Differences between HTML,SHTML,XML etc. - resizing images - dial-up simulation

[The Eclectic Electric]

Does anyone know of a good starting point for learning the difference
between all the different kinds of HTML and PHP/ASP etc? I have a lot of
programming experience, albeit in an obscure specialist language, and can
usually cut, paste and alter bits of webpages to get the effects that I
want, but I'd like to be more confident about what I'm mixing and matching
and how compatible it all is. I'd also like to conform to standards as far
as possible, although the people who sold me my domain name failed the W3
check!

To give you an idea of what I'll be aiming at (it's for my sister's nascent
card making business), I've made a "coming soon" splashscreen:

www.fairymoon.co.uk

At the minute it's one big picture. I've faded the edges and made the
background the same colour as the background in the picture. This will be
the "home" page and is a similar effect to what I'll be wanting, however
I'll be splitting the picture up into slices and using these for various
spangly mouseover/click events with animations and sounds and stuff. (I
know, I know, but it will be done in moderation and the emphasis is on
making it eyecatching rather than functional.)

What I'd REALLY like is to be able to stretch/compress these slices so that
they resize with the width of the window, otherwise I'm going to have to go
with the 800x600 design that I'd (sort of) used on the splash page, which
doesn't look so great at full resolution. Is this at all possible?

And finally, I can't seem to find this anywhere, but it must exist - is
there a utility to slow down your broadband connection to simulate dial-up
speeds for testing? The site (well the homepage at least) will be quite
media intensive and I don't want potential customers disappearing while
waiting with dial-up still accounting for almost 50% of the market in the
yUK.

Thank you in advance for any help/abuse etc.

+e

 

[Blinky the Shark]

And finally, I can't seem to find this anywhere, but it must exist - is
there a utility to slow down your broadband connection to simulate dial-up
speeds for testing? The site (well the homepage at least) will be quite
media intensive and I don't want potential customers disappearing while
waiting with dial-up still accounting for almost 50% of the market in the
yUK.

Analysis here:

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/


Your current splash:

Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 46.00 seconds
28.8K 23.00 seconds
33.6K 19.71 seconds
56K 11.83 seconds
ISDN 128K 3.62 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 0.31 seconds

 

[The Eclectic Electric]

Analysis here:

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/


Your current splash:

Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 46.00 seconds
28.8K 23.00 seconds
33.6K 19.71 seconds
56K 11.83 seconds
ISDN 128K 3.62 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 0.31 seconds

That's great. Thanks.

+e

 

[WD10]

Does anyone know of a good starting point for learning the difference
between all the different kinds of HTML and PHP/ASP etc? I have a lot of
programming experience, albeit in an obscure specialist language, and can
usually cut, paste and alter bits of webpages to get the effects that I
want, but I'd like to be more confident about what I'm mixing and matching
and how compatible it all is. I'd also like to conform to standards as far
as possible, although the people who sold me my domain name failed the W3
check!

http://www.w3.org (the standards)
http://www.w3schools.org (introductions to many things, but not
standards-oriented)

Your server is Apache so you should look into learning PHP
instead of ASP.

What I'd REALLY like is to be able to stretch/compress these slices so that
they resize with the width of the window, otherwise I'm going to have to go
with the 800x600 design that I'd (sort of) used on the splash page, which
doesn't look so great at full resolution. Is this at all possible?

I don't think you can make images stretch and compress. You can make the
background of the image slice transparent or the same color/pattern as the
background color of that section of the page, and then have the area with
the background color/pattern expand and compress.

The best thing to do
would be to find a web site that does the effect you want, and then print
out all the HTML and CSS and try to figure out how they did it. The Web
Developer Toolbar for Firefox is useful because you can show all CSS class
& ID information on a page, and look at the CSS in the sidebar at the same
time:
http://tips.webdesign10.com/web-developer-toolbar.htm

 

[Rincewind]

(I
know, I know, but it will be done in moderation and the emphasis is on
making it eyecatching rather than functional.)

That seems like a good way to attract customers.

What I'd REALLY like is to be able to stretch/compress these slices so that
they resize with the width of the window, otherwise I'm going to have to go
with the 800x600 design that I'd (sort of) used on the splash page, which
doesn't look so great at full resolution. Is this at all possible?

you can specify percentage values for images which will resize them when
the page size changes. i.e. <img alt="head pic"src="/head.jpg" width="20%"
height="50%">