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Many thanks to all for the kind words about our continuing website redesign! These pages continue
to gain in functionality, with 'pure design' being the ideal counterbalance to 'pure content.'
Somewhere between a graphics-heavy brontosaurus of a site, and a page that looks like it was
typed in Notepad and intended to be read exclusively in Lynx ... well, yes, Virginia, there is
a happy medium!
Having said that, we're enormously proud of the work that's been done in April/May 2008, to bring
this whole site into compliance with the new disabled access requirements. The fact is, we were
delighted to do it ... it should have been done years ago ... but somehow the fact managed to
escape our attention, that there are ten and a half million legally-blind people in the
US alone, who depend on everything from Braille browsers to text-to-voice software to get around
the Internet.
Now, they're not all Net users, and they're not all remotely gay (!), but a cross-section of the
above group most certainly will be on the Web; and a good percentage of those users will be gay.
In other words, the wake-up, shake-up of webpage coding that's going on across the board right
now is long overdue. We're happy to be part of this. So, exactly what have we done?
 Keep the use of Flash to an artistic minimum, where it enhances the pages
rather than dominating them. Lynx (and similar) can't see text inside Flash movies.
Images have descriptive text pasted to them, so that when Lynx
reaches them, it has something meaningful, enlightening or entertaining to send to the voice synthesizer. The
sticky-noted text might be as simple as "bullet" (like the green ones on the left of this list), or it could
be a description of the picture, or a text-rendering of the words which appear in the graphic.
Pages are now specifically, rather than generically titled. As
soon as Lynx opens a new page, the title text will be meaningful.
Flash movies are 'captioned' so that the sense of textual
continuity is unbroken, though the contect of the movie is forfeit.
Basically, these pages make a whole lot of sense in Lynx now. We ... pass the paw test! (In fact, we downloaded
and installed the text browser and ran the site to make sure. It was an illuminating experience.
Meanwhile, here is an icon you won't be seeing on-site:  , though we had
fully intended to make Microsoft Reader documents available for the eBooks. The problem is a question of
security. Microsoft Reader is a great system, with excellent, eye-ball friendly characteristics. It works on
the Pocket PC or on the full-size desk- and laptop. From the reader's perspective, there's nothing better.
From the writer's or publisher's POV, it leaves a lot to be desired.
From within the system, there is no way to protect, or secure the document. Text and images can be copied at
whim, shipped out to the clipboard, and pasted off to whatever application. Before we make Mel's books
available in this format, we must look at the third party addon, which permits protection ...
What kind? How much protection? What do you get for the hundred-twenty bucks you lay down to buy this
third party addon? We'll be looking into this, but for the moment —
Pocket PC users, you can run the screenreader format PDFs. Just make sure you click on the right version,
when you're ordering ... and they're well labeled, so it would be difficult to get it wrong! We apologize
for any inconvenience here. Chalk this one up to Microsoft, which doesn't seem to understand an artist's
need to protect intellectual property!
 A question
we're asked frequently (and are always happy to answer) is, do we know an absolutely reliable hosting
service which provides a fine service at a good price, and wont jerk you around! The anwer is ... yes,
the same service DreamCraft itself has been with for something like seven years now. In that time, we've
had something like two outtages which lasted the grand total of about an hour each (!), and I think we've
spent about an hour on the phone with customer support! In seven years. That's got to be something of a
record. Seriously, we've been with iPower for so long, if we can't recommend them, who can? So, answering
the question right off the bat — if you're looking for a web host, give ours a shot. We've been swearing
by them for yonks.
Tips and Tricks Department
To answer an often-asked question ... almost all of our website icons and buttons are made in-house. The
exceptions to this rule are the proprietorial ones, which speak for themselves. Lulu, Zazzle, Adobe,
Opera, Google, and what have you. Everything else you see was 'knocked up' by Jade. The next question
would be, 'Do you mind if I use them on some other site, elswehere?' Well, we'd rather you didn't, because
it's so darned easy to make your own! It you absolutely must, go ahead — just don't hot-link them. Save
them to your computer, rename them, put them where you need them ... and do consider giving Jade a credit,
which has been earned.
But — seriously, guys
they're so simple to make, do your own and let your imagination rip.
Which begs the next question, 'All right, smart-ass, what software do you use to make them?"
It's the same software we use to make the covers for every book that's online at Lulu (Click
here to see them), plus all the images for this website — and the interior pages for every book that's
at Lulu. Nope, not an imaging program ... and, please Gods, not Photoshop at A$2,600! For every layout and design job
we use a Desktop Publisher that's been around for a long time: Serif Page Plus. We're using version 10. Version
X2 just came out at high prices, but we have no need to upgrade, because PP10 gives us everything we need, plus a
heck of a lot more. Now, a few years ago it cost about $160, but since the new version was released, you can
actually get version 10 for something like forty bucks! Think about this: the power to make everything you see on
this website, and the paperbacks, hardcovers, calendars, the lot, for forty bucks. Now, that's got to catch
your attention.
If you've started to salivate, [AFFILIATE LINK TO THE REVENUE WIRE PROGRAM TO LINK TO SERIF PRODUCTS]... and
enjoy. Serif is a load of fun, as well as dancing rings around the so-called market leaders in DTP software. (Don't
get us wrong, we have used Adobe for web design and photo manipulation. We just found these programs to-heavy,
needless cumbersome, with learning curves that are ridiculous. There are other, better programs out here for a
fraction the cost ... and some of them are free!)
A question we're asked occasionally is, how do we get a button to link back to the last page loaded? In other
words, it points left and acts like the browser's own back button. This one is dead easy. It's a microscopic
swatch of javascript code that can be pasted in anywhere you want it. You attach it to a GIF or JPG, and it works.
It looks like this:
< a href="javascript:history.back();" >
< IMG SRC="left.gif" border=0 >
< /a >
Notice that we inserted spaces just inside the left and right carrots ( < and > ), in order to force them to
appear on the page. All you have to do is remove those spaces from the code when you paste it into your own
page. The tags close up and vanish. Then, you just need a GIF file called 'left.gif' and you're done.
The alternative is, you can substitute text. Take out the tag which calles the image, and type in
something like GO BACK, or BACK TO (WHEREVER). Close the link on the trailing side of the text, and ... done.
It's not so good news for folks looking at the email sign me up / unsubscribe me code attached to our newsletter
subscription links. The code itself isn't
proprietorial, but you need to be running a program like SendBlaster, which checks your email cache and
reads all the subject lines, looking specifically for ones it recognizes. It's watching for the word
'subscribe' and 'unsubscribe' to appear. When it sees 'subscribe' it adds the person's email to its list.
When it sees 'unsubscribe' it takes the person off the active list ... they no longer get the newsletter.
Sendbaster is a great email list manager. We've been using it for years and can highly recommend it.
Handling the Mel Keegan mailing list was becoming a major pain, and SendBlaster took the sweat and tears out
of it. To learn more, [AFFILIATE LINK TO THE REVENUE WIRE PROGRAM TO LINK TO SERIF PRODUCTS].
With Sendblaster installed, you can then paste in this code, and you really are done:
< a href="mailto:yourname@yourdomain.com?Subject=Subscribe" >< u >Sign me up!< /a >
< br >< br >
< a href="mailto:yourname@yourdomain.com?Subject=Unsubscribe" >< u >Unsubscribe me!< /a >
< /u >
Again, notice we added spaces inside the tags. When you paste in the code, you take out the spaces and
the tags disappear, leaving behind only the words Sign me up! and Unsubscribe me! Then, just check your
mail regularly with SendBlaster, and let the software take care of it. This is by far the easiest way to
handle a mailing list. The beauty of it is, it all happens on your desktop. There's nothing to go through
to get 'server side' stuff to work. And it's a download (albeit not a free one, sorry), so you get an almost
instant fix to this problem.
How the heck was the eBooks kiosk done?!
This one is just sneaky. It doesn't involve Javascript,just an Iframe buried inside of an Iframe, mounted
in the main page. You have the eBooks page itself; halfway down this, uner the text info, we mounted
the first Iframe, which is known as the "child" frame (because the main page is the parent). Now, the
Iframe comes preloaded with its own file so, essentially, you have a page displaying inside another page.
The trick was, the second page whcih was mounted inside the parent page ... also had a "child" frame"
mounted inside it. You have a hierarchy like this:
PARENT PAGE (like this one);
CHILD PAGE #1 (displayed in an Iframe mounted in the parent);
CHILD PAGE #2 (displayed in the page that is already displayed in the first Iframe.
Now, to mount an iframe you need this little swatch of code:
< iframe NAME="displayonmainpage" SRC="theinsetpage.htm"
WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="100%" FRAMEBORDER="0"
MARGINHEIGHT="0" MARGINWIDTH="0" >
< /iframe >
Notice the extraneous spaces inside the carrots. Take them out, and the tage vanish, as discussed
above! Notice also, there are several parameters you can customize:
You can call the Iframe anything you like. Call it George. It doesn't matter ... it just has to mesh
with the TARGET code of any file you want call from the main page and feed into the Iframe. (If this
sounds a little confusing, visit the "a href="ebooks.htm"eBooks kiosk and click around. You'll
see that the book titles stay put ... the miniature browser pages for the ebooks appear on the right
They're popping up inside an Iframe!
You would use
< a href="mybook.htm" TARGET="George" >Click to display My Book< /a >
...and the TARGET code tells the browser where to put the file, mybook.htm, once it's been called.
So, just make sure the NAME of the Iframe matches the TARGET code, and you're good to go.
The next thing you can configure is the default file that's called. This file is the one that's
already displayed in the Iframe when it appeared, on the initial page load. The example above uses
a file called "theinstetpage.htm" ... but your your file could be "geoffs_party.htm" or
anything. Just make sure the file names are identical, and when the page loads, your page will
appear in the Iframe by default.
Next, you get to decide how big the Iframe is. You can set the WIDTH and HEIGHT. Basically, this
lets you custom-fit the frame to the design of your page.
FRAMEBORDER is exactly what it sounds like. It's like a table border. Set it to "0" and it goes away.
MARGINHEIGHT and MARGINWIDTH are also exactly what they sound like: the padding inside the Iframe,
before your 'child' content appears.
If you want an effect like the eBooks kiosk, zero out all the values except the width and height.
These, you can jiggle to fit your page design. The last thing you need to think about is if you want
scrollbars to appear on the frame...
If you want no scrollbars, make sure that the iframe is BIGGER than the page it's displaying. If the
page inside is bigger than the frame, the scrollbars just appear — and it's a good thing they
do, because you need to be able to scroll around to see the page inside.
And that's it. The mystery of Iframes explained.
How can you change the color of a page's scrollbars?
This one is too easy. Just paste this bit of gibberish into your page (and take out the extraneous spaces
inside the carrots, which make the code visible). Then, change the colors to whatever you want! Experiment to get an effect that
suits you...
< style >
BODY {
scrollbar-face-color: white;
scrollbar-arrow-color:blue;
scrollbar-highlight-color: white;
scrollbar-3dlight-color: red;
}
< /style >
The parameters you can play with are the face color and the arrow color, the highlight color and the
3dlight color. The best way to figure out what they are is to play with them. Mel Keegan OnLine uses
mostly white with blue arrows ... but for a change, have a look at The
NARC Page, which was designed in dove gray and dark blue, the department's colors.
NOTE: Internet Explorer and Opera 'honor this code,' and I can only assume that Safari (the leading Mac
browser) can also 'see' this code. However, be aware that Firefox can't see it, won't honor it ... and you
wind up with the browser's default scrollbars. Which is fine, if your site is designed in shades of blues and
greens; but the blue default IE scrollbars clash badly with sites designed (!) in pinks. A wedding-planner
site I was recently shown looked pretty bad in Firefox ... and there was nothing I could do to fix it, because
the fixit code doesn't work in Firefox...
Tell me what you'd like to know, and on the next upload we'll add a Page 2.
Cheers for now,
Jade
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Chris Harper's guarantee: every title is hand-picked, a real book with genuine content. No
'pamphlets,' no junk, nobody trying to sell you something. And not one syllable
about net marketing and 'get rich quick' schemes! All
this, and bargain prices ... browse now?
Need inspiration?
Visit our Giftstore!
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