Such a waste of design

[matauri]

I dont understand why people who have designed well presented web pages, forget the background.

Your looking at your site & you think it looks real slick, and it probably does. Then someone, like myself, who doesn't have white as their default background colour views it, and it is a mass of white squares on a page. All your hard work is lost on us, by simply not putting .. bgcolor="#FFFFFF" .. in your body tag.

Seems to me to be a pretty simple task to ensure it is always viewed as it should be.

Otherwise, such a waste of design.


Cindy

[vwebworld]

Cindy,

I see this so often... it is a wonder.

Part of the "problem" is the background color
can be "unnoticed". That is a lot of design
programs use a "white" background for the
page view... so the designer may not notice
that a background is not specified.

I am surprised that experienced designers
"forget" about this. (eventhough, I have
also had a few "oops'" in the past).

~Roland

[jdiben]

I have done that too many times to count. Now I have my browser background color set to pink and my browser text set to comic so that I am sure to notice before uploading.....again :)

Joe

[calmwave]

hmmph. Learn something new everytime...
thanks, Matauri.

[carbonize]

I wonder how many sites Matauri had made before discovering that not all browsers render the background as white by default? In fact how many of us can honestly say we have always specified a background colour?


Seems to me to be a pretty simple task to ensure it is always viewed as it should be.

Many things appear simple once we have learnt them. We should always endeavour to steer people in the right direction and not chastise them when we think they have gone wrong.

[matauri]

I wonder how many sites Matauri had made before discovering that not all browsers render the background as white by default?

I do believe I stated 'well presented' sites. Maybe I should have been a bit more specific.... not amateurs. Though, in all actuality, I include them also, because I am an amateur still myself.

So to be more 'specific'... if you 'can' design a good site, you must therefore be at least aquainted with some of the fundamentals. Building the site from the bottom up. The bottom being your background. Most of the instances where this ommission of background colour has occurred has been off the more 'experienced' site builders sites. Check out the site reviews. How many amateurs/learners omit it? The first thing they want to do is splash some background colour around.


In fact how many of us can honestly say we have always specified a background colour?

If your experienced in site design, then yes, consider yourself chastized :-)


Cindy

[gx2000]

Wonderful advice and I would say the same would go for font colors. I've forgotten to make the declarations of backbround and font colors as well. I've noticed that this forum site does not set it's font color as I use a red default color for fonts.

[mikmik]

I'm not sure where to post this so it looks like you people in here sound experienced enough. Okay, here goes:

I was wondering why 'experienced' web surfers have their default background color set to a color that they despise so much. The only reason I EVER set custom colors and fonts etc., was because I didn't know any better, I didn't realize that I was overriding the 'styling' of the website.

Now I can understand setting the defaults to something pleasant at least, why would I up and set them to something ugly? Or why would the programmers make the default of their browser renderring engine not choose white?


Also, can't the 'non-white by default' browsers be set to white?


I've never seen a browser that had such behavior, if I recall correctly - although I've only been around the computers and the internet for 17 months, so I don't have a lot of experience.


And I always choose a background color for a most pragmatic of reasons, any "professional" should know that a visiter wants to know something is happenning, and a bgcolor is the quickest way to let them know that the page has been connected to and is loading. It is also one reason why images should have 'size' and 'alt' included, so they see something relevant.

I wonder how many 'professionals' also know to code something that is outside of the table boundaries to keep the visitors interested in case of a slow loading page(due to type of connection, service slowdowns,etc).

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I am getting pretty frustrated with all the hoops I have to jump through to insure that I have all the possible 'browser/platform' combinations covered, when by having code that validates, 85 to 95% of people will see your page quite well, and those that don't, they must be used to it by now.

Do you guys realize how many people here don't include a "Doc type" declaration, let alone a proper "charset", let alone have them in the right place to be useful? All these things help the browser to render the page faster and properly too.


That is what I use to tell if someone is "professional"; 'view source' will tell you in about 5 seconds, and believe me, there are some knowledgeable 'designers' out there, and their pages work properly and fast.
Anyways, I figure that about 80 - 90% of the "professionals" here have more troubles than making sure that they have bgcolor="#ffffff".(100% proper is lower case, but better still to have it in 'style' tags in head or external sheet)

I'm not trying to be rude, especially to you matauri - you are professional in every sense of the word (one of the very knowledgeable ones!) - or even bothered at all by this topic ( it is something I didn't know, but am glad to know now), please, this is just frustrations over being really happy the way something is looking, only to find that netscape/moz
and IE can't even decide between them how much of a margin to put around your page, thereby totally screwwing up your positioning of relative and absolute div's, or not even being able to render a BORDER around and image that is coded in simple table layout!( check my page: http://factor1.net/index.htm , and look at top left corner using moz/net. Then go to any other page and look at how moz/net renders the border around my "Logo link to home" in the top, and what it does to the breadcrumb nav).

Sorry for ranting, but you can only do so much, and if it isn't something that the viewers can take care of in their browsers, it's important to know. Thanks people!

[Sualdam]

I'm not sure if this is what you meant, mikmik, but the reason I change my default colour on my PC is that I use a 1600x1200 display on a 20" monitor. I use it often with a small table lamp as the only source of illumination in my work area.

Believe me, when 'dazzling white' is the default, you often consider changing it to 'pastel yellow' (or something a bit easier on the eyes).

Must admit that I first 'discovered' the default page colour issue, discussed above, by accident when I saw a site I'd done on a PC with a non-white background. Since then I always declare white as the background if I want a white one. As has been stated here, not doing it is bad design practice.

And that is by far the easiest way of addressing it. Anything that changed a user's base settings might not change them back and would involve scripts that would almost certainly get blocked for risk of viruses. I know I wouldn't want anyone messing with my system settings under any circumstances.

[matauri]

Mik, ditto to what Sualdham said. If your page isn't saying white background (or whatever), it will pick up the default window backgound. My reasoning (and others as well) is that because I do so much hand coding the white default window background is too glary on my eyes. So we have it set to a light grey or whatever. I know of some programmers that have it set as black.

The simple deed of including a bgcolor ensures that a page is displayed as it should be. Not white tables, etc scattered across a page.

Anyway... if you were to paint a canvas, would you splash colour on the raw canvas? Or would you define a background first?

It's such a simple task. I don't think it will 'hurt' anyone to practice it. It is a good design practice.

And stop ya whinging! ;-)


Cindy

[mikmik]

We'll start with this one first, if I may be so bold matauri -
Anyway... if you were to paint a canvas, would you splash colour on the raw canvas? Or would you define a background first?. I don't know, I only sketch with pencil and the 'canvas' is either white paper of some kind, or almost clear for tracing.
Next:
It's such a simple task. I don't think it will 'hurt' anyone to practice it. It is a good design practice. to which I maintain
And I always choose a background color for a most pragmatic of reasons, any "professional" should know that a visiter wants to know something is happenning, and a bgcolor is the quickest way to let them know that the page has been connected to and is loading. It is also one reason why images should have 'size' and 'alt' included, so they see something relevant. that I don't care what you say, I agree with you!
Now then, regarding this -
Mik, ditto to what Sualdham said. If your page isn't saying white background (or whatever), it will pick up the default window backgound. My reasoning (and others as well) is that because I do so much hand coding the white default window background is too glary on my eyes. So we have it set to a light grey or whatever. I know of some programmers that have it set as black.Yes, I think that makes sense, I have a 17in that I set to 1600x1200, and a second 15 incher that only can handle 1024x768 at 60 Hz max (43 if I don't check and it defaults - dang pci cards out of old P133s!) and I somehow 'need' as much info on the screen as possible so I set the font size to '8', and then I have to lean within 12 to 18 inches of my face to be able to read anything.

I play heavily with the brightness controls I might add (and have shed some light on why I was virtually immune to the
I came across this one today. It seems to have just about every feature you don't want to see.

Wear sunglasses...

http://www.animal-actors.com/
that sauldam had selected for a professional 'critique' )BUT, I don't WANT you guys to buy my services anyways so I don't care if you don't like my choice of 'canvas' on which to display my 'heretofore never in my wildest dreams been compared to' art, if I may.

But seeing as how you guys are such a gas and keep putting up with my sarcastic, yet dullingly long winded chidings, I promise to keep using, as I always have, something like:
body,html {color:#000033;
background-color:#c00;
}
The female said (o:
And stop ya whinging! ;-)The British have a marvelous word-- "whinging"--which refers to the practice of complaining without doing anything about it. As in, "Everybody whinges about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

I dont understand why people who have designed well presented web pages, forget the background.Welcome to the club! wink!
(Thanks guys)
PS! I forgot to add that What makes you think that I don't hand code, or think snobishly that it is the only sign of worthiness? rocky1, I don't apply that rule to you.

[matauri]

Mik my dear...call me 'the female' eh?....lucky its cyber space or you would be down for the count ;-)


The female said (o:Quote:
And stop ya whinging! ;-)
The British have a marvelous word-- "whinging"--which refers to the practice of complaining without doing anything about it. As in, "Everybody whinges about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."
Quote:
I dont understand why people who have designed well presented web pages, forget the background.
Welcome to the club! wink!

Typical cannuck...can't get a grasp of the english language ;-)

Saying "I don't undertand" indicates.... "I don't understand" ! But I suppose you hear that so much over there that in the end it sounds like a 'whinge' ;-)

I'd go into the use of the term 'whinging', but too many Brits run the forum ;-)

But back to basics.....bgcolor...bgcolor...bgcolor !!!! :-P

;-)

Cindy

[mikmik]

matauri wrote that mikmik wrote:
The British have a marvelous word-- "whinging"--which refers to the practice of complaining without doing anything about it. As in, "Everybody whinges about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." and then the fiesty one(the one who is going to kick my ass, but GOOD!) wrote
Typical cannuck...can't get a grasp of the english language ;-)

Saying "I don't undertand" indicates.... "I don't understand" ! But I suppose you hear that so much over there that in the end it sounds like a 'whinge' ;-)

I'd go into the use of the term 'whinging', but too many Brits run the forum ;-)thus leaving me to ponder what is different about what she means by 'whinging',and my direct quote from a British site which means "complaining" as far as I can tell, to which I point out that I am not the one getting 'concerned' enough aboot bgcolors to even think about it, much less vent in a public meeting place.
And saying that "I(mikmik) don't understand why I should be bothered worrying about the .1% of the internet users that can't be bothered to set their default bgcolor to white instead of lime green or 'checkered' when they surf." is "whinging", but when herself saying "I don't undertand" indicates.... "I don't understand" , isn't whinging...
But I do thank you mat, for illuminating in realtime the post here:http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=8219 in which a particularily foolhardy but vexated soul endeavers to uncover truth at all costs re the myth of feminine superiority in matters intellectual by pointing out these conditions of female existence (an example of post):
(from 'rules for women') "6. Whine

7. If you are trying to sleep, it's because you're exhausted from your almost superhuman level of daily achievement; if he is trying to sleep it's because he is lazy.

8. No matter what the activity, he doesn't do it as well as a past boyfriend.

9. If he pays attention to you, he is smothering you.

10. If he gives you space, he is ignoring you.

11. Complain "

showing that the rules clearly don't apply to women, thus insuring that any attempt at rational exploration is doomed as futile thus perpetuating the myth by sabotaging any attempts at discovery and illumination.\
And it is far past the point that I, let alone anyone else cares anymore but, having spent 1.5hr typing, I am not deleting another one of these in a fit of good judgement!


I look forward to many future debates resulting in having my arse thrashed by matauri (in her opinion(o; LOL)!

[matauri]

LOL...I knew you couldn't resist a reply ;-)

Sadly I am battling with stupid compatability issues between browsers & style sheets...so I am taking a back seat.

If this drama resolves itself...I shall return ;-)


I hate computers!!!!!!!!


:-)

Cindy

[minstrel]

Sadly I am battling with stupid compatability issues between browsers & style sheets...so I am taking a back seat. I hate computers!!!!!!!!

I don't hate computers but I REALLY hate stupid browser compatibility issues... why it should be so difficult to agree on standards for resolving HTML and scripts is beyond me.

[matauri]

My sentiments exactly Dave! And it's getting worse not better!!!! Now we have to have everything displaying good on a variety of browsers, monitors from 14" - 21", etc, etc.

Pesonally, IMO, and as I have stated in other forums... the time put into designing a site has increased due to these compatability issues, yet our rates stay relatively the same.

And Carbonize will prob jump all over me....but....designing for 800x600 & pre 4.01 is like restoring vintage cars ! You dont get a smooth ride in an old car, why should it be any different if you run an older computer. :-)



Cindy

[minstrel]

My sentiments exactly Dave! And it's getting worse not better!!!! ... And Carbonize will prob jump all over me....but....designing for 800x600 & pre 4.01 is like restoring vintage cars ! You dont get a smooth ride in an old car, why should it be any different if you run an older computer.

Yes... carbonize will also probably jump on this part but, as I've said elsewhere, my stats tell me that in excess of 95% of my visitors use Internet Explorer 4.x - 6.x. I do everything I can to make sure the site is readable in other browsers but eventually I got to the point where I gave in to the law of diminishing returns and posted this at the bottom of each page: "This web site is optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer. It may not display correctly in other browsers. "

Note that I do NOT say if you don't use MSIE go away - I'm just warning people that I really don't have the time, energy, or interest in finding out any more how it looks in Netscape 3. If you are using a limited popularity browser, you'll still be able to use and navigate the site but I won't promise it won't look funny in spots.

[mikmik]

That's the term I was looking for, minstrel!
Yes... carbonize will also probably jump on this part but, as I've said elsewhere, my stats tell me that in excess of 95% of my visitors use Internet Explorer 4.x - 6.x. I do everything I can to make sure the site is readable in other browsers but eventually I got to the point where I gave in to the law of diminishing returns and posted this at the bottom of each page: "This web site is optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer. It may not display correctly in other browsers. "


mat is starting to get it:
And Carbonize will prob jump all over me....but....designing for 800x600 & pre 4.01 is like restoring vintage cars ! You dont get a smooth ride in an old car, why should it be any different if you run an older computer. :-)
Scuzzie?I haven't seen a anything earlier than a 5.0 version for more than 1 out of 40 visits, but 800x600 is still about half!
But I guess that is just my whinginess talking, anyways here's my recent stats:
Internet Explorer v6.0 87.50% 1442
Netscape v6.0 4.61% 76
Internet Explorer v5.5 3.22% 53
Internet Explorer v5.0 1.88% 31
Internet Explorer v5.2 0.73% 12
AOL's Browser v8.0 0.67% 11
Opera v7.10 0.49% 8
Opera v7.20 0.36% 6
Netscape v6.2 0.30% 5
Cache/Proxy server (Unknown/Other) 0.06% 1
Internet Explorer v4.0 0.06% 1
Opera v7.11 0.06% 1
Unknown/Other 0.06% 1

therefore:
Internet Explorer 93.39% 1539
Netscape 4.92% 81
Opera 0.91% 15
AOL's Browser 0.67% 11
Cache/Proxy server 0.06% 1
Unknown/Other 0.06% 1

So mat, I wouldn't spend to much time on Opera rendering fonts 100%, anyways I said it all already,
Dave, I agree with you 100% - and as I said, the ones that don't see it perfectly, well, they must be used to it by now!

[MaineWeb]

I just changed my browser background color to check my pages (thanks). When I opened IE and my home page (yahoo.com) came up, there was my background color! I guess no one is above such mistakes.

[netcastles]

I see this on almost every site I look at in the Review My Site forum. It's really annoying, you can tell it's supposed to be white, but it ain't.
And now I have to be stubborn and leave my settings so I know when they haven't set the background color.
This is another one of those rules that everyone needs to read again every once in a while. With the myriad of little things that go into a site, it's easy to miss a little thing like that.

[computergenius]

I was wondering why 'experienced' web surfers have their default background color set to a color that they despise so much. The only reason I EVER set custom colors and fonts etc., was because I didn't know any better, I didn't realize that I was overriding the 'styling' of the website.


For myself, my background defaults to a garish red for two reasons...
1) to confirm that I have remember to set my background in my own web sites
2) to laugh at other people who have forgotten!!!

[Narasinha]

Do you guys realize how many people here don't include a "Doc type" declaration, let alone a proper "charset", let alone have them in the right place to be useful? All these things help the browser to render the page faster and properly too.


That is what I use to tell if someone is "professional"; 'view source' will tell you in about 5 seconds, and believe me, there are some knowledgeable 'designers' out there, and their pages work properly and fast.
Anyways, I figure that about 80 - 90% of the "professionals" here have more troubles than making sure that they have bgcolor="#ffffff".(100% proper is lower case, but better still to have it in 'style' tags in head or external sheet)

I have to agree with you mikmik. I always "view source" and on most sites, professional or not, I don't see a DOCTYPE declared, and I don't see character-encoding declared. Basically, they aren't using standardized HTML. I wonder sometimes what the typical learning process is for people writing the HTML code. I taught myself about eight years ago by looking at the source code of other pages. I live in the town where Mosaic was born, and I remember when it was simply amazing to have graphics on web pages. I did get sucked in to the "Microsoft is really cool because they showed me a good time and gave me these free CD-ROMS" camp for a short while, until I found out about standards.

So how did the other people here learn HTML? Having never attended a true HTML class, I don't know what they stress in their teaching.

[matauri]

So how did the other people here learn HTML?

Out of a book. Well, actually several books & several websites .. and of course here ;-)

I found that most of the beginners books & tutorials dont cover DOCTYPE, it wasn't until I got onto the more advanced style that it started to cover it. Also, most pagemaker programs dont use it, so when people progress from using them, it isn't a practice that they adopt. I know there are still probably many pages on my sites that don't have it, and as I slowly wade thru them tightening them up, I am including it. Its the same as the 'alt' tag, not usual that it is among the basic of learning criteria.

I think that it would be a good idea to have a separate topic forum for newbies to learn a few of the basic ins & outs of putting a site together. I have found many that private messages I get off people off boards feel intimidated to ask basic questions in relation to page design, among the more experienced users. A separate section for beginners would give them a forum where they feel more comfortable asking. (will suggest it)


Cindy

[minstrel]

I think that it would be a good idea to have a separate topic forum for newbies to learn a few of the basic ins & outs of putting a site together. I have found many that people feel intimidated to ask basic questions in relation to page design, among the more experienced users. A separate section for beginners would give them a forum where they feel more comfortable asking. (will suggest it)
Good idea - I'd vote for that.

[langard]

You don't want to define bgcolors that override multiple-embedded tables, ever. It will prevent individual table backgrounds from loading properly.

We still have to run browser recognition to see if users are W3C compatible but "user-freindly" client browser controls can override everything anyway: CSS, font, color, resolution...

NS is barely W3C compatible (and a dog since AOL bought them) because they don't have any money or incentive for advancing browser technology.

Example: Nobody liked their "layer" scheme at the W3C but the Z-index for their forms still pre-empts a simple jscript cascading menu in the same space. Layers are now passe. Somebody call them.

BTW: DTDs are only international headers designed for those counties that enforce Proxy servers to protect(read censor) their population from the Internet. Try 128-bit encryption to China or any other restricted nation and you'll get rejected too.

Simple solutions for simple websites are fine. They are like the Reader's Digest: Written by bores, for bores about bores.

[Nargule]

I just changed my browser background color to check my pages (thanks). When I opened IE and my home page (yahoo.com) came up, there was my background color! I guess no one is above such mistakes.

Yahoo! has never specified a bg color and for a long time it didn't matter, their page worked great reguardless of the color a user chose to set their browser. I just checked Yahoo! after customizing my bg color and noticed that Yahoo!'s newer page design isn't so compatible with a custom bg color (ie graphics have white blocks around them).

Funny thing about this - for years I had my browser background set to grey, which I think is the default color browsers used to be. For the longest time whenever I would view Yahoo! on someone elses machine I would say "Why is the background white".

I had been using Yahoo! thinking that the background was suppose to be grey. I finally gave in and stopped messing with my browser's colors.

Now, I just set my background back to grey so as to not make the same mistake myself.

[Nargule]

As stated in a previous post, I have changed my browser background to grey in effort to catch myself from making this error. Now I remember why I surrendered and made it default color in the first place. Almost every single website I've been to doesn't have a background color set. For example, go to www.bankofamerica.com. No background color specified. Shame, Shame, Shame :)