Group Review + Diagnosis

peter.pehrson · October 6, 2009, 6:16pm

Hello, all you gifted Freewayers!
I need your diagnosis and review of my (as yet) one-page website…www.bookin-lookin.com…I can’t continue until I resolve the lines issue which will be evident once you visit the website. What the…? Where did those things come from? They correspond to HTML boxes, but why? HELP! Then, one more question for the group. I am scanning book covers and saving as .PNG and just importing the raw, unsized file into the graphic boxes, then selecting “Scale and Pad.” Is that the reason for the low-resolution images? I scanned at 300x300…HELP!

Thank you all so much.
Peter for Bookin-Lookin.com

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Karen_E · October 6, 2009, 6:58pm

“Lines Issue”… Huh? Please describe…I’m not sure what this is but I see no lines…

I think for graphics/photos you maybe want jpgs.

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peter.pehrson · October 6, 2009, 7:01pm

There seem to be white lines when the HTML boxes are not right up snug with the images…it doesn’t preview in Freeway that way, but does in a browser and also when uploaded.

As for the images, my understanding is that Freeway determines what the best image format it, and handles accordingly…? So actually choosing .jpg or .gif is really something “they” say is best left up to the program…?

The correct link is www.bookin-lookin.com

Thanks.
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: “igirl” email@hidden
To: email@hidden
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 2:58:31 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: Group Review + Diagnosis

“Lines Issue”… Huh? Please describe…I’m not sure what this is but I see no lines…

I think for graphics/photos you maybe want jpgs.

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Paul_Bradforth · October 6, 2009, 7:07pm

On 6 Oct 2009, at 19:16, email@hidden wrote:

I need your diagnosis and review of my (as yet) one-page
website…www.bookin-lookin.com…I can’t continue until I resolve
the lines issue which will be evident once you visit the website.
What the…? Where did those things come from? They correspond to
HTML boxes, but why? HELP!

Are the lines white? If so, it’s because when the size of the text
gets altered (enlarged) by the browser, it splits the pictures apart.
The pictures have been ‘sliced’ where necessary by Freeway in order to
fit your layout, which you can see if you drag one off onto the
Desktop from the browser. If you drag the first pic, first row on your
page, you’ll see that you’re actually dragging three whole images,
plus two halves from the right hand side. And now the cop-out: I’m
going to leave it to someone else to tell you how to sort it out! I’m
sorry, but I’m really busy just now and this is complex to describe.

Then, one more question for the group. I am scanning book covers and
saving as .PNG and just importing the raw, unsized file into the
graphic boxes, then selecting “Scale and Pad.” Is that the reason
for the low-resolution images? I scanned at 300x300…HELP!

You only need 72ppi for the Web; anything more than that is a waste,
although I can see you’d want to scan them at 300ppi for other uses.
Your pictures are being output as GIFs, which is not the best choice
for all of them; you can set what is output in Freeway’s Inspector,
and even check the compression (JPEG) and quality, by turning on
‘Graphics Preview’ in the ‘View’ menu, which will give you an accurate
view of what they’ll look like on the Web.

best wishes,

Paul Bradforth

http://www.paulbradforth.com

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Julie1 · October 6, 2009, 8:44pm

Thank you!

On Oct 6, 2009, at 2:58 PM, igirl wrote:

“Lines Issue”… Huh? Please describe…I’m not sure what this is
but I see no lines…

I think for graphics/photos you maybe want jpgs.

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Julie1 · October 6, 2009, 8:46pm

sorry wrong post… I was thanking igirl for the icons

On Oct 6, 2009, at 4:44 PM, julie maxwell allen wrote:

Thank you!

On Oct 6, 2009, at 2:58 PM, igirl wrote:

“Lines Issue”… Huh? Please describe…I’m not sure what this is
but I see no lines…

I think for graphics/photos you maybe want jpgs.

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peter.pehrson · October 6, 2009, 8:57pm

Is this a false issue because it’s really a browser problem? I ask because when I preview in Safari on my Mac the page is fine, no lines. When I view on Mac in Firefox, there are lines. When I view on my Dell laptop in Firefox the lines are larger, grosser, bigger. Have others encountered this? Is this a Freeway known problem with HTML boxes close to graphics? What are the fixes?
Thanks, again.
Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: “Paul Bradforth” email@hidden
To: email@hidden
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 3:07:43 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: Group Review + Diagnosis

On 6 Oct 2009, at 19:16, email@hidden wrote:

I need your diagnosis and review of my (as yet) one-page
website…www.bookin-lookin.com…I can’t continue until I resolve
the lines issue which will be evident once you visit the website.
What the…? Where did those things come from? They correspond to
HTML boxes, but why? HELP!

Are the lines white? If so, it’s because when the size of the text
gets altered (enlarged) by the browser, it splits the pictures apart.
The pictures have been ‘sliced’ where necessary by Freeway in order to
fit your layout, which you can see if you drag one off onto the
Desktop from the browser. If you drag the first pic, first row on your
page, you’ll see that you’re actually dragging three whole images,
plus two halves from the right hand side. And now the cop-out: I’m
going to leave it to someone else to tell you how to sort it out! I’m
sorry, but I’m really busy just now and this is complex to describe.

Then, one more question for the group. I am scanning book covers and
saving as .PNG and just importing the raw, unsized file into the
graphic boxes, then selecting “Scale and Pad.” Is that the reason
for the low-resolution images? I scanned at 300x300…HELP!

You only need 72ppi for the Web; anything more than that is a waste,
although I can see you’d want to scan them at 300ppi for other uses.
Your pictures are being output as GIFs, which is not the best choice
for all of them; you can set what is output in Freeway’s Inspector,
and even check the compression (JPEG) and quality, by turning on
‘Graphics Preview’ in the ‘View’ menu, which will give you an accurate
view of what they’ll look like on the Web.

best wishes,

Paul Bradforth

http://www.paulbradforth.com

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Karen_E · October 6, 2009, 10:32pm

On 6 Oct 2009, 8:57 pm, Peter Pehrson wrote:

Is this a false issue because it’s really a browser problem? I ask because when I preview in Safari on my Mac the page is fine, no lines. When I view on Mac in Firefox, there are lines. When I view on my Dell laptop in Firefox the lines are larger, grosser, bigger. Have others encountered this?

Not the browser’s fault - I didn’t see the problem in Safari originally either, but when I went back and zoomed out, or in on the page there it is…try it and see!! Clearly sliced and diced and something the FW experts are aware of. I’ll be interested in hearing about the fix. Now I have to go make sure mine aren’t doing that too, LOL. (Except I always cross check browsers and on PCs as well).

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peter.pehrson · October 6, 2009, 10:51pm

Thanks, Karen Engel. So I can’t be the only bookseller using this format with Freeway…other people with other pictures and captions must have encountered and solved this before…can anyone point me to similar websites where thumbnails paired with captions are successful? Are there any Softpress/Freeway experts out there, per Karen’s comment, who can weigh in on this?

Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: “igirl” email@hidden
To: email@hidden
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 6:32:33 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: Group Review + Diagnosis

On 6 Oct 2009, 8:57 pm, Peter Pehrson wrote:

Is this a false issue because it’s really a browser problem? I ask because when I preview in Safari on my Mac the page is fine, no lines. When I view on Mac in Firefox, there are lines. When I view on my Dell laptop in Firefox the lines are larger, grosser, bigger. Have others encountered this?

Not the browser’s fault - I didn’t see the problem in Safari originally either, but when I went back and zoomed out, or in on the page there it is…try it and see!! Clearly sliced and diced and something the FW experts are aware of. I’ll be interested in hearing about the fix. Now I have to go make sure mine aren’t doing that too, LOL. (Except I always cross check browsers and on PCs as well).

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David_McCallum · October 7, 2009, 12:16am

This is a text enlargement issue as Paul alluded to in his reply. (If in Safari View menu you set ‘Zoom Text Only’ it will be more obvious when looking at a page and increase text size)

There are a couple of ways to sort this

1 - The box model layout method

2 - making your text boxes large enough to accommodate growing text.

As to the graphic quality - you are better to scan and save in a lossless format such as tiff, psd etc. Then import and scale in FW setting the correct output format within FW - for book covers then generally jpeg. See Joe’s link about this: Graphic File Formats | Web Style Guide 3

David

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peter.pehrson · October 7, 2009, 2:14am

Thank you David. I will investigate your solutions. I appreciate your time and expertise.
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: “DeltaDave” email@hidden
To: email@hidden
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 8:16:42 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: Group Review + Diagnosis

This is a text enlargement issue as Paul alluded to in his reply. (If in Safari View menu you set ‘Zoom Text Only’ it will be more obvious when looking at a page and increase text size)

There are a couple of ways to sort this

1 - The box model layout method

2 - making your text boxes large enough to accommodate growing text.

As to the graphic quality - you are better to scan and save in a lossless format such as tiff, psd etc. Then import and scale in FW setting the correct output format within FW - for book covers then generally jpeg. See Joe’s link about this: Graphic File Formats | Web Style Guide 3

David

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Dan_J1 · October 7, 2009, 5:34am

I’d disagree with Dave on that last part about image quality.

From my experience Freeway does a sub par job of exporting out images properly when you just drag-n-drop them in there as a TIFF or PSD, etc. You’re much better off using Photoshop, or even Acorn, to ‘Save for Web’ and adjust things that way.

It’s always best to re-size first in an external program and then import them as ‘pass-through’s’ into FW. Leave Freeway to do the ‘code thing’, but remember that it’s not a professional photograph / image editing software when quality matters to your website.

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peter.pehrson · October 7, 2009, 11:08am

Dan, that’s the answer that I can understand about image quality! I’ll give that a whirl and see. Being able to read a bookjacket at a small size is of obvious importance to a bookseller site! Freeway is so great at so much; I wish they’d get this resolved better. Or maybe they have and I don’t know about it because I’m on Freeway 4 Express?
Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: “Dan J” email@hidden
To: email@hidden
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 1:34:52 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: : Group Review + Diagnosis

I’d disagree with Dave on that last part about image quality.

From my experience Freeway does a sub par job of exporting out images properly when you just drag-n-drop them in there as a TIFF or PSD, etc. You’re much better off using Photoshop, or even Acorn, to ‘Save for Web’ and adjust things that way.

It’s always best to re-size first in an external program and then import them as ‘pass-through’s’ into FW. Leave Freeway to do the ‘code thing’, but remember that it’s not a professional photograph / image editing software when quality matters to your website.

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toolemera · October 7, 2009, 12:23pm

Well, chiming in with a different view. First off, I’m a long time bookseller, bookman, ephemerist, etc. Looking at the page from the perspective of a prospective buyer:

Ditch the html boxes and go a table layout (padding in cells but no borders). I wouldn’t even recommend a CSS table as they give me a pain lately across platforms and browsers.
Pic To New Window if you would like an image to follow the thumbnail/viewable route. I pre-process in Photoshop Elements to near the correct size, and finish sizing in Freeway.
Offer some prices on the page. If I am forced to work my way through all the links to get a sense of pricing, I will most likely leave the site right away. (and you do have some interesting stuff there).
The lead in paragraph is off-putting. By the time you get to explaining that you don’t have a storefront with payment features, I’m already barely paying attention to what was written. Lead off with your instructions to contact you for information on books.
I run a variety of websites of my own design, with the gateway site being http://toolemera.com. There is a fairly new book shop that went online http://shop.toolemera.com and an even newer site http://handtoolmakers.com

This is not to say these sites are the best, but they have grown in traffic steadily over the years due to being content oriented. I use Paypal because there are more people who want it than those who rant against it.

Gary (looking forward to seeing what you have to offer)

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Paul_Bradforth · October 7, 2009, 12:31pm

On 7 Oct 2009, at 06:34, Dan J wrote:

It’s always best to re-size first in an external program and then
import them as ‘pass-through’s’ into FW. Leave Freeway to do the
‘code thing’, but remember that it’s not a professional photograph /
image editing software when quality matters to your website.

I wouldn’t agree with this. If you use ‘Pass-through’ images, you’re
losing all the goodness that Freeway gives in the way of resizing,
rotating, cropping, and effects through Actions.
I’m all for resizing and saving as TIFF or PSD outside Freeway, but
not too keen on pass-throughs; you lose so much functionality.

best wishes,

Paul Bradforth

http://www.paulbradforth.com

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peter.pehrson · October 7, 2009, 1:41pm

Gary [“toolemera”…a clever name!], you raise excellent and substantial points. I will reply off list so we don’t burden these good folks with our book chat. I did manage to fix the expanding text box problem by simply allowing more room. Not the best appearance, but it’s something I can live with. Will make all the changes and upload once, probably by tomorrow.
Thanks, my friend.
Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: “toolemera” email@hidden
To: email@hidden
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:23:37 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: Group Review + Diagnosis

Well, chiming in with a different view. First off, I’m a long time bookseller, bookman, ephemerist, etc. Looking at the page from the perspective of a prospective buyer:

Ditch the html boxes and go a table layout (padding in cells but no borders). I wouldn’t even recommend a CSS table as they give me a pain lately across platforms and browsers.
Pic To New Window if you would like an image to follow the thumbnail/viewable route. I pre-process in Photoshop Elements to near the correct size, and finish sizing in Freeway.
Offer some prices on the page. If I am forced to work my way through all the links to get a sense of pricing, I will most likely leave the site right away. (and you do have some interesting stuff there).
The lead in paragraph is off-putting. By the time you get to explaining that you don’t have a storefront with payment features, I’m already barely paying attention to what was written. Lead off with your instructions to contact you for information on books.
I run a variety of websites of my own design, with the gateway site being http://toolemera.com. There is a fairly new book shop that went online http://shop.toolemera.com and an even newer site http://handtoolmakers.com

This is not to say these sites are the best, but they have grown in traffic steadily over the years due to being content oriented. I use Paypal because there are more people who want it than those who rant against it.

Gary (looking forward to seeing what you have to offer)

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peter.pehrson · October 7, 2009, 1:48pm

Thanks, Paul, for your comments on pass-throughs. But for my use, which is this one website and no more after that (I am a book dealer, not a website designer), the perceived “loss of functionality” does not trouble me one whit because those things aren’t what I want, anyway. I just want a legible, attractive image. Edits I can do in Photoshop’s “Save to Web.” The image should be one element of many that compels a viewer to engage with the subject (my books for sale), and which experience concludes ideally in a transaction (cash in my pocket). The Freeway application markets itself to a very broad range of users; I am definitely on the “all-thumbs” lower, and simpler, end of the scale.
Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: “Paul Bradforth” email@hidden
To: email@hidden
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:31:59 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: : Group Review + Diagnosis

On 7 Oct 2009, at 06:34, Dan J wrote:

It’s always best to re-size first in an external program and then
import them as ‘pass-through’s’ into FW. Leave Freeway to do the
‘code thing’, but remember that it’s not a professional photograph /
image editing software when quality matters to your website.

I wouldn’t agree with this. If you use ‘Pass-through’ images, you’re
losing all the goodness that Freeway gives in the way of resizing,
rotating, cropping, and effects through Actions.
I’m all for resizing and saving as TIFF or PSD outside Freeway, but
not too keen on pass-throughs; you lose so much functionality.

best wishes,

Paul Bradforth

http://www.paulbradforth.com

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Paul_Bradforth · October 7, 2009, 1:54pm

On 7 Oct 2009, at 14:48, email@hidden wrote:

Thanks, Paul, for your comments on pass-throughs. But for my use,
which is this one website and no more after that (I am a book
dealer, not a website designer), the perceived “loss of
functionality” does not trouble me one whit because those things
aren’t what I want, anyway.

Fair enough Peter; from what you say, pass-through will suit you well,
and Photoshop will certainly handle the optimisation nicely.

best wishes,

Paul Bradforth

http://www.paulbradforth.com

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Keith_Martin · October 7, 2009, 4:05pm

There are a couple of ways to sort this

1 - The box model layout method

2 - making your text boxes large enough to accommodate growing text.

Also:

3 - Making items layered, but not attempting the Box Model layout method.

Each has its benefits and its drawbacks. The reason people use the
Box Model approach is because it allows layouts to adjust to
accommodate text size changes dynamically without forcing page
structures apart. Method #3 won’t resize the layout, but it also
won’t push things apart (as the table layout has been) so it won’t
cause gaps to appear. Implementing this is as simple as selecting an
object and clicking the Layered checkbox in the Inspector palette, so
see how this goes for you.

As to the graphic quality - you are better to scan and save in a
lossless format such as tiff, psd etc.

Absolute golden advice! Freeway will output web-optimised content
from whatever you import. Keep your originals in a non-lossy format
and let Freeway handle the conversion process. You can step in and
control it from the Inspector palette if you like.

You can also import pre-optimised web graphics in ‘pass-through’ form
so that Freeway doesn’t do anything more than ‘pass them through’ to
your site unchanged. This can help when you want absolute control
over the final graphic appearance, but it does involve taking charge
and hence responsibility for things, including precise scaling and
sizing of your graphics before you use them rather than within the
layout as you design your pages.

k

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