That my Web pages should work nearly
everywhere is not a big deal. Instead, it's
simple. Except for a little JavaScript
Microsoft writes for me, I'm just using
some simple, old HTML with a little CSS.
What goes to the client is, for the Web, just
dirt simple.
Then each Web page is exactly 800 pixels wide,
small screen, big screen, small window, big window,
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc., all the
same exactly 800 pixels wide, period. There are
both vertical and horizontal scroll bars.
The content of the pages is really simple,
basically just some text, a simple PNG image,
some links as at the top of these pages at
HN,
some simple, standard HTML controls,
and nothing else. As I recall, the
fonts are all 35 pixels high, that is,
relatively large fonts. All the layout
is with just HTML tables -- I'm not
asking the Web browser to position or
scale anything. No roll overs, pull downs,
pop-ups, icons -- HN doesn't have such either.
So, on any browser window with at least 800
pixels of width, my Web pages should look fine;
some users may want to use some
magnification option in their Web browser --
I'm not going to program that logic.
Simple. Dirt simple. No doubt. That
my Web pages take up only 800 pixels
of width on some workstation screen
4000 pixels wide is okay with me.
If my site has any value, then it's not in
fancy HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. Same for
HN.
I can understand that for a lot of sites,
there is client side JavaScript that
keeps looking at the size of the browser
window and walks some tree of the
document object model or some such
and dynamically positions text,
ads, images, video windows, etc.
That could get complicated on one
computer and much worse on
a billion computers from
smartphones to workstations.
For solving that problem, I didn't
figure out how or even attack it.
If you are working on such a problem,
you have my sympathy;
if you get a good solution, you
have my congratulations.
What I'm doing is dirt simple;
no doubt you could have done it
easily except for just one issue:
Do you want such a simple Web page?
HN does. Some other sites do.
So do I.
But, yes, when my site goes live, I'll
eagerly announce on HN. Then you can all
say that my Web pages look like they
were designed
by 5 year old child in 1995
in 15 minutes after stealing
five beers from his parents' refrigerator --
will be about right. Even more likely,
by a drunk, baby T Rex.
I'm not trying to
build a brick outhouse or use a $3 million
Ferrari to get six loaves of bread and
three gallons of milk. Instead, simple
as possible but not simpler.
