Preserved Topic: Dot Menu

You will love this site navigation menu.
Check it out here, I am currently trying to use it on my site.

"I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either expression is correct."
~~ Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian, d. 1702







[This message has been edited by Dark (edited 08-21-2001).]

yeah its cool isn't it dark. i've used that script on this site http://www.coleman.u-net.com this is sort of a pre beta site. you have to click the grey box to get in and only the who are we section actually leads to any content... yes it is a bit poor, its a first effort kind of thing. any comments especially on how i can improve the color scheme. its me first website [and i told them i could do websites hehe]

: : Relain : :

Cool!

It has been a while since I visited DHTMLCentral!
and this script was really nice!

Relain: If you want comments on what you are working then the you could post the site over in the site reviews section (the colour is fine but your text overlaps badly at least for me).

On the script - it does look nice but (at least on old slow machines like the one I'm currently using) the script is slow and if I wanted to use this script to navigate through your site I would find it pretty frustrating (and I'd probably go elsewhere if I didn't have an overwhelming reason to keep going). As an example of what is possible it makes its point well but as a navigation tool I would question its usefullness.

Emps

ah slowness. mmm forgot to think about that actually, i've got a p3 800 here so its not much of an issue. yeah i'll post the finished site in the reviews, i just wanted to see what people thought about using the dotmenu script like that.
Emps, what do you mean when you say that my text overlaps badly. can you explain is this to do with where the windows open, cos yeah that is a bit sort of random. thanks for looking though.



[This message has been edited by Relain (edited 08-21-2001).]

The best illustration of what I meant by text overlapping can be seen in these screenshots:
http://www.theemperor.f2s.com/screenshots/astec1.jpg
http://www.theemperor.f2s.com/screenshots/astec2.jpg
http://www.theemperor.f2s.com/screenshots/astec3.jpg
http://www.theemperor.f2s.com/screenshots/astec4.jpg
http://www.theemperor.f2s.com/screenshots/astec5.jpg

Setup on this computer IE5, NT4, 800x600, really slow processor. You should think about the target audience - if its university researchers or other lab staff then most won't be using as up to date equipment as visitors to more 'high-tech' sites might. They would also probably be more interested about getting in and getting the informtion as quickly as possible without having to wait for the script to do its business or learn a new interface.

Hope that helps.

Emps

ah, yes i see your point, damn. well that kind of screws that idea. im just doing this as a voluntary/learning thing, so i'll probably carry it through now and see what they say when i submit. need to read up on some visual presentation principles.
Thanks again for taking the time to highlight this point etc.

: : Relain : :



[This message has been edited by Relain (edited 08-21-2001).]

Emperor makes a good point *but* there comes a point where you have to just move forward. If I was going to design something like this it would only be after I was Ok with losing a certain percentage of my audience. As long as your intended audience is served then this sort of thing would be quite spiffy.

I am a little frustrated because on one hand you can accomodate a lot of viewers but on the other hand you can really deny yourself creating some really awesome interfaces.

Like with anything it's a trade-off situation.

Bug you said the key words "trade-off" Im sure there is alot of dynamic interfaces and effects that are possible, but I guess we have to double-check who the site is for. In my case I could careless who can't come because of a bad conn or slow comp, cause face it. I'm on a T3 server! there is going to be alot of people that are cut off because what I view as a good load time is forever and a day for someone else



"I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either expression is correct."
~~ Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian, d. 1702

Having a 'I couldn't care less' attitude is all fine and dandy but... If say 10 people visit your site. 5 have fast PC's and a cable modem, The other 5 have slow PC's and a Dial-up connection. None of those 5 cable users are likely to comment on your site being cool however, out of the 5 dial-up users you should expect at least 2 will take the time to complain to your about it. Remember, people like to complain more often than they compliment.

The problem I have with people making their sites 'High Bandwith Only' is that I just don't see a point to it. If your going to put something on-line then you obviously want other people to see it, if you don't then don't bother putting it on-line in the first place. Also, I think you should have a good reason for making a site 'high bandwidth' only, say if it'a a video related site or whatever, but without a good reason you simply failing to design decent website, and 'because I have a T3' is not a very good reason IMO. However, it does depend on your web sites target audiance, but if you ask me it's best to make sits as savvy and compatabul as possible while still maintaining maximum viewing pleasure and quality.

Anyway, each to their own I guess...

i agree, but how can I possibly know how fast a page is going to load for everyone? One can only hope his/her site even works for them, 90% of WM use IE compatibility, so does anyone really care about coding to satisfy shitscape users? nah I don't think so.
The only way to solve the problem is this. If you want to put amazing intrfaces on your site make 2 sites one for advanced and one for basic. Kinda like frames or no frames if you will.

take 2 pills

"I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either expression is correct."
~~ Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian, d. 1702

Dark, you can do the math, add up your page weight in KBs and consider the connection spped, say 56k as a base that most people are connecting at (I've seen reports that 28.8 is the majority), and then it's only around 49kb at best, then transient conditions knock that down...

then consider who is coming, and what they are coming to see, and use those criteria to make a judgement call on how long they will wait.

there is homework to be done and those things can be figured out. Sounds like you're just doing something to please yourself, if that's the case, then who cares? You eventually will want to please someone else though, then it's good to know what you're doing.

enjoy that speed



Jason

Dont worry I will

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Are you afraid of the Dark

but the site im working on isn't actually that high bandwidth, like the whole page is about 40k. which is 90% code and a few optimized gifs.
what is the average user running in terms of a processor? cos its actually more an issue of how fast the computer can run the script and update the screen.

Nice script. I've experimented it..

I tend to agree with nearly everyone on this. There should be a place for fancy interfaces and/or high bandwidth sites but you must know your audience - I don't really think that the Accelerator Physics Group:
http://accelerator.dl.ac.uk/ap/

Is the kind of site which would attract the kind of audience that would want a fancy interface to deal with or being using the most cutting edge equipment.

That script is also tricky to implement and would need some considerable planning and testing to get right. I see the site is moving (largely with the help of dhtmlcentral scripts!!) - you are loosing some of your text where it overlaps with your panels but you have got the overlapping text fixed. I would style question the targetting of this interface design but its your call (and this probably isn't the forum for going reviewing the site in depth).

Emps

yeah im thinking that this wasn't such a good idea now, but i have to finish by friday so im kind of stuck. the people in the group seem to think its actually a really good idea but like you say its a bit fiddly to actually work,. i've had to put instructions up and i think thats probably a mark of a crap interface. but im gonna stick with it now.

Cool beans


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Are you afraid of the D a r k

About the speed deal, that is where XML comes in.

Design an XML backend, and then all you need are some XSL's for different formats and you are fine.

They coming through there with a text only browser, thow them out the core information with you XSL ASCII translation of the site.

How about acrobat accessing your site, throw down the .pdf XSL translation.

That is why XML is grand.

If you are browing broad band with the highest technology you can get, then throw down the huge DHTML site, with the cool interface and the 200 graphics, however when the palm pilot comes through the toned down XHTML version would work just fine!

XML a beautiful thing!

u r g h ! I so forgot about XML! ,That would work grand to make everyhitng spiffy, thx

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500'th Post