites because they're too lazy to make their own. If someone took an image I made off of one of my sites, chances are they'd notice it was customized for that site. Then again, they prolly wouldn't notice and would use it anyway.

 

Another thing about image filesize and load times - using a feature like "save for web" in Photoshop will show you the estimated load time for an image on different connection speeds. You will see that sometimes it is better to use a gif for a bigger image than a jpeg when you would have thought the other way around, and vice versa.

 

Moe on images - Animated gifs

 

If you're gonna use em, put them together right. There are many options for making an animated gif smaller in size, the most important one probably being to tell the gif to reuse the same background in the pic if it remains unchanged for so many frames. Don't redraw the same background over and over for 10 frames if it isn't necessary. There are many other tricks for animated gifs that I can't even recall at the moment. Point is, work with it and don't just throw something together.

 

About javascript - don't use it unless you have to do something that you can't do otherwise. Not only is javascript different in all browsers, but some people don't have it turned on. Same with cookies. Only use them if necessary.

 

If you are lucky enough to have server side scripting to use, such as PHP (my fave!), use that for scripting over javascript if you can, especially for browser detection. I was reading the source to this site the other day and saw this multiline javascript function that's used just to figure out what to display for the current date. There's a one line piece of PHP code that would do that.

 

Note: I ain't picking on this site! I happen to think it looks quite nice. The point I'm trying to make is that if you have PHP or another script source available to you, use it instead of javascript because it will be more reliable, as it doesn't rely on the user to be set up to implement it.

 

That's all for now, I suppose. Once again, I was not picking on this site in any way! I realized it kinda sounded that way after I typed most of this in, at least with the javascript thing, anyways. =

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Zekish:

 

It didn't sound like you were picking on AtariAge at all. No matter how good a site is, there's always some way to improve it.

 

Like my crappy little web sites:

 

The Fortress of infinitude

 

Fi's Atari 2600 Memories

 

I think they look way better than they did 6 months ago, but there's still a lot I could do to make them better.

 

About code: It would be nice to code your own stuff for total control because I use Homestead's drag & drop editor and they add a lot of stuff that I don't even know about which probably slows down each page. There's nothing I can do about that until I can pay to have my own web sites and learn how to make my own pages without dragging and dropping.

 

Oh, and feel free to tell me what you think of my sites if you want. I can take it.

 

 

Thanks,

 

D.A.H. from the F of i

[zekish]

F of i:

 

That Fortress of Infinitude is a cool site! I spent time in the inventions/futuristic stuff part. Some of that stuff I'd heard of but a lot of it I haven't. Cool stuff.

 

Technically, the site looks fine. = I didn't view the source or anything, though. If you use a GUI to do it, I can bet there's orphaned font tags and stuff in there. But as long as the site does what it's supposed to and looks good, why worry? I'll prolly check it out more later but I don't feel like hitting back on my browser right now and losing out on this reply. I shoulda left it open in another browser, eh?

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Zekish:

 

Thanks for checking it out. If you find anything that you don't like on either site, feel free to let me know.

 

 

Thanks again,

 

D.A.H. from the F of i

[Mindfield]

Fi:

 

For a Homestead page, those aren't that bad. Particularily the 2600 memories page -- I like that you've integrated what's new in theatres, on the radio and TV, and in the arcades along with the release dates and notes about 2600 games of the times. It really sort of puts things in perspective and adds greatly to the nostalgia factor. All you need are Atari commercials and it'd be complete! :-) (I've got loads of those :-)

 

Really there's nothing I can complain about with the page. It's laid out well, not at all busy, the images are clean and the pages are formatted quite well. They load quickly and it's easy to find what you're looking for. Nice job! If you'd like to chuck Hoimestead for some real hosting -- free, bannerless, ad-less hosting, let me know. I'm currently working with a few other emu nuts in setting up a couple of web sites, and the main site (EmulationNET) will be hosting some websites. E-Mail me if you're interested.

[utamav91]

A lot of internet providers give a decent amount of webspace (mine allows 6MB) as part of your monthly service without tons of extra banners and ads.

 

But have you seen how cheap hosting is now? Especially if you split it with a friend or can get a sponsor to back you.

 

I was checking around and have seen several companies offering hosting for like $8 a month--I plan on moving my 6MB personal-page basketball site that was getting about 1000 hits a month to an actual ".net" site pretty soon. Wife can use our IP-provided space to put photos of the beloved cat on the net instead.

 

The $8 a month I'll be paying is really just 12 less trips a year to my favorite overpriced mexican food restaurant which I don't need to subject my body to anyway

 

[ 05-31-2001: Message edited by: utamav91 ]

 

[ 05-31-2001: Message edited by: utamav91 ]

[utamav91]

A lot of internet providers give a decent amount of webspace (mine allows 6MB) as part of your monthly service.

 

But have you seen how cheap hosting is now? Especially if you split it with a friend or can get a sponsor to back you.

 

I was checking around and have seen several companies offering hosting for like $8 a month--I plan on moving my earthlink personal-page basketball site that was getting about 1000 hits a month to an actual ".net" site pretty soon. Wife can use our IP-provided space to put photos of the beloved cat on the net instead.

 

The $8 a month I'll be paying is really just 12 less trips a year to my favorite overpriced mexican food restaurant which I don't need to subject my body to anyway

[+Random Terrain]

utamav91:

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Homestead gives you 16 megabytes for free, and you can have as many web sites as you want (at 16 MBs each). That's pretty good for free. When I can pay to have my own sites, I'll need at least 16 MBs for both of them, hopefully more.

 

I have zero money right now, so the only time I get to go out to eat is when someone takes me. (There is no money for me to save at this time.)

 

Sometime in 2002 or 2003, I hope to have my own "real" sites.

 

About hits. I get 30 to 90 unique hits a day on my main site and I almost always have the most on Wednesdays. I don't get it, Wednesdays? Of all of the days of the week, why that day? It's strange.

 

 

Thanks again,

 

D.A.H. from the F of i

[Mindfield]

Fi:

 

Well, like I said, we have the space on our server to host your Atari 2600 site. You're welcome to come aboard, or even just set up a mirror. There's no banners, advertising, or any of that sort of thing, you have full FTP access to set your page up, there's access to server-side includes (Perl, et al.), Java, whatever you like. No catch. It's sort of a part of what EmulationNET will be all about. Just upload your pages (editing paths where necessary) and you're all set.

 

(And no, we don't get money for it. We just want to have a nice sort of community of like-minded people who share a common interest for the benefit of emu-holics, retrogamers and technological nostalgia buffs alike. Plus, we ourselves are hosted by Infinity Technologies, who are quite friendly towards retrogamers. :-)

 

Think it over and let me know.

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Mindfield:

 

Thanks again. I'm going to stay with Homestead until they kick the free users out or I learn all the HTML I need to put my Atari site and my regular site somewhere else, whichever comes first.

 

I know that I can't use drag & drop forever, unless someone makes an editor that doesn't add a lot of extra code that you don't want on your page.

 

 

Thanks for your help,

 

D.A.H. from the F of i

[+Random Terrain]

Mindfield:

 

Cool. Thanks.

 

About Atari ads. If you have the month/year dates when each Atari commercial was presented to the public on national (United States) television, that would be another great thing to add to the history. I like all of that kind of stuff. Anything that will add to the recreation of memories is great!

 

If I can ever afford to leave Homestead, or if they kick all of us free users out, your hosting would be great if it's available then.

 

 

Thanks,

 

D.A.H. from the F of i