It's just a test page for right now, but you get a taste of artwork. See if you can figure out which stories the art represents.
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
What is this for?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
OSC is starting an online speculative fiction magazine.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
I recognize all of them. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I hate to say it, but I'm not sure I like the look. It feels a bit, well, 16-bit to me for some reason, and the font for the primary logo doesn't have the same "spirit" as the cartoony (in a "South Park" way) images.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
*whew!* I'm so glad I'm not the only one.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I like it, it has a retro feel... Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
It reminded me of something out of an LDS Church publication from the early 90s (since that's my most up-to-date experience of them),say a Friend or New Era issue or something. I think the art is nicely done, but I was thinking this was something for children or young-adults, mostly.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
That's it! I knew it was familiar, but I couldn't figure out why. But yes, the 80s New Era or Friend sounds about right, although it's possibly the 70s. I don't know - it's all a big blur.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The site is a prime example of an excellent candidate for CSS making layout easier (I assume the current code will be pretty much scrapped anyways, as its in a form very hard to maintain or update, particularly with all the use of deprecated practices).
Set the background color, create a div to hold the page area, give it a background color of white and set the background image to be the wraparound border. Create a div for the menu with a list inside, a div for the tower column on the left, and a div for the content (setting the border-left on this to create the divider). Move those into position easily (relative positioning to the containing div'll be fine) and you're done.
I estimate the amount of HTML+CSS would be less than half what's currently there, and far clearer.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I don't know what story the capsule woman is from.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Example implementation in CSS (I didn't replicate all the font stylings completely, or the form, but that's relatively trivial):
The html itself is under 25 lines long, and very readable, updateable, and clean.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Oh, and in IE it may appear strangely truncated. I haven't yet put in the min-height hack for IE, instead using standard CSS. If you see other problems, though, let me know.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
mph, that would be from Pastwatch. I forget her name though .
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Duh. I should have known that.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Perhaps you didn't get it because you remembered that in pastwatch the spheres didn't actually have lids, they were half-sphere bowls and the occupants had to be careful to keep inside of where the top half would be. So you assumed there must be another story that you couldn't think of or hadn't read.
Whereas I looked at it and assumed the artist got it wrong. Which is the conclusion I usually jump to with cover art.
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
What's the man's head in a capsule?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
That's from Wyrms.
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
Wow. I haven't read that in a long time, I guess.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Dkw -- you give me too much credit. I didn't think of Pastwatch at all.
Which is odd, considering it's one of my favorite OSC books.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Right. I'm saying it never came into your conscious thought because you knew it didn't fit. Your subconscious is smart.
Mine is cynical.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I can't place the deer or the woman with the ladle. I know everything else, though.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I can't place the deer or the ladle, either. You're not alone, there.
Posted by Parsimony (Member # 8140) on :
I was going with Hart's Hope and Homecoming for those, although I could be completely wrong.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
The deer (I'm assuming) is actually a hart, as in Hart's Hope.
I can't place the ladle or the bear, though I'm sure I should be embarrassed that I can't place the bear.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Oh, a hart. Yeah, of course.
The bear, I took as a reference to Enchantment.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I figured that the ladle might be Rebekah.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
I adore the title.
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
I think so too, Shigosei.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
The bear could be either Enchantment or Grinning Man.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
or The Princess and the Bear. Posted by Goo Boy (Member # 7752) on :
Actually, I think it looks pretty cool!
fugu, on my computer, your version loads more slowly and only shows the top part (as a banner). The left part doesn't slow up at all, and the background is sort of an olive-gray, instead of white.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
But at least it's compact and standards-compliant. Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Of course. It's more important to be right than to be useful or effective.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
fugu's is faster and "pops" into place in a nicer fashion than the original on my version of firefox.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
The woman in the capsule is Diko. She is Tagiri's daughter.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
I can't see most of fugu's.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
*nod* It's almost as if Russell deliberately designed the page to be broken for 90% of users. Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Well...he is a mac fanatic.
*pokes fugu*
C'mon, you know I luv ya. Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Oh, and, so, the woman with the ladle?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Icarus: that's because I haven't put the min-height hack in place for IE, yet. The color thing is because you're seeing mostly the overall background of the page (which is exactly the same between the two, I used the same hex code).
I only had about half an hour to put the thing together, while doing other things, so didn't bother with the min-height hack. I'll do it after I get home.
Any differences in load speed are due to servers/connections. My page should load faster on any browser I know of, though load order may change perception of this.
The min-height hack is because IE does not implement a very simple CSS style called min-height, which understandably gives an element a certain minimum height. In order to get this to work in IE, one must actually put in code to check if the rendered height will be less than the desired minimum height, and if so sets the height to be that height, which is a very stupid necessity.
However, its relatively trivial to implement, so I always do. I just didn't bother because I assumed when I said it was temporarily broken in IE people would believe me, and check in one of the alternative browsers they have around for when IE gets borked .
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
quote:OSC is starting an online speculative fiction magazine.
Where can we find out more about this?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
His homepage, actually, has a fair bit of detail. Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I don't mind the images around the edges- it is retro but it works- but I agree that the logo is off kilter. The others are sort of eighties or seventies serious sci-fi, the leaping, grinning, spaceman is very fifties twelve year old boy.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
See, the green plus the helmet plus the grid in the background makes me think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I did get the reference, though.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Yeah, Megan, it's very... teenage, somehow.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
The whole design kind of screams "young adult" to me. And I'm not sure why we've gone from "Uncle Orson" to "Orson Scott Card" in the logo...?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Yeah, the only part I don't like is the logo itself.
-o-
fugu, I wasn't picking a fight. Nor was I criticizing you. You seemed to want feedback on how it was looking to people. I didn't realize you specifically didn't want feedback from us lowly IE users, though now I'm not surprised. It seemed like you had said that some things weren't working, but you weren't sure exactly what all would look different in different browsers. I was trying to answer your apparent question. (Remember that you specifically have asked me over AIM what a page looks like in IE in the past.) I can't help it if people teased you, but they only teased you because of your very teasable zealousness.
I didn't disbelieve you, I was trying to provide information. And my work computer doesn't have any other browsers, so I could hardly use a different browser to look at it.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
O.K. I know this is kind of late in the game to be saying this, but why are you basing the whole entrance page around OSC in particular when the magazine is based around sf in general?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Darn it, is the "joking but anal retentive about programming stuff" setting not working again? *pokes microphone*
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
I'm confused. I don't see it on the homepage anywhere either.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
He was using "homepage" as another word for "website." There's lots of information in threads on the "About OSC" side of the forum.
It was a just a cute joke. Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
Really? I don't understand why that was funny, but thanks.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Because we are posting on part of that "homepage" right now, about that topic. Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
The longest thread on it (though this one may soon pass it) is here and a couple questions are answered here and here. Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
My version of the page ( http://homepage.mac.com/fugu13/oscims.html ) should now have the proper height, and hopefully work generally correctly in all browsers.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Oh, if I may, I have another art-related thing. There are two green circles (well, ones more oval, but you know what I mean)- the title one and the leaping guy one and they're both different colours green. I'm not sure that really works, especially since they're different colours, not just different shades.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Still some spacing issues in IE and the white section extends down farther in FF, fugu, but it's all visible in both.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Okay, I think I figured out why the more I look at that page, the less I like it.
It's because I'm conditioned to completely overlook useless and/or commercial fluff on websites. And unless those pics are going to be clickable buttons (which wouldn't make sense unless they lead to pages dedicated to each piece of fiction), fully 20% of your usable space is just dead weight, something for my eyes to skip over. And since skipping over something takes effort, looking at that page actually makes my eyes tired.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Could you send me IE and Firefox screenshots, Dag?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I like the simultaneously flat/deep effect. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)