Taking Your Talent to the Web |
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If you do find yourself pressed into service in these areas, the work is not hard. In agencies, you’ll typically find a workstation with a video machine at one end and a Mac or PC at the other. Software like Adobe Premiere or Apple iMovie is used to digitize the film. Third-party compression software such as Terran Cleaner 5 (http://www.terran.com/) optimizes video for streaming web delivery. None of this is difficult, but rarely will a web designer be asked to do it. Your time is too valuable elsewhere.
Many web designers include Flash design in their skills repertoire; many others do not. Developing exceptional Flash content is a specialization all its own. Most web agencies keep a few designers on staff who excel at Flash development, allowing the bulk of the design crew to focus on interface and other design issues.
So if web designers generally do not create plug-in content, what do web designers have to do with plug-ins? They make them work on web pages— that’s what.
Making It Work: Providing Options
Web designers use HTML to embed a plug-in file (or object) on a web page. Following is markup from an IPIX panorama page at the Travel Channel (http://travel.discovery.com/tools/gallerypages/ipix/noam/wmiss/ zabptcaj.html):
<p>
<!-- java applets -->
<applet name=”IpixViewer” code=”IpixViewer.class” archive=”IpixViewer.jar” height=”210” width=”280”>
<param name=”URL” value=”zabptcaj.ipx”> <param name=”Spin” value=”on”> </applet>
<!-- For MSIE 2 --> <noembed>
<b>To view IPIX images you need to Upgrade your Browser. We recommend Version 3 or above of either Netscape or MSIE.</b><br>
</noembed>
<!-- end java applets --> </p>
378 HOW: Beyond Text/Pictures: Who Makes the Salad?
Notice the use of <!-- comment tags --> to help the web designer keep track of what she is doing and why.
Notice that room has been made for the space used by the plug-in image
file (280 x 210 pixels). If the layout for this web page had been initially created in Photoshop, the web designer would have left a 280 x 210 space in the layout itself and then replaced it with HTML during the web-building phase. In all probability, this page was never individually designed in Photoshop but is simply one of many that share the same template.
Notice that a Java applet has been used to embed the file, as described in this chapter’s section on Java. Visitors lacking the iPIX plug-in will be treated to a Java simulation, rather than simply encounter an error message about missing plug-ins.
But what happens to the visitor whose browser does not support either plug-ins or Java? That is taken care of by the <noembed> tags. Let’s look just at that section of the markup:
<!--For MSIE 2 --> <noembed>
To view IPIX images you need to Upgrade your Browser. We recommend Version 3 or above of either Netscape or MSIE.<br>
</noembed>
<!-- end java applets --> </p>
The <noembed> tag basically says, “Listen up, old, dumb browser. What follows is for you.” In such a browser, the text beginning To view IPIXimages… will be revealed. In other browsers (those that support Java or contain the iPIX plug-in), the text message will be hidden.
The designers also could have put this text and markup inside the <applet> element, like so:
<applet name=”IpixViewer” code=”IpixViewer.class” archive=”IpixViewer.jar” height=”210” width=”280”>
<param name=”URL” value=”zabptcaj.ipx”> <param name=”Spin” value=”on”>
<p>If you can read this, your browser does not support Java. Have a nice day.</p> </applet>