(no subject)

[sebastienne]

I'm in a significantly better mood after discovering that cycling hurts this sprained ankle less than walking. Thanks to everyone who was lovely to me when I was feeling rubbish the other day.

I maded a website! All by myself and I didn't even steal a little bit of anybody else's code.

The logo went slightly pixelly when I changed the .png to a .gif (bloody IE6 not supporting .png transparency) but it now works in every browser I've tested it in.

I am aware that everybody else acquired these skills in utero but I am nevertheless exceedingly proud of my baby-steps towards actually having some tech skills.

Also, this news pleases me: Oxford cops reprimanded for tobogganing on riot shields.

Comments

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

Yay! :D

You can use conditional comments to display the GIF in IE6 and the PNG in all other browsers. Description here (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537512(VS.85).aspx) and implementation example (on now horribly out-of-date site - I wish someone from the new committee would contact me about taking it off my hands. I even gave them a copy of Expression Web to use...) here (http://ed.mvps.org/oxice/). They seem to break code validity, but work on every browser I've tested on.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

I ruled that option out as not validating, but may reconsider if it means that people get to see the prettier .pngs (not that there's much in it - .png version at the mirror (http://www.potatojunkie.co.uk/whosoc/)).. thanks for the links!

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

The difference is definitely noticeable, but could be worked around - if you recreated the image without antialiasing, then you wouldn't get the hazing (which occurs because the image program smooths the difference between black and transparent with multiple levels of transparency - all but one of which become opaque in the single-transparency GIF). Then the difference wouldn't be very noticeable, and you'd get compliant code that looked good everywhere.

(When I need to create websites, I take a slightly pragmatic approach - since standards compliance doesn't ensure that it'll work everywhere, just make sure that it's intelligible, and that it should work pretty much everywhere.)

(I'll also refrain from posting my thoughts on those folks still using IE6...)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

those folks still using IE6

Unfortunately, that appears to be the institutional browser. So people in Oxford's libraries, computer rooms, and offices, are often stuck with it. Believe me, the temptation to stick in a conditional-comment header saying "You're using a non-compliant insecure browser! It's your own damn fault this doesn't display properly!" is ever-present.

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

Indeed; long has that disturbed me. Of course except on the Sun terminals, where you get an old and bastardised version of Firefox.

(St Anne's JCR for a few years had machines with a choice between IE7 without multiple tab support, for some reason, and Firefox 1.5.)

[andustar.livejournal.com]

Do I know you?

*was unsociable stannes person*

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

Possibly... I was also a pretty antisocial Stanner. When did you graduate?

[andustar.livejournal.com]

2007. Shani, hung around with fellow english students Meg and Alaka?

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

Doesn't ring any bells, I'm afraid. I'm Ed, physicist: matriculated 2005, graduated 2009; mostly hung around with other scientists.

[andustar.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I knew a couple of Eds, evidently not you :)

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

There were a lot of us around! :)

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

This page (http://css.tests.free.fr/en/hacks2.php) suggests that you can make conditional comments validate properly... :-)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can apply that here - if I'm understanding correctly I could use that technique to show the .gif additionally, but only in IE browsers; I don't see how I could use it to replace the .png altogether. The solution on your OxIce site looks so lovely and elegant, I'm tempted to steal it, but I'm so proud of my little validating-buttons (because I am, apparently, unable to resist the lure of the Gold Star).. I might try image-fiddling as a first approach.

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can apply that here - if I'm understanding correctly I could use that technique to show the .gif additionally, but only in IE browsers; I don't see how I could use it to replace the .png altogether.

If you also use a conditional comment to hide the PNG in IE6 - so you end up using two conditional comments: one hidden-by-default one around the GIF, showing only in <= IE6 (i.e. of the form ) and another shown-by-default one showing in >= IE7 and in third-party browsers, of the form STUFF . (If that makes sense?)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

Not entirely; if only IE browsers interpret the contents of a conditional comment, how will, eg, Firefox display something that's inside one?

Sorry, I'm using you as my tech support a bit here, please don't feel obliged to reply; I'll have another re-read of that site tomorrow and see if I can get my head round what you mean.

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

No, it's fine :-)

Ah, my comment tags were interpreted as comments by LJ and hence swallowed - not helpful!

The first type has all of the content inside of the HTML comment (<!-- comment STUFF end comment -->); the second type has only the conditional comment code inside comments, with the actual content outside (<!--comment --> STUFF <!-- end comment -->)) - non-IE browsers will ignore the comment entirely, and just show the STUFF that is not enclosed with a comment.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

ah-ha! I shall give that a try when I update the site tomorrow - thanks very much!

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

hmm, perhaps emailing test versions to people with IE isn't the most sensible way to do this; I'll work on it next time I'm near a PC with IE, I think.