Forum Archive Index - September 2000

[Will Bryant <will@sharechat.co.nz>]

>On the other hand there is a site which downloads quickly, resolves 
>quickly, and where content is not prisoner to style. I refer to the 
>Sharechat web pages.
Thanks :)

I do put a definite bit of effort into making sure that we don't rely on 
java, javascript, CSS etc. any more that strictly necessary, using text 
links rather than graphics of text as much as possible, etc..  It's good to 
know it's appreciated :)

>I looked at the source code for the Sharechat pages and found references 
>to DTD (document type definitions) and CSS (cascading style sheets), so 
>the programing language used to create these pages is not simple.
Yeah, and even when we I use CSS, I try to make sure that the page will 
render at least ok in older browsers that don't support CSS.. sadly many 
designers don't seem to follow such "graceful degredation" design principles.

>My question is how can Sharechat get it right, and others make such a pigs 
>breakfast of their web pages?
The main thing is that we put content & accessibility first and "cool" 
design second - which seems to be far too uncommon unfortunately, with much 
webdesign being done by graphic designers who quite unashamedly care much 
less about users than their opinion of their own graphic design abilities.

Aside from that, there are things like I also do our HTML manually rather 
than using (supposedly) wysiwyg tools, so I can make sure that it works in 
older browsers (many wysiwyg editors produce html that only work well in 
version 4 or above browsers, even when there are simple alternatives that 
work in all).

>Is it a solution to appoint the Sharechat code cutters web policemen, with 
>powers to overwrite web pages on servers which full of bad code?
Yeah that'd be nice, especially ones on Microsoft servers (not that I'm a 
linux bigot or anything) :P

>Anyway Sharechat code cutters take a bow, you have got it right when many 
>others have failed.
Thanks :)

BTW, if anyone ever notices problems with using our site, or has any 
suggestions, feel free to let myself (will@sharechat.co.nz) or Ben 
(bendutton@sharechat.co.nz) know - we always like hearing from our users :).

_______________________________________________________________________
Will Bryant, will@core-dev.co.nz                    cell +64 21 655 443
http://www.core-dev.co.nz/    Personal: http://www.core-dev.co.nz/will/
ShareChat Ltd. technical manager            http://www.sharechat.co.nz/
[PGP 0x96A7F40A, FP 827F A2A9 C718 106D 8F80  E16E A244 D5F2 96A7 F40A]


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sharechat.co.nz/          New Zealand's home for market investors
http://www.netbroker.co.nz/        Trade on Credit, Low Brokerage. Join now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To remove yourself from this list, please use the form at
http://www.sharechat.co.nz/forum.shtml.