Netscape != graphics

marym@Finesse.COM ((marym@Finesse.COM))
Mon, 2 Oct 1995 08:22:41 -0700


Leo Scheiner said:
<i>> I have already been advising my customers to go for Netscape enhanced sites</i>
<i>> (on the grounds that a good homepage reaching 70% is better than a boring one</i>
<i>> getting to 100%) If anything they should offer a text based alternative.</i>

Wait a minute here. I agree that Netscape is a top dog, but just because
someone doesn't use Netscape, doesn't mean that they don't want images.
I'd love to know where this reasoning comes from because it appears to
be widespread, and I think that it insults quite a few people. On the
other side of the coin, just because someone has Netscape, it doesn't
mean that they want to be assaulted by huge graphics. I would say
that graphics inclusion/exclusion is irrelevant of the browser.

Netscape offers tables (which are a good thing(tm)) and much more layout
control than offered on many only HTML 2.0 compliant browsers. Netscape
2.0 will be offering a dramtic difference in the use of Frames. These
are the reasons "for" Netscape.

I think that the people that believe that Netscape means a more
graphics heavy site is good will alienate a good portion of the
remaining 70%.

I personally advocate the following design:

- Where possible offer Netscape/non-Netscape trees - I hate to be
prejudicial in favor of Netscape, but it is easy to implement with
Netscape's client-pull META tag enhancements. No one else differenitates
their non-table capable browsers from their table and other layout
capable browsers. I don't intend to waste server load to determine
which browser is talking to me, but when the differentiation can
be made by the client and client specific pages requested, I will
provide customizations.

- Keep all default graphics to less than 30K, and only load larger
graphics upon client request. Keep the initial home page to 40K or less
total (html +graphics).

- Use tables (and soon Frames) for optimal layout control.

<i>> The number of Netscape enhanced pages will rise dramatically and the market</i>
<i>> will then force all other browsers to follow Netscape's lead.</i>

Netscape already has a dominant lead. Some browsers are trying to
follow suit, but few companies have a development program that can
equal Netscape in consistant releases. Everyone will always be one
step behind. Besides, Netscape isn't always developing to standard.
I'd love to see a little pressure to get Netscape to implement the
more standard things (like put the additional layout control in
stylesheet format instead of within HTML). The stylesheet stuff looks
about as done as Netscape's stuff and it makes more sense anyway from
a large-scale design point of view. I want to have one set of style
sheets for my site to give a common look and feel.

<i>> Notwithstanding all those committees trying to design an agreed standard,</i>
<i>> Netscape will establish the real standard.</i>

<cynic> Right </cynic>. This defacto standard vs committee standard
is going to be a religious war equal to the BSD vs SYSV or Mac vs PC
wars. It is going to be a long stupid war of opinions where the
customer is going to suffer from fragmentation.

Mary

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