Link indicator to off-site pages

[TC]

I'm looking for opinions on ways to show visitors, your links will send
them off-site (to another website). The following was suggested:

Look at the three links under the third paragraph:
http://www.countryrode.com/sales/vespaline.php
Note the tooltip when hovering the graphic as well.

Personally, I have not seen these. Are they really needed? Do users
care they are being directed off your site?

[Eric Lindsay]

In article <Pi************ *************** ***@ppepc56.ph. gla.ac.uk>,
"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, Eric Lindsay wrote:

I think I am coming around to the view that I should use anything
new in CSS that doesn't involve positioning (which seems totally
broken in IE) if it looks good in some browser. In the past I have
been totally avoiding anything new for fear it wouldn't work in IE.
Now I think I'll just let IE fail to work with the new stuff, as
long as the web page is still able to be used. I am really tired of
having conservative pages
That sounds about right - as long as you aren't working for some
misguided sponsors who insist that everything that you use has to show
up on "all" browsers (by which they usually mean IE and "Netscape" -
they've never heard of IBM HPR, nor Lynx).

I am working to educate a couple of people with the idea that they can't
control what their page looks like. Between demonstrating different
browsers using different window sizes, with different text zooms,
graphics on and off, scripting on and off, and user font size and
stylesheets overriding stuff, I've managed to back them into a state of
shell shock. Luckily web pages are not central to their businesses,
they just have the idea that maybe they should have one.

If they want it to look identical, that is what PDF is for. When they
ask for PDF, I tell them to see the guys who would design flyers for
them, if they were willing to pay that sort of money. That seems to
eliminate that problem. Not sure what I'll do if they ever do get some
posters made - tell them more about search engine placement, I guess.
As long as you're allowed to design for advanced browsers, I'd say do
it, as long as the design also has graceful fallback.
Being retired and doing this for fun gives me lots more options. That
is why I am taking the time to learn to do it right.

Thank you for your comments on browser reactions to CSS. I should have
thought that through long ago.
[1] IE3 didn't understand em units, and when it saw a text size of
2em, it seems as if it guessed it might be a typo for 2px, with
deplorable consequences. That's an example of why the CSS spec
requires things that are not understood to be ignored!

Ouch! Px for em. At least that explains some of those pages I recall
not being able to read years and years ago. Luckily site stats seem to
indicate I can ignore IE3.

I am not willing to go to the length of telling people they should
change their browser (seems way too rude, and not productive at all).
However when I get somewhere with learning to do decent web pages, I may
put a page on my site explaining why it looks better in standards based
browsers than it does in a certain other one. Maybe stuff every trick I
find in that page, and include a jpg of what it should look like.

Thanks.

--
http://www.ericlindsay.com

[Stan Brown]

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 15:02:01 +1000 from Eric Lindsay <NOSPAmar2005
@ericlindsay.co m>:

I am working to educate a couple of people with the idea that they can't
control what their page looks like. Between demonstrating different
browsers using different window sizes, with different text zooms,
graphics on and off, scripting on and off, and user font size and
stylesheets overriding stuff, I've managed to back them into a state of
shell shock.

Good for you, Eric!

I wonder if somewhere there's a set of ready-made images of a single
Web page with that sort of variation. It would be a great labor-
saving device for those of us who, like you, are trying to educate
people about the limits (and consequent benefits) of Web authorship.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you