[Redcap]

Originally posted by DCElliott
We're gonna have fun with this redcap guy, he's is sooo easy to tease.

I heard that!

[Redcap]

Originally posted by animgirl

Must be a guy thing.

Or, in my case, good Kentucky Bourbon!

And yep, it's a guy thing, lol!

[DCElliott]

Y'know, the way this guy reposts everything that was said before,
I'm gonna start calling him:
RECAP instead.

Dunno, mate, but you can't be very good at this Airsoft thing, ya jus don't know when to duck and cover. And telling us you are a fairy driver, oh, but am I gonna have some fun with that one.

<glee>Waiting for indignant response . . .</glee>

It's OK, you've been postin' here how long now? Can only have 'bout 2-3 more months left in the initiation period.

DE

[animgirl]

ROFL

[Redcap]

Originally posted by DCElliott
Y'know, the way this guy reposts everything that was said before,
I'm gonna start calling him:
RECAP instead.

Matey, I've been called loads worse in my time, that's definately small fry as things go

In any event, I was brought up to help others when I could: If this means quoting loads, to stop others having the need to scroll up and down a page, just to follow what's going on, then so be it, and to you

Dunno, mate, but you can't be very good at this Airsoft thing, ya jus don't know when to duck and cover. And telling us you are a fairy driver, oh, but am I gonna have some fun with that one.

<glee>Waiting for indignant response . . .</glee>

Heh. If you wanna call our double-deck bus drivers "fairies", then I'll visit you in A&E (Accident and Emergency, equivalent to the ER over there!); howzzat?

<grinning like an idiot>, imagining DC covered head to toe in medical plaster, drinking through a straw, having told one of our 6 foot twelve inch tall, five feet wide ethnically different drivers that he's a fairy!</grinning like an idiot>

It's OK, you've been postin' here how long now? Can only have 'bout 2-3 more months left in the initiation period.

DE

That all? Pfah. I've been through RMP initiation, mate: Look at the cap-badge to the left of this message. You got nothin' on that, boy

(Damned curious to see where this goes... )

[i]Edited for telling sperrors and a grammatical fubar[i]

[Redcap]

Oh, and I've been called to do yet another twelve hour stint behind the wheel today, dammit. "I'll be back" to see how you cope with the above (lol) later tonight! Thanks the stars I've a rest day tommorrow!

Have a good start your your weekend, folks!

[animgirl]

Do you speak with one of those cool accents? I want one of those.

DC will appreciate you calling him a 'boy'; it'll make him feel young or something...

[Redcap]

OK, then: Let's try this WITHOUT the quotations, and see how it goes...!

[Insert accent straight off 'The Sweeney' TV series]

Naw. I tend ter tawk wiv a saaaaarf lunnun aksent

Of course, I could try a... watsisname... er... vat bloke wot broke up wiv Liz Hugely - er, Hurley...! Oh, yeh. Hugh Grant.... Naw. Fergettit. I'd sound like a bleedin' plank!

[Remove accent straight off 'The Sweeney' TV series]

As to DC feeling young or something, w-e-l-l-l-l-l-l-l.... I guess everything helps the aged, lol (grinning, ducking and running)

BTW, DC (said he, donning his Body Armour and kevlar helmet!) - What did you use to come up with those damned impressive random contours?

Oh, and Animgirl - nice new Avatar - I like it!

[animgirl]

Well, well. Red DOES have some tude to hash out.

That random color thing is a pretty sweet deal, DC.

Thank You for liking the avatar .

[Redcap]

OK, here's the final version of the static logo, i.e., the unsliced, un-CSS'd, etc, masthead graphic...



Items changed/amended in this version: Another of DC's excellent background contours has been swapped instead of the previous one; the red pipper has had a central highlight added (which, while not all that obvious, I think adds to the effect ever so slightly).

Now, a problem: In order to get the graphic file size down, I had to optimise the JPEG considerably; do you think it looks OK as is, or do you want to see the source (Fireworks 3 very layered) .png file as well, to play around with it some?

Thoughts and impressions, please?

[Redcap]

Actually, come to think of it, it probably isn't the final version of the graphic, lol.

If I use a DHTML drop-down menu over the graphic using CSS positioning, as DC and Animgirl suggest, then I'll have to move all of the text in the graphic to the top of the line leading to the 'bb in flight' on the right, with the menu centred below the line. This is going to require extensive image slicing, hotspots, etc, and THAT'S going to require some imaginative thinking 'outside the box', so to speak, I think.

Thoughts?

[animgirl]

the red pipper has had a central highlight added

I went back a couple pages and looked at the last logo before this one, and there is a noticeable difference, the central highlight is perfect.

Now, a problem: In order to get the graphic file size down, I had to optimise the JPEG considerably; do you think it looks OK as is, or do you want to see the source (Fireworks 3 very layered) .png file as well, to play around with it some?

Well, I realize you are talking to general public here, but I don't have Fireworks. I don't know what could be played with to change the file size considerably, except for the actual size of the logo, it is pretty large.

Have you considered drop shadows on any of it?

I wonder where DC is...

[Redcap]

Glad you like the pipper highlighting - it was a sudden piece of inspiration!

Yeah, it's a wee bit on the large side, I'd agree. I'll probably reduce the height anyhow, as it's a bit too tall for the screen res that it's primarily intended for. 100 Pixels tall is probably about right, I reckon.

[wiping off mouth, coughing]

As to drop shadows... Girl, you do *not* want to see where my coffee just went! Thank the stars that it missed the keyboard!

[/wiping off mouth, coughing]

Seriously, no, I don't think they'll cut the mustard in this case, more's the pity. The shadows would be lost in the background, IMHO.

Re. not everyone having Fireworks. Good point. What do you use to generate graphics, out of interest? It might be that I can export it to a file readable on that package?

Re the lack of DC at the moment: I was wondering that too - I even dropped him an e-mail this morning, just in case he's having browser problems (not unknown on Windoze platforms, lol).

Edited for telling sperrors

[animgirl]

I use Adobe Photoshop.

Seriously, no, I don't think they'll cut the mustard in this case, more's the pity.

Oh, really?

The shadows would be lost in the background, IMHO.

It's not the fact that the shadows are supposed to be very noticeable, it's supposed to be a subtle hint of depth, but okay, okay,... I'll quite bugging you on that one.



you were talking about coffee and I began to smell it...

[Redcap]

Damn. No joy on exporting to Photoshop - looks like DC was right about Macromedia not wanting to give people help on that score, dammit... Oh, well.

I'm aware that intelligent use of drop shadows can make the difference between a 'flat' image, and one with depth - I've used the technique successfully before, and am normally dead in favour of using it, but on dark backgrounds, I prefer outer glows instead. Personal preference, I guess, but I don't think drop shadows would be right, in this case. And now I'll stop banging you over the head on that score, lol

Anyhow, here's the reduced height version of the graphic. I've had to lengthen (again, already, lol) that damned line, but everything else remains the same, except the file size, which, at 70% compression, is still a 13.99kb JPEG



Er... you smelled the coffee I spilt (er... sprayed)? I didn't know Macroshaft had equipped their s/w with smell-o-sys yet?!

Edited for grammatical fubars

[Redcap]

OK, now the masthead is sorted (at least, I think it is - am I wrong?!), I think the placement of the DHTML menu bar is obvious - right underneath it, instead of along the left edge of the page! Thoughts?

I can also get on with the coding of the new site layout. Can you suggest which forum to start on with the CSS advice, or do you want to do that via e-mail instead?

[animgirl]

And now I'll stop banging you over the head on that score, lol

ROFL
Personal preference I suppose.

13.99kb JPEG

Surely you don't think that's large?!?
That's itsy bitsy. Teeny. Schmall.

I didn't know Macroshaft had equipped their s/w with smell-o-sys yet?!

It's an a-girl thing.
You say chocolate, I say where.
You say dark chocolate, I say where where.
You say I spit coffee, I wrinkle my nose think eww, and begin to smell it.
Don't ask.

I couldn't stand it in school when teachers would come up and lean over your shoulder, with that morning/coffee breath aroma and ask, do you need any hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhelp? Then you get this stupid intoxicated grin on your face and as you suck in air, and say no. Then as they walk away you shrivel onto the floor, only to find your pencil eraser you had lost a month ago. Maybe it was worth it...

That would be the web developemtn category. I don't want to puff or pop myself, I'm not all that when it comes to CSS yet , but DC is very knowledgeable.

[Redcap]

Well, compared to the gif version (a whopping 28kb), yeah, I suppose so. My target was around 9kb, so missing by around 4kb ain't too bad, I guess.

As to the chocolate and coffee thing, girl, you must be ,

Re teachers, I always offered them a breath mint, but then I was a cheeky sod in school!

Thanks for the heads up on which forum, btw - I figured it might be that one, but it's always wise to check, just in case!

Many thanks for the help and assistance thus far, by the way!

[DCElliott]

Glad to see you've been keeping busy while I was away.

I think ya got something there, what? oh, I guess it's just the coffee stain on your tie.

Seriously, what the logo says is, here we have some underbrush, some mates pouring over a contour map, planning to set up the perfect ambush, reticule zeroed in on the hapless victim, then patwang, he's out for the round. It works for me.

Regarding the file sizes. You could get some double duty out of the graphics if you kept the background as a background to the header division with the foreground graphic positioned on top. Because the green background doesn't have a wide color variation, you might be able to get by with reducing the palette and getting a really good gif out of it. Similarly, there is not a lot of color variation in the foreground and if you gif it you can have a transparent background. To bad PNG isn't there yet in terms of browser support for alpha transparency because you could do some really neat things with the over-lapping layers.

The green backgrounds could be used in a footer section, as button backgrounds, etc. so that one graphic could work in several places. If you use CSS poitioning, you could basically chose what part ofthe graphic gets used, the moss end or the contour end.

Regarding graphics packages. Corel Photo-Paint has some interesting efects. Corel bought out some graphics products like Kai's tools, Xara, Painter and a few others. I think the texture generator came from Kai's tools (but not the Kai's interface - anyone remember that?)

Enough already,

DE

[Redcap]

Yep; we're not slouches here, despite rumours to the contary!

Er... What tie?!

Glad the logo works for you too - and thanks for the help on it, too!

File sizes. On background/foreground twin images. Interesting idea; I'll look into it, thanks. I totally agree about the lack of consistent support for PNG; it's as if the browser manufacturers are deliberately ignoring a marvellous opportunity.

As to footers, I'm thinking you've got a damn good idea there - thanks for the hint!

I'll also look into Kai's tools - thanks!

Have a good week, all!