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The Creative Side of Web Development
Ponytails are also known as "creatives". Web designers, writers, graphic artists,
audio, video and animation gurus all qualify as ponytails. Ponytails can be temperamental,
egotistical, expensive, or all three, but they are indispensable.
In This Section
Related Section
Flash
- Flash
5 Tutorial
Flash 5 is the latest version and includes numerous upgrades and additions over previous versions. This is the first in a series of articles to help users learn how to use this version. Part 1 of 7.
- Flash
4 For Beginners
This small cluster of articles takes you through
the creation of a simple animation and is aimed at people very new to Flash. When
you've finished reading, you'll have a basic understanding of how the program
works and how to use its principal functions.
- Flash
4 For Intermediate Users
In this article we build on the knowledge and examples
from our Flash For Beginners tutorial. The original example was very straightforward.
Now we add on the fancy bits and deal repeatedly with motion tweening and tinting.
- Flash
4 - Adding Sound
In this final tutorial we give life to our Flash 4
movie by adding sounds.
Photoshop
- Photoshop
5.5
Photoshop has become something of an industry standard,
thanks to its raft of professional features, but Web developers have always found
that it came up a little short. Version 5.5, however, introduced a lot of Web-friendly
features.
- Choosing
The Right Color Palette In Photoshop
Photoshop 5.5 gives us seven Color Tables to choose
from when creating JPEG, GIF or PNG images. We'll explore these alternatives and
see which work best with which images.
- Let's
build an ad banner with Photoshop!
It's easy! It's fun (well, almost). Here's a quick-n-dirty
tutorial.
Xara
Graphics
- All
You Need To Know About Web Safe Colors
Web Safe, or Browser Safe palettes as they are also
referred to, consist of 216 colors that display solid, non-dithered, and consistent
on any computer monitor or web browser.
- Creating
Your Own Favicon.ico Icon For IE5
If you're in Explorer right now and pull down your
Favorites menu, you'll find some custom logos lined up next to the site names.
This little icon is called a "favicon". For very little effort, you can have the
same thing next to your own site name.
- The Mad,
Mad World of Pixels Per Inch (PPI)
Pixels per inch (ppi) is a measure of resolution used
for Web graphics, including JPEGs and GIFs, and also for computer monitors. The
physical size of graphics you see on screen or in print is determined by one or
the other or both.
- Web Virtual Reality and 3D - in VRML or XML?
Virtual Reality at its simplest is a 3D image that the user can rotate to see from various angles. Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) was supposed to be the standard language for VR, but market-oriented companies are ignoring VRML in favor of XML.
- PNG
- The Other Web Graphics Format
PNG, or Portable Network Graphics format, introduces
a number of refinements to the GIF format. It allows resolutions up to 48 bits,
and can store gamma, transparency and textual information. Almost all 4.0 browsers
support PNG.
- The
ABCs of Web Graphics
In this installment of our Web design tutorial for
rank beginners, we learn how to add pictures to a Web page. In fact, we learn
how to do so the right way, with our graphics optimized to minimize load time,
and all the best attributes for our image tags.
- Creating
Web Animations
A step-by-step tutorial on creating animated images
for Web pages. You'll learn how to use the most popular tools, and how to optimize
your animations for minimal load time.
- Image
Maps
Just one image, a small snippet of HTML code, and
the user's mouse are all that's required to turn a standard static graphic into
one that can be interactive and even entertaining to Web site visitors.
- Pixel
Anatomy 101
This 3-part tutorial gets down to details about optimizing graphics for the Web.
You'll learn which format to choose, as well as how to minimize file sizes and
maximize quality.
- How
to Do Easy, Cool Transitions (wipes, dissolves) in IE
Wipes, fades, pop-ups, up-pops, dissolves, transitions.
One line of HTML code lets you add easy special effects to your Internet Explorer
pages.
- Layers
of Simplicity
I did not like layers. I hated how various sites
used it to clutter my screen with crap. Then I was transfixed by Netscape's Expanding
Colored Squares Example, and realized I needed a life.
For the Beginner
- The
ABCs of Building Web Sites - This
beginner's tutorial will take the clueless newby through the entire process of
building a Web site.
- Using Tables for Web Site Layout
After learning HTML, the first technical question a new Web developer has is "How am I to position all this stuff on my screen?" Edward Tanguay goes through the basics of all-encompassing tables including size, position, and dividing them up for faster rendering.
Audio and Video
- Viscosity 1.5
With the dramatic improvements and cost reduction of CD storage and incredibly large hard drives, people will soon be moving from still shots of the family to video storage and home movies. Viscosity is a program that allows you to create and edit those movies and more.
- Audio
Answers
The Web Developer's Journal Audio discussion group
is busy place. Here's a selection of answers, mainly relating to setting up your
computer for quality audio recording.
- Streaming
Media Goes Wild!
Making Web multimedia download faster is far from
the only application for streaming. It can also be used to broadcast live over
the Web, destroying the geographic boundaries that used to restrict radio stations.
- Web
Audio Workshop
A step-by-step tutorial to preparing existing sound
recordings for online distribution. The tools you need, the formats to choose
- now get out there and do it!
- The Tapeless
Studio
Reviews of the latest sound cards and audio software,
and tips on building your own virtual studio.
- Web
Audio Discussion Group
Questions and answers about computer audio techniques.
Want to convert your old LPs to CD? Wondering about noise reduction software?
Shopping for a soundcard? Ask the experts.
-
Video Files and
SMIL
Our man in Berlin, Edward Tanguay, starts his diary
with a look at video files and cutting them down to size, plus the curious SMIL
video language.
-
Stills from Video
To put photos on his sites, our man in Berlin buys
a videocam and video card instead of a digital camera, then captures stills from
video. It turns out to be a choice that brings many hidden benefits.
Dreamweaver
- Dreamweaver 3
The ease of creating DHTML, CSS and JavaScript features is impressive. What's equally wonderful is the possibility of restructuring Dreamweaver the way you like it, adding new features and sharing them with others. With this open philosophy, Macromedia is paving the way into a new kind of software.
- Dreamweaver
3 Fireworks 3 Studio
The release of both Fireworks 3 and Dreamweaver 3
should capture an even greater share of the Web tools market for Macromedia. By
using them together, designers have access to probably the best design bundle
currently available.
- Inserting
Flash Movies in DreamWeaver
Before the introduction of Flash 4.0, a separate
application called Aftershock was needed to create the HTML code necessary to
deliver functioning Flash movies for the Web. Now, inserting the appropriate code
is done natively in Flash.
- Document
Headers in Dreamweaver
Since most of the visible action of a Web page happens
within the BODY tag, it's easy to forget about the importance of the document
header, or HEAD tag.
- Easy
Cascading Style Sheets Using Dreamweaver
Cascading Style Sheets are not very difficult to
write and use, but writing them from scratch can be time-consuming and frustrating,
especially if you are prone to making keyboard mistakes.
More Authoring Software
- HomeSite 4.5: The Coding Tool
If you begin to go beyond WYSIWYG and manually code your websites with server-side script such as ASP, PHP, JSP or CFML, Dreamweaver makes a mess of them. For coding by hand, you need a tool which gives you flexibility at the code level. That tool is Allaire’s HomeSite 4.5.
- Hover Buttons in FrontPage 2000
Hover Buttons allow you to create animated buttons that change form or color when the mouse pointer is moved over them. They can be a little tricky to master, but once you've read this fine tutorial you'll be hovering all over the place.
- Getting
Started with VRML in 3D Studio MAX R3.1
A full tutorial on creating your own 3D and Virtual
Reality files in Discreet's 3D Studio MAX R3.1. The program has a built-in VRML
exporter that translates MAX files into VRML files.
- Dynamic Trio: Fireworks, Dreamweaver, HomeSite (Part I)
If you're used to Photoshop, you'll have plenty to learn before you can get the most out of Fireworks, especially when it comes to vector-based graphics. But it's well worthwhile.
- Create
an Image Swap in Fireworks 3
Macromedia Fireworks 3 is an excellent program for
creating advanced graphics and adding a little pep to bored Web pages. For rollover
buttons and other image swaps you don't even have to write the HTML or JavaScript.
Fireworks does it for you. Here's how.
- Microsoft
FrontPage 2000
Microsoft FrontPage has been the Web design tool
that "serious" developers love to hate, thanks to nasty code mangling and bloat,
IE-only compliance and dependence on proprietary FrontPage server extensions.
This release is significantly better all around.
- Tools Of The
Trade
A Do-it-Yourself Webmaster's Kit
- Homesite
4.0
Homesite 4.0 won the coveted Web Developer's Journal Product of the Year, 1998
award.
- Getting
the Most out of Adobe Acrobat 4
Acrobat 4 offers a wide variety of useful new features.
- Director
7 Internet Studio
The sophisticated and powerful big brother to Flash
gives Web authors as much as they can handle in multimedia authoring possibilities.
- Style
Master
There are several good tools for getting the most from Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS). Style - Master 1.2 is my current favorite.
Discussion Groups
Site Structure
- Walking Through Your Web Site
What do your visitors experience when they arrive at your site? Is it what they expect? If it isn't, will they stay to find what they want? These are some of the questions that you can answer if you use the "walkthrough" technique.
- Packaging Complexity
Edward Tanguay would rather give Web site visitors a wide range of choices than a quick and simple solution. But he's learned from companies like AOL that the quick and simple approach often works best.
- Designing
for Good Navigation
A simple, logical, understandable navigation scheme can increase your number of
page impressions, boost return visits, and improve your conversion rate.
- Basic Principles
of Web Site Navigation
- Using
Navbars, Frames and Site Maps
- Contact
Pages and Off-site Links
- File Addressing
File addressing is all about filepaths and the way that images and other files are referenced in an HTML document using code such as <img src="/image.gif">. It's also important for hyperlinks. Here's a quick review of the four main methods of addressing - default, absolute, relative and root.
- Navigation
- What's On Your Visitor's Mind?
The Web is packed with opinions on good and bad navigation, along with many pages
of guidelines on how to get it right. But let's skip all that and look at one
or two original concepts based on the way your visitors think.
- Site
Architecture And Navigation Through Research
Karen Charlesworth presents her views on architecture, research and navigation,
and the close relationship between the three.
- Writing
for the Web
Text for the Web now has an established style that's
known to work. All you need to do is spot the differences between this style and
traditional hard-copy writing and follow the same rules.
- Accessibility
And Usability: What's In It For Me?
Accessibility means that web sites are open to individuals
regardless of their disabilities. Usability means that web sites are easy to use.
Both are important.
- Information Overload
Edward Tanguay, looks at the information overload
destined to hit the world over the next two decades. Web developers are at the
forefront of this change. How should we change our methods of working to cope
with it?
Print Graphics, DTP
-
"The
Resolution's Too Low"
"No, sorry, we can't print that, the resolution's
way too low. It's only 72 ppi and we print at 100% dpi." Oh dear. If you want to
get your precious screenshot/Web-graphic into print, you've now got about twenty
minutes of explaining to do.
- Converting
Print-Based Documents For The Web
You may find your Web page content is originally supplied
in Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, PageMaker, or even more obscure forms.
How do you present this material on the Internet?
-
Adobe InDesign
1.5
Adobe's top-line page layout package, aimed at graphic
designers, production artists, and prepress professionals. It can save to many
formats, including HTML.
- Print Graphics
and Desktop Publishing
- PageMaker
6.5 Pro
This page layout package is designed to produce print
output, but also lets you produce HTML pages. If you're producing a print publication
that you want to mirror on the Web, you'll find PageMaker 6.5 Pro mighty handy.
- Adobe After
Effects
Two thumbs up for this powerful animation and special
effects package.
Archive
- CorelDRAW!
7
Time to Upgrade Again!
- ColdFusion
4.0 - A Positive Review
An alternative to Active Server Pages (or ASP) technology
for creating high-level HTML for database connectivity and more dynamic Web sites.
- ColdFusion
4.0 - A Negative Review
I have a tale of ColdFusion woe and have to add my
2¢ worth. I don't think ColdFusion is ready for Prime Time.
- LinkBot
Bad links, malfunctioning site features, and glacial page loads bug people big-time!
It's well worth using a tool like LinkBot to find and fix errors on your site.
- DreamWeaver
A WYSIWYG Editor for Pros?
- NetObjects
Fusion 4.0
Fast, relatively easy, and a good way to get a small
business on the Web. Clever design implementation, and simplified integration
with e-commerce services.
- HoTMetaL
Pro 5.0
Good for the intermediate user, also useful for beginners and advanced HTML designers.
- Macromedia
Flash 3
A complete tool for producing anything from animated banners and splash pages
to complex multimedia presentations.
- Canon
PowerShot A5
This compact digital camera is a useful tool, as
well as an addictive toy. It's perfect for adding photos to your Web pages.
- Canon
BJC-4400
Darn Good Printer for the Price
- Lexmark
Colorjet 5700
Cool, color, cheap.
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