First Salvaged Post

Here's the first of the salvaged posts. I've got a couple more that I was able to save too. It really is too bad the kiddies had to go and wreck the thread, but when your site is overrun with high school kiddies who aren't kept in check that's the sort of thing that happens. That's also why I like Usenet groups more than Webbie boards and such, as almost everyone is an adult on Usenet.


>> I do, on quite a few of my sites. Like nyah:
>> http://www.backwater-productions.net/the-care-bears/
>> (although it's not entirely finished, the design and
>> user interface is superb given the audience)

> Is it?

According to several different groups of web designers and graphic designers...yes.

> I dunno, the "flash app floating in the middle of
> black" is idosyncratic.

Um...I take it you're not a web designer. I was sort of under the impression you were but now I'm guessing not. That's called a "portal design" and there are a variety of different reasons for using it.

> It doesn't make good use of browser space.

LOL, actually it makes the best use of browser space because a portal form auto centers to within the web browser. If you have a lot of extra space around it, it's simply because you're using a resolution that's higher than its base resolution. Its base resolution is 800x600, although I'll likely start switching to 1024x768 here pretty soon as most data trackers, my own included, put the number of 800x600 res users at around 10% to 12% and falling. Usually when a particular area falls bellow 10% it's no longer a viable concern as far as catering to and certainly not at the deficiency of everyone else. The portal form as I'm using it also semi-upgrades nicely to 1024x768 by converting the new, additional space to ad space, rather than covering up the sites content directly with ads.

> It disables the browser's navigation,

It doesn't disable the browsers navigation at all, however it uses its own navigation as it doesn't rely on a multi-page form, rather it alters its own content from within itself, thereby never requiring a page reload, which means faster content delivery and a smoother, seamless look. As it has its own navigation controls it has no need for the browsers, which are dependant upon multi-page forms and as such are inherently deficient by comparison.

Now, you ~could~ try and argue that single page forms are deficient in that you couldn't link to say a specific portion of the site, rather you could only link to the base site and would then have to include navigation instructions. *BUT*, there is an easy way around that by simply using URI variables that can be thrown into the link which will be picked up by the Flash coding and then will respond accordingly with whatever content has been requested. So for the links page I could have it setup like:
?&nav=links
So the full URL would be:
http://www.the-care-bears.net?&nav=links
And for a link to the sounds page I could use:
?&nav=sounds
http://www.the-care-bears.net?&nav=sounds

See how that works? Although ultimately that's only ~really~ needed on sites with hundreds and thousands of different page links and forms, like blogs and news sites. For my little CB site it's not something that's absolutely necessary given that there are only 9 main sections to really link to.

>it doesn't work on iPhones and other devices.

It wasn't designed to nor should it be either. Web pages for iPhones and other small portables generally shouldn't be designed for entertainment so much as information, specifically providing information on the go. Normally if you're looking to be entertained you'll sit down at a regular computer, or you'll use a laptop. There are miniature games designed for those devices, based primarily on Gameboy forms and early video game systems like the NES and SNES however currently there's no real standard at all for making miniature websites and really, if that was your intention you would be looking at creating a SEPERATE site and would likely use the .mobi domain extension. To try and make a single website that essentially caters to two completely different technologies really doesn't make any sense at all. Essentially your complaint isn't any different from whining that you can't play PS3 games on your Playstation Portable. It's a retarded question/complaint, to put it bluntly.

> Now web design conventions aren't unbreakable, but
> there is this idea that most pages of a site will have
> the name of the site at the top left, and clicking on
> that will bring you back to the front page. I'd argue
> that those tiny little "back" buttons are not an
> adequate replacement.

Wrong once again. The idea behind such a form is dependant upon thread level. Sites that have very deep thread leveling need to have some way to jump all the way back to the contents or the front page of the site. As the CB site only really has one thread level (maybe 2 if you want to include the picture subcategories) it really doesn't need REDUNDANT navigation control, which is basically what you're suggesting. Generally when making websites you want to try and *NOT* confuse your visitors and one of the most important ways of doing that is by *NOT* having multiple, redundant navigation controls. Doing so also frees up clutter and makes the design more clean.

> And your scrollbars lack enough indicators to show
> that they're scrollbars, they're just nubs.

I haven't had any complaints at all from anyone asking me how to scroll on the page and pretty much unless you've never used a computer before in your life you shouldn't have any trouble at all figuring out what that little colored bead on the right hand side of the content does. Further, the site fully supports mice with scroll wheels, which is one of the reasons I cut down on the visual scrolling elements, essentially I removed excess redundancy by taking out the usual top and bottom arrows. I also removed the backing in order to stay in line with the style/design of the site. Removing it didn't much matter since it wasn't really providing any actual purpose. It was originally meant for style/design, not for an active function...although in true, Micro-bloat mentality they do set it up to mirror the page up and page down keys. Microsoft is one of the very worst offenders of redundant control systems which is one of the reasons why their products are so bloated and often confusing for people.

> I guess it kind of looks like the subject,esp. the
> title screen.

Huh?

> http://www.ironartshop.com
>
> In firefox, the scrollbars have the opposite problem;
> they're very windows looking, which would be ok, IF
> they weren't embedded inside the Western poster
> looking bit.

Huh? You just contradicted yourself. First you said custom scroll bars were no good and then now you're saying Windows like scroll bars are the "problem". This reminds me a lot about what you were doing before with my sig, how you were fixating and obsessing over a small/insignificant thing that really didn't matter much at all, which is obvious in that you've essentially said that every form of scroll bar is a "problem". Basically you're looking for something to say is wrong and you're using scroll bars as a convenient easy mark. Also your complaint that the scroll bars are within the site design is completely contradictory to *GOOD* site design...unless of course you're using floating/auto-repositioning navigation controls. The important factor, especially if you've got a high level threaded site is that you keep the navigation controls viewable at all times. If your site is scrolling with the main scrollbars for the browser and not using scrolling within division frames or iframes then any navigation controls you have will slide right off the screen as you scroll down. The only way around it is to use a floating navigation system that will auto-reposition itself to where ever the top of the screen is. However it generally makes more sense to use scroll bars within division frames as it puts the scroller closer to the relevant content that it's controlling.

> http://staff.wwcc.edu/steve.shoemake/website/anatomy1/tutorials/movements/index.html
>
> This looks like a power point (at least it has back and
> fotward arrows ;-) and those animated figures are
> the scariest thing I've seen in all of yoga land.

The drawings weren't mine, if it was me I would have used Poser models like I did with this site.

I'd be interested to know what the stereotypical "Power Point" looks like and how it relates to the site's design. Technically speaking any Power Point presentation can be a website (they even have export features for it) and almost any website could be made into a Power Point presentation. Generally Power Point presentations advance via mouse clicking, rather than having any actual on screen controls and I've never seen a Power Point presentation with a contents/navigational page...although I think it might be possible with at least newer forms of Power Point.

> http://www.backwater-productions.net/wedding/
>
> ... so that's weird too, right? to have navigation tied
> to the calendar only. It's idiosyncratic (rather than
> a more typical "show entries in reverse
> chronological list") and now it's broken... usually a
> calendar is just an additional navigation.

Once again you're not looking at the site form itself as far as the audience and goal of the site. For a regular blog site obviously it makes sense to have additional navigation controls for looking up and looking through old blog posts, however that blog was what can be considered a "temp blog", which only had a really short, 3 month usage span. The blog itself was actually less of a blog and more of an information kiosk for family members. The blog form was more of just an after thought, hence the reason it only has a few entries in it. Generally you should design your website around the content, goal and audience of the site, rather than blindly following what's been done before by others. Generally that can be considered bad design, especially if you're incorporating things that your site really doesn't need at all.

> http://www.backwater-productions.net/_test_platform/BT_Redesign/
>
> Of all of these, this is the best - makes good use of
> the space, looks pretty sharp, and has pretty
> straightforward navigation despite being nifty..

That's actually a complete rebuild of a similar site. The client hired someone to make them a site but they didn't know how to make websites so they bought this Flash template site and passed it off as their own. Of course the problem with that is that when the client started getting nitpicky and wanted it customized the original "designer" they hired couldn't get the job done and ditched them. So then they hired another web development company to build them a new site, however the owner of that web development company knew I was good with Flash so he asked me if it would be possible to salvage the botched site design even without any source templates. Of course, for me, that's real easy, so I took on the job. I basically rebuilt the site from scratch, which ensures that there won't ever be any legal snafus and problems which often arise via the use of cookie cutter templates. In the rebuild I changed around several different things. The most prominent being that the originals navigation controls "floated" about on the screen, which was really kind of annoying. I also created/changed most of the graphics around, the most prominent being on the client and award pages. You can see the original here.

They got a real good deal on that too since I only charged $500. Granted it was a rebuild with no source templates, but it did technically have a base design already.

> I don't think I'm nitpicking about some respect or
> other... most of these have fundamental navigation
> or visual issues. And most all of them except "BT"
> ... I dunno, I'm not as good at putting visual things
> into words as I am explaining UI issues, but they
> feel off, I think "professional" would be pushing it.

I think the stuff about the scroll bars was pretty nitpicky...especially in that, that's basically all you could really say was wrong with the sites...and technically they weren't wrong at all, they were actually completely right forms of usage. I think the problem here is that you're confusing "professional" built sites with major company sites. It's like CNN, Blogger, Google, etc are major companies, therefore any website form they have is going to be what you consider "professional" rather than really looking at the purpose/goal of the site, the form of the site and the audience. That's a very common mistake amongst those who aren't web developers.

> http://www.backwater-productions.net/_test_platform/Forum_Template/
> http://www.backwater-productions.net/_test_platform/forum_entry_load/
>
> Sorry to be dense, but what's cutting edge and
> experimental there? A draggable window? Changing
> colors? Or did I just not click on the right bit?

I'm sorry, once again I mistook you for an actual web developer. The sites are doing a variety of interesting things. The changing of the colors is controlled via external XML style sheets, basically it's showing off the fact that you can style Flash content in the same way that you can style HTML content (via external, potentially shared CSS style sheets). That's one factor that non Flash developers often try to critique against Flash, claiming that you can't use CSS style sheets with Flash content. Not only can you use CSS style sheets but you can even directly use its big brother, XML.

The other big thing is the Windows like functionality, with the dragable, resizable and closeable windows. This form opens up a whole variety of possibilities as far as creating web programs, moving beyond the website level and into the functional program level. My RPG XP Sprite Generator and the music player on my CB site are both examples of website programs. The Flash Windows form in those two sites could be used with such programs as far as providing a basic program shell/primer, much in the way that current programs for Windows and such are loaded into standard shells.

Of course even beyond website programs it offers an interesting form of design that currently isn't seen on any site. You can roughly mimic the form by using multiple browsers and/or tabs, however my form lets you have resizable and moveable windows within the browser itself, which opens up a variety of design and navigational possibilities, especially as far as user preferences. You can see some sites like Google attempting to mimic the form without Flash, with their "widgets" and such, however you're limited greatly in how you can arrange those widgets on your screen and you don't have any sizing options at all. They do offer roll ups I believe, which is somewhat similar to a task bar or tab bar.

> http://www.backwater-productions.net/_test_platform/liquid/
>
> It's just (slowly) scaling , and fractionally
> repositioning?

Um, try resizing your browser more, resize it down to about the screen size of an 800x600 resolution screen. Then resize it back up to your usual resolution. The purpose of the form is that you can make a website that will appear identical on any resolution, effectively doing away with white space that is inherent to catering to lower resolutions. Current forms of that including liquid stretching, which generally make the site look pretty funny on higher resolutions, the higher the resolution the stranger it's going to look. Also think about site graphics, like your website's title graphic. Now if you're designing your site around say a 1024x768 resolution the size of that graphic is going to look perfect...at that resolution. On any lesser resolution, like 800x600, it might suddenly be taking up more than half the screen. Or a higher resolution it's gonna look ~iddy bitty~. But with perfect liquid sizing it can take up the exact same screen space regardless of whatever resolution your users are using.

The slowness can be sped up considerably using server side image caching, otherwise it actually has to rebuild every single image on the fly. That uses a lot of site resources as well so without server side image caching it's not a real viable form for a high traffic site.

It should be noted though that Flash essentially allows you to create perfect liquid sites with much more ease, essentially rendering that javascript/PHP form of perfect liquid resizing obsolete. Not that anyone has ever actually created a perfect liquid website in Flash (at least not that I'm aware of), but it is possible. Flash is superior though in that it can resize within itself, not having to rely on PHP server side. You can ~technically~ build a perfect liquid site using just HTML, however most web browsers are limited in their resizing capabilities in that they can only use nearest neighbor pixel resizing. The results would be quite pixelated looking, either upsizing or downsizing.
For example these images were resized in a graphics editor.

And these are browser resized.

Firefox actually does a decent resizing job (at least in Windows, haven't tested on any other OS). However IE v6 and below just use nearest neighbor pixel resizing, which just looks like ass. I'm not sure if they've fixed it with newer versions of the browser or not. Knowing Microsoft though probably not.

> Could you give some of the use cases for that? It
> sounds coolish, but it's hard to know what it would
> be useful for. Except for slowly scaling.

Uh, the God Level coding form is completely separate from the perfect liquid design, they're two entirely different concepts really, I just used them together to make the whole thing cooler and to save time.

God Level coding essentially comes in two forms...regular...and insane.

There are actually quite a few sites that use a form of regular God Level coding. Basically any site in which you can navigate from one section of the site to another and the page never reloads or leaves the page it's on. Most Flash sites are technically a form of God Level coding (in a way). The benefit is faster loading times, a seamless, non-flickering/blanking site form and less usage of server side resources.

That perfect liquid resizing site uses the "insane" form of God Level coding. The goal of "insane" form is not only to reduce the total number of web pages to one, but to actually reduce the entire web site itself into its absolute, most smallest form possible. Generally it's more for showing off than it is for practical use. It *IS* technically practical on a variety of levels, however implementing it is very much *NOT* practical and it's an absolute fucking bitch to code like that. Generally the only time I would ever even consider using that form of God Level coding would be if I had some insanely popular website where saving 2 or 3 hundred Kilobytes of bandwidth per user actually equated into meaningful numbers on a mass scale.

The "normal" form of God Coding is more about style and design than reducing a sites overall size, however depending on how you implement it, it can greatly reduce your sites overall size. Think about it like this...let's say you have a website that has 250 pages of content. Now, on every single one of those 250 pages you've got an identical navigation bar/control, the code of which takes up say 10 Kilobytes. So in total you would reduce your entire site size by 2.5 Megabytes. Doesn't seem like much, huh? Think about this though, let's say your website is *REALLY* popular and you're getting around a million unique visitors who are viewing an average of 25 pages per visit. Well one million visitors times 25 pages works out to 25 million pages times 10 Kilobytes works out to 250 million Kilobytes or roughly 238 Gigabytes of total bandwidth. Now instead, if each user was only visiting ONE page that could change its content on the fly to represent all those 250 pages of content then you would be looking at roughly 230 Gigabytes of total *SAVED* bandwidth per month. On *THAT* level it becomes important to try and reduce your overall site size as much as possible.

Now, there are several different ways of having a single page site design. The most obvious and the most used and most critiqued is via the use of iframes. But then you still wind up with parts of the page flickering/reloading and technically it's not really God Level coding because the site isn't technically changing its own code, it's just loading external code as needed. The best form of God Level coding is to use a database, or even better, use custom XML pages which contain the data needed for sub pages. The site can then change its own code within itself using that accessed data, rather than simply loading external pages next to itself.

> I think I understand what I'm looking at code wise;
> what's it good for?

See above.

> But if it's just scaling... it doesn't seem that much
> better than scrolling? And the trend seems to be for
> stuff like iPhone and Firefox 3, it scales on the client
> side as needed, and it's a lot more effecient....

It would have to use Flash in order to scale properly on the client end. I think you're confusing feature/browser detection and redirecting with scaling.

> ....that doesn't look like a parody of what most
> people mean by Web 2.0.... the previous image did,
> but web 2.0's look is those arial fonts, white
> backgrounds, and minimal UI widgetry or coloring....

Hence the reason I said it needed updating with star bursts and reflections. What's considered Web 2.0 changes every few years, it used to mean lots of partially faded image overlays and those fuckin partially faded grids and other random shape hooha crap. You're talking about a *GOOD* "web 2.0" look though, *BAD* "web 2.0" would be putting reflections on *EVERYTHING*, hell I've seen some where they actually did reflections on reflections! And *LOTS* of colors and *LOTS* of different font types and poorly rendered star bursts all over the place, etc, etc. The problem is that it's a very often poorly used and often abused style, to the point where it's basically become the style norm.

> I pickde on the sig 'cause it was the main thing that
> was here. But it wasn't subtle pixel thing... I think
> assuming people are happy to wait for an automatic
> slideshow of indeterminate length to loop around is
> just a bad UI.

It only takes like 7 seconds for it to loop. That's being nitpicky. If it were taking like 30 seconds or a minute, yeah I could see your point. 7 seconds though is right on par with whining about single pixel level alignment issues. And once again the purpose of the sig was never to show off my skills and ability in Flash coding, it was merely thrown together as a quick way of representing some of my sites.

> No, that's not what I'm aiming for here.

I wasn't talking about you.

> I'm trying to give sympathetic, real, non-nit-picky
> critique.

Well, so far it seems you've failed...miserably. You're not a web developer though so it's not a real big deal. Really the only critiques that I actually really listen to are the ones that come from other developers, and specifically other developers who have an extensive portfolio of work that they've done.

> I admit when your work looks good - the BT site -
> and I think that's a lot less often than you're saying.

Considering the very best "critiques" you could come up with were contradicting yourself over scroll bars and saying that one of the sites looked like "Power Point"...yeah...I must be doin pretty damn good. Let me put it this way, when I critique a website, seriously critique a website...I can usually churn out four or five PAGES worth of text as far as how the site could be improved, both in coding form and graphically. But again, I'm an actual web developer so I have quite a bit more knowledge to critique with, where as you're mostly going off assumptions about what you think makes a good website.

> See, so basically you're saying, you LIKE this kind of
> confrontation. Lots of people, interesting people
> doing interesting things, get along fine on a host of
> forums, and manage to blow off the few griefers
> that show up. But you revel in it, and it follows you
> around, and when you show up some place new,
> people see you as part of that kind of attacking
> dumb culture that they don't neccesarily like, and a
> kind of cycle continues. But I don't think it has to
> be this way.

It isn't that way...in some groups. Granted there will always be Hatter Addicts, but they're easily ignored for the most part, as well as any ensuing discussions/flaming. In some Usenet froups like A26 the regs will even engage the Hatter addicts on occasion and play around with them a bit. It's pretty funny because the one thing that pisses a Hatter Addict off more than *ANYTHING* is when someone is agreeing with me in any way or defending me in any way. A Hatter Addict will *NEVER* agree or defend anything I say and they'll see anyone who does as either an enemy or as a sock of myself, often accusing them outright of being me. It's very amusing.

Ultimately it's up to the regs of the group though. On SelectButton there were just too many kids though, which is why the tantrums started and why everything fell apart. I'm inclined to think that the owner or moderators of the site are equally immature as well. Mostly in that they didn't do anything to stop the kiddies from tantruming and then when I started copying their exact same tactics (on a much smaller scale) in other threads they didn't even hesitate to ban me. Such hypocritical, double standard moderation is something that you would normally only expect from someone still in high school, certainly not from a mature adult.