As
of today, the "News and Notes" link is active, and directs you to the archive
index for the past articles, and (soon!) some tasty tidbits we've found
recently. There have been numerous small bugs worked out, and
there is a list of other tweaks in the works. As always, please feel
free to e-mail us if you find a broken link, an image that doesn't load,
or anything else that "bugs" you about navigating the site. Also
be sure to check out the section below on Browsers...there are some interesting
new things to see!
When you pull up ELFIS through the default URL of www.elfis.net,
you are brought face to face with the new Entry Portal. This interface
is designed to be your master navigation console for your journey through
ELFIS. At the top and bottom are buttons which link you to
important info about the site (such as e-mail, information and links),
while the text "buttons" along the sides link you to the various ELFIS
Departments. The top center button on the Portal, marked PRESENT,
takes you to the table of contents for the current issue of ELFIS.
PAST gives you the Archives index page, and FUTURE tells you what's coming
up in the next issue. Eventually, we will make sure that each
Department is furnished with a set of navigation buttons to make cruising
ELFIS an efficient and fun experience.
The top and bottom rows of buttons on the Entry Portal will link you to many essential features of ELFIS, such as e-mail and archive access, as well as "info" pages such as the one you are reading. The rows of text displayed vertically down the sides of the portal are the main Department Browsing Buttons. Each of these will eventually lead you to a similar interface console for that particular department. As of today (5-5-99} several of these are still dead-ended with our "Pardon..." page. This will be remedied VERY soon, so please keep checking back regularly!
We've been "tweaking" pages for the last week, getting quirks out.
(Thanks to all you out there who have e-mailed us with bugs!) Several
things have been (or are in the process of being) corrected. First
off, all you folks with the 400 Mhz machines and 21 inch monitors will
notice that we have discovered what tables are, and now the text of most
of the pages stays correctly within the bounds of the "page", and said
page is no longer plastered to the left side of your screen, but should
float serenely in the center! Several broken links were rooted out
and cracked images fixed. Please keep reporting any ELFIS Bugs you
might find, as it will help us out immensely at this stage of the site
development game. And besides...we've given you so many "e-mail us"
buttons it would be a shame for you not to use at least ONE of them!
At
the bottom of nearly every page in the new ELFIS is a tiny animated gif
we call the "Echo". Here's how it should work: if you are on
an INSIDE page of an ELFIS Department and you click on the Echo gif, you
should be taken to the index page for that department. If you are
on a Department's index page, the Echo gif should take you back to the
main portal. Some of these are working, some of them go to the wrong
page...corrections are being made as we discover them.
We built these pages with Netscape Composer 4.5. , and "tweaked"
with Netscape Composer4.6, and 4.6.1. We have tested
these pages in several browsers, including:
Netscape Navigator 3.0
A last word on browsers? Don't just use one of the "Big 2" just because
they're THERE. Why not scout around for an alternative browser that
fits your particular style of web surfing, or better yet, one that
actually CHALLENGES the WAY you view the virtual reality that the internet
is. We hope that the links we've provided will give you a good start.
And if you REALLY wanna tweak your browsin' gourd, click here
and then punch in a URL!
A Special
Note for "Text Only" Browser Users:
As we were building
these pages, we knew that there would be a group of viewers who are only
interested in the "meat and potatoes" of the site: the text.
As synchronicity often works, we accidently came upon a really swift (and
we mean SWIFT!) text-only browser for the Mac, and ELFIS loads in a mere
three-to-four seconds with it: it's called "Wanna-Be", and
you can download it (along with Cyberdog and a host of other alternative
browsers for Mac) free by clicking here.
If you want to cruise for the info only, please do yourself a favor and
download "Wanna-Be" now! And you text-only-browsin' folks
please let us know how the site navigates for you...we hope that we have
put enough text links in to make navigating without the image maps simple
enough.
We've tried to keep our actual use of screen fonts to some fairly common
ones. With the built-in feature of most modern browsers which allows
YOU the viewer to override our fonts anyway, it is almost a moot point.
However, if you want to see the pages as we envisioned them, then here's
a list of the most used fonts: For headings, we generally use "Capitals",
and for general text, there's good old "Geneva." We have used "Skia",
"Charcoal", "Comic Sans", "Sand" and "Old English" on occasion, also.
These fonts are commonly installed in the "fonts" folders on most Macs,
and as long as your browser isn't overriding the "page-specified fonts",
they should pop in where intended.
When we set out to re-design the ELFIS interface, our intent was to end up with a sleek "console-like" set of index pages with buttons to get you where you need to go. The visual aesthetic inspired by countless hours of Sci-Fi viewing, and the result has been described as "Mutant Vorlon Technology"--we'll accept that!
We also knew from the beginning that there are those crusty souls out there
who give a flip less about pretty pictures and buttons that light up, just
as there are those who DON'T own a brand new 400 Mhz machine with a 21"
monitor. We belong to this second group, ourselves. These pages
were built and previewed on a couple of "rode hard and put up wet" older
PowerMacs (a 7200 and a 7100, respectively), with a monitor resolution
of 640 x 480...not what you call "cutting edge", OK? All the consoles,
buttons, site logos and navigation tools were made from scratch using Photoshop
4.0.1 and a whole lotta SimpleText. And most of the time our 28.8
modem connects at 14.4 or less, so we're also part of that sub-set of web
society that has to get another cup of coffee while that page loads.
Thus, we set out to make all our images as tidy and small (file-size-wise)
as we could, and to use simple image maps for navigation, with the end
result being a quickly-loading yet visually exciting viewer interface that
is economical on bandwidth.
Bells & Whistles (eventually...)
As you continue to cruise ELFIS in the coming weeks, you will begin to
notice some new things popping up (literally!). We're neo-phyte javascript
cut-n-pasters, and we are working on some very nice "clickable" buttons,
mouseovers, music and other fun treats to make your visit to these ELF
Infested Spaces more interesting, informative and FUN. Keep checking
back to the various departments to see what new things are up!
We
set out to design a viewer interface that was sleek, efficient and fun
to use. We hope we have succeeded. If you have any comments,
suggestions, gripes or shameless accolades of praise (;-) for us, please
e-mail us! We'd love to hear from you about anything that will make
your experience of ELFIS more rewarding.
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