How to detect table width or height?

[Dennis]

Is there some way --using, say, DOM or javascript-- to detect the
current pixel width and/or height of a relatively sized table or of
one of its columns or rows. I'm going to be writing javascript to
adjust my page to the viewer's browser window dimensions and this
would sure be great information to have.

Thanks ....
Dennis

[Mark Parnell]

Sometime around Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:17:39 -0800, Dennis is reported to have
stated:

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 12:46:51 +1000, Mark Parnell
<we*******@clar kecomputers.com .au> wrote:

Not at all. The web is fluid by nature. If you don't specify fixed sizes,
then the page will flow automatically.
While that is true, you must admit that most all the top websites opt
for an "800-wide non-horizontal flowing" format (typically aligned
left) and let any flowing happen vertically (and waste all the rest of
the horizontal space). Why is that?

Yes, they do. So? As to why - who knows? Because they are too
narrow-minded, and stuck in the mid 90's? IMHO, much of the reason that
the large sites still have fixed-width, table-based layouts is simply
because of the time and effort that would be required to change it. That's
how sites were done in 1996, when many of these sites were done. Yes, many
of them may have changed the look of their sites since then, but not done a
complete redesign. We, however, have the opportunity to do things right
from the start.

The question you should be asking is not what do the major sites do, but
what is the best thing to do? The two are not necessarily the same. If
you have the ability to do something properly, why do it badly, just
because that's what everyone else does?

And what of the users that don't have Flash? You are ignoring them?

97%+ of web users have Flash installed

Macromedia's figures, which are dubious at best. And what of search
engines? They don't have Flash installed. How are your potential visitors
going to find you in the first place?
and the rest can get it for free with a single click.
Not necessarily. What if they are at work, and the system administrator
does not allow them to download and install any software for security
reasons? What if they are blind, so use a speech browser? What if they
are on a slow connection, so cannot afford the time or money to download
Flash (or the animations once Flash is installed, for that matter).
Anyone who knowingly doesn't have it is
just being honery. And for them, I'd say get PopUpCop.

If I knew what honery meant, I might be offended. :-)

Why pay money for a program that stops _some_ flash ads, when I can
uninstall Flash for free and miss them all? I have seen very few
legitimate uses for Flash, and many mis-uses, so see no reason to have it
installed. If that means I miss out on your site, fine. I'll just go to
the next one, that actually allows me to access the content.

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

[Dennis]

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 14:08:33 -0500, kchayka <kc*********@si hope.com>
wrote:

With HTML, I have control over text size. I can make text whatever size
it needs to be for me to read it. Flash can't do that.

You can put your own font buttons on your flash movie and change the
font size that way. Admitedly, it would be slicker if the user's
existing browser settings would do that automatically. But just out
of curiosity, what do you do about graphics?

Dennis

[Brian]

Dennis wrote:

97%+ of web users have Flash installed
Yeah, that's according to Macromedia, right?
and the rest can get it for
free with a single click. Anyone who knowingly doesn't have it
"knowingly doesn't have it?" What, is it a crime?
is just being honery.

Here you've stumped me. I checked my dictionary, even checked 3
online references. No "honery." Did you mean ornery?

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Dennis]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 10:23:01 +0300, Mikko Rantalainen <mi**@st.jyu.fi >
wrote:

Well, color me skeptical but I have yet to see Flash used in such a way
that the usability is *better* than without Flash. Could you give us a
hint and throw us an URL to *any* site that uses Flash and has good
usability in your opinion. I haven't yet seen any. [1]

If there aren't any such site in existence yet, how did you figure out
that you can come up with one or that even trying to do that with Flash
would be a great idea?
I've used Flash for several years now to author a math book I'm
making. I'm doing the graphics in Flash. I just like it better than
other vector drawing programs. I've written a program in Visual
Foxpro that takes the Flash output (wmf's) into Corel Draw and
programatically puts the pages together using OLE Automation. (yeah,
it's quite a soup) Well, I started to make a "web application" that
performed like a windows app, and that's when I found out what Flash
can do in a browser. Flash was the only way I could "take over" the
user's screen from corner to corner the way an application does. I
can't give you websites that use Flash in the way I'm describing, so I
guess I'm talking about something new. But the capabilities of the
program are there.

[1] The only thing that has even remotely nice features and uses Flash
is http://www.kartoo.com/. I think that the usability could be much
better but using Flash makes some sense in this case. (HTML version
could be much better though, so the comparision between the Flash and
HTML versions of that site isn't fair.)

Thanks for that katroo link. It sure looks great --about using it, I
don't know, I'll have to dig into it. At first glance, the art does
seem gratuituous but I'll have to dig into it to be fair.

Dennis

[Dennis]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 16:26:13 GMT, ti**@greytower. net (Tina Holmboe)
wrote:

Dennis <theonlyDennis@ removeForSpam_m indspring.com> exclaimed in <1n************ *************** *****@4ax.com>:

I was wrong, it's 98.6%. And if that isn't enough, those other 1.4%
are not locked out in any way. All they have to do is click on a link
You are wrong, yes. It isn't 98.6% - noone *know* how much it is.

Laura Gutman in Inside Dreamweaver (New Riders, 2002) says,"Macromedi a
claims that 98.6% of browsers have the Flash plugin, which is a
phenomenal number." I saw 97% indicated at MM's website.

that says "get Flash." But I would be very appreciative if you could
elaborate on my "arrogance. " I really don't understand the hostility
I have generated in this NG. How am I being arrogant?

Because you are saying: "I want to use a technology which is not part of
the standard web tools. Anyone else should just adapt to me"

Not part of the standard web tools? Any thing that's got 97-98.6%
market penetration is pretty "standard".
Consider this. If every TV broadcast were, suddenly, in HDTV format
and the TV companies told you that "Oh, but all you have to do is get
a new TV set!" you'd be pretty miffed.

Not if a new HDTV was free of charge.

Dennis

[Mark Parnell]

Sometime around Sun, 26 Oct 2003 18:52:49 -0800, Dennis is reported to have
stated:

Consider this. If every TV broadcast were, suddenly, in HDTV format
and the TV companies told you that "Oh, but all you have to do is get
a new TV set!" you'd be pretty miffed.

Not if a new HDTV was free of charge.

But I have no way of getting it home. Or it won't fit in my loungeroom.

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

[Erik Funkenbusch]

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:29:34 -0800, Dennis wrote:

But are
you familiar with the zoom feature in Flash? With it you can make
EVERYTHING larger, not just text. So images (which aren't affected by
the user's preferred text size) also get magnified for the user's
benefit. It seems like kind of a wash in my opinion.

Actually, it's very easy to design your site to scale images along with the
text based on the users preferred text size. You just specify your image
sizes in em's instead of pixels. I believe Eric Meyer had an article about
this that I read somewhere. Of course this technique isn't as precise as
pixels.

[Dennis]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 14:01:54 +1000, Mark Parnell
<we*******@clar kecomputers.com .au> wrote:

Sometime around Sun, 19 Oct 2003 20:17:23 -0700, Dennis is reported to have
stated:

http://www.macromedia.com/software/p...s/flashplayer/
This report has been discussed here previously. The statistics are based
on 2000 participants - not a very large number considering the total number
of internet users - who are supposedly a "representa tive Internet sample".

Oh come on.
And of course, no matter how accurate the figures might or might not be,
they ignore one of the most important visitors to your site - the search
engine robots. I guarantee they don't have Flash installed. :-)

Google reads <a href> links in a swf (flash) file but it doesn't index
the general text that appears. You're right, that's a HUGE downside.
In fact, I have to make my home page in HTML so google can see it.
After that, I can branch out to the flash pages. In the meantime,
Google and the other robots out there ought to increase their
vocabulary and start reading those swf files!

Dennis

[Dennis]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 15:00:01 -0400, Stan Brown
<th************ @fastmail.fm> wrote:

In article <4d************ *************** *****@4ax.com> in
comp.infosyste ms.www.authoring.html, Dennis
<theonlyDennis @removeForSpam_ mindspring.com> wrote:

Stan Brown had written:

But what will _really_ happen is that people will go to your site,
see that it depends on Flash, and go elsewhere, unless you offer
content that they want and can't get anywhere else, which seems
unlikely.

OK Mr. Statistics, how many web surfers turn away when they see a
Flash site? Give us a source and not just a personal opinion.

I don't have a number -- unlike you, I'm willing to admit that I
don't know.
But several people in this very thread have said they do not have
flash or do not routinely use it. That should tell you something.

I did provide a number. Now maybe Macromedia cooked it a little, but
with a figure as high as 97%, even if they cooked it a lot, it would
still be a very high percentage of users. My remark was to the point
that I suspect that users of this NG --affecionados of the web-- are
not typical of your average user. In my experience watching high
school age people surf the web, they LOVE the flash sites --even if
for all the "wrong reasons". My point is, I don't think most people
tun away from a flash site just becuase it's flash --unless you have
evidence to the contrary.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

One could say that to anybody about anything. Ergo, it doesn't mean a
lot dude.

Dennis

[Mark Parnell]

Sometime around Sun, 26 Oct 2003 19:26:47 -0800, Dennis is reported to have
stated:

I did provide a number. Now maybe Macromedia cooked it a little, but
with a figure as high as 97%, even if they cooked it a lot, it would
still be a very high percentage of users.

But still less than 100%.

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au