h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The enhancements on H2G2 are excellent. I'm just pleased as punch with the direction the site is going (ie, yay! no more rampant javascript!). I have one suggestion and one question which might conceivably be a request as well:

Request:
I would love to convert all of my tags to tags, but the tag doesn't support an ALT attribute. Can such an attribute be added to the tag so I can keep my tool-tip-like comments on my pictures?

Question Which Just Might Be a Request:
Is there a GuideML tag for adding a hit counter to my page? If not, could one be added? The user preferences page should allow the user to reset the counter if desired. The look of the counter could (should) even be changed to match each skin. Get a sort of "colour-coordination" thing a-going.

Thanks, and keep up the great work.

P.S. My javascript popup-users stuff was gone before I'd read halfway through the paragraph about the tag.

Following on from that, I think I'm right in saying that the tag has one or two other limitations, although I can't remember what they are at the moment. Which is why I prefer the tag. But apparently these things are being phased out...

So you haven't spotted that the ALT tag on PICTURE works now?

Doh! When did that happen?

Gosh, it works. Kudos to the H2G2 team. Is there a page we can go to that describes all of the features of GuideML?

Any comments on the hit counter notion?

There's information on all of the GuideML tags (as they work in this version of h2g2) at the GuideML Clinic http://www.h2g2.com/A187229


h2g2 Counters have been mentioned/requested before but I don't know what the plans/official position is... Jim?

;^)#

Jim?

Jim?

Um, Peta? A user page hit counter is on the features to do list. We hope to be introducing many new features over the next few months, so watch this space!

Bruce,
The one thing I notice about the picture tag is the problem with text running right to the edge of the picture. It seems to get even closer with this changeover. (may be different with different browsers, but I've noticed it with both Netscape and IE on Mac). Is there a way to create an offset through code (like the hspace="10" attribute). Visually, it just doesn't look as good when there isn't some small amount of space around a graphic.

I've been able to get distance at the bottom by using a non-breaking space in the caption. That works pretty well.

Thanks.

One of the features of GuideML is that the attributes for the tags are controlled by h2g2 - so there's no hspace or vspace attribute for the PICTURE tag.

h2g2 could implement a default set of values to be output in the HTML <IMG tag generated by the site - but thats not something I can do.

During testing I raised the point that the shadow attribute no longer worked - it was indicated that it may be re-implemented. From memory the old SHADOW attribute output a set of hspace & vspace attributes when it built the border & shadow table for the image. So if the SHADOW attribute is reinstated it might solve your problem.

At the moment your only option other than the PICTURE tag is to use the html <IMG SRC tag if you really feel the need - though h2g2 hopes we'll move away from HTML.

hope it helps
;^)#

Ooops, you could try

eg http://www.h2g2.com/A184961#PICTURE.4

;^)#

Certainly the EMBED="CENTER" gives you good space on the sides, but there are lots of times from a design standpoint that you want left or right embedding with text wrap. If the graphic is irregular, the spacing 'appears' better but with a straight edged side, the text comes too close. Perhaps if shadow returns, this will help. Obviously not a huge problem, just an interesting one from a design standpoint.

Also, I noticed that a lot of people are going to have to change their code to use EMBED="CENTER" instead of using the html around their image, which doesn't work any more.

If SHADOW is reimplemented, perhaps a small problem with it could be addressed.

If I specifiy a caption for my and it exceeds the width of the image, then the border is stretched to match the width of the caption instead of the image, which looks really unpleasant. The only way I could fix this is to insert s in my caption, but this only makes sure it looks right for _me_. Anyone with, say, a larger font would still get a nasty-looking border.

If (when!) SHADOW is implemented again, could be modified such that either the caption has intelligent breaks inserted automatically (which still won't fix the "I use a larger font" problem) or to make sure that the width of the border is always that of the image rather than the caption?

Kludge time - put the pic inside a TABLE?

The last time I looked still worked in GuideML pages (though it may not stay a operative tag), but is disabled in GuideML.

;^)#

Interesting... I did some further checking.

In IE 4.5 (Mac), the tag around a works just fine.

In Netscape 4.7 (Mac) the tag around the picture is ignored and the picture displays on the left margin. This is a change with h2g2v2.

Here's how the source code comes out in Netscape when this has been done:










Note that the 'table' has been centered, and the caption has been aligned center (in this example, no caption), but the image itself has not been aligned center and the table's align attribute is blank.

Redbeard

According to Netscape ( http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/htmlguid/tags15.htm#1082811 ) "The CENTER tag centers content. All content between the and tags is centered. (implemented) Navigator 1.1"

Was there an EMBED setting for the PICTURE in your test?

;^)#

Oops only a partial quote there - missing from my Netscape cut&paste was
"The value of an ALIGN attribute overrides the tag. "

;^)#
time for bed

There was no EMBED in that example. So I'm guessing that the GuideML to html translation ends up with the , which Netscape interprets as its default (left) (moreso than not having an align attribute at all) and overrides the tag. Yes?

Yes, Bruce, don't forget to sleep!

A quick check of Netscapes HTML documentation shows the default for ALIGN is left - so my guess is that your guess is right.

;^)#
Bedtime for Bruces - catch ya later