features that don't function on Macs

[dj.henri]

I was surprised a while back when I notices pages with Dynamic HTML effects
could not load at all in Macs, so I deleted all HTML effects, Page
Transitions, Marquees, etc. Then, someone in this forum posted that Hover
Buttons could be problematic on many PCs, so I deleted all of these, too.

Is there a reliable list of the effects, transitions, marquees, buttons,
etc., that are sure to work in all environments?

BTW, I also discovered that special fonts defaulted to boring fonts in some
environments, so I cut back to Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier only. Is
there a font list that is pretty much universal? If I have to go with a
simpler font palette, I would like to be the decider on that, rather than
have defaults showing up out there.

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

Your best bet is to set the authoring browser target in the page options.
Basically, if you set it to IE and Netscape Navigator you should never see
the option to include features like the Marquee and Transitions. Normally,
this is enabled by default but sometimes it gets switched to perform some
task, and opens up this exact can of worms. When the page compatibility is
set low enough it will disable all the features that won't work on other
browsers. For example, the Marquee is IE only. The blinking font (through
the blink tag) was Netscape Navigator only.

The hover buttons are a whole other ballgame because, at the time FP 2003
and earlier versions were developed, Java was in much wider use. It's now
fallen by the wayside for the average user so most people lack the virtual
machine they need to run Java, and hence the hover buttons.

You can run a search on Google for Web-Safe fonts and you should get a few
decent resources. Most sites use Arial, Times New Roman, Courier, or they
specify a range of fonts such as (Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif).
When specifying a range like that, the browser will go down the list until
it finds one it can display and then uses them. For very special bits of
text that you need in a particular font you can always use an image. This is
common practice for certain bits such as product banners, quotes, etc..

 

[David Berry]

Mark, I thought the Marquee was for NS only too but from the other postings
I've seen it appears that it now works in NS, FF and other browsers as well.

Dave

 

[dj.henri]

I made the change and indeed it disables Marquees. However, Page Transitions
and all Dynamic HTML effects are still available. I know for a fact many
Dynamic HTML effects cause pages to not load at all on Macs.

Any ideas (besides of course just deleting all of these)?

 

[Murray]

I know for a fact many

Dynamic HTML effects cause pages to not load at all on Macs.

Curious - I have not seen many that do. Can you name some? I mean some
that aren't IE proprietary.

 

[Murray]

http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html

 

[dj.henri]

drop in, elastic, fly in, and spiral.

Curious - I have not seen many that do. Can you name some? I mean some
that aren't IE proprietary.

 

[dj.henri]

To my eye, only Impact and Comic are qualitatively different from Arial,
Times New Roman and Courier. However, I seem to remember Impact defaulting
to another font on somebody else's notebook. Are Impact and Comic in fact
common fonts out there?

 

[Murray]

Page transitions? Those are IE/PC only. You should not use them on the
web.

 

[Murray]

Yes, pretty much. Note that Impact is NOT used by itself, though. It's
used in a family declaration.

 

[dj.henri]

What's a family declaration?

Yes, pretty much. Note that Impact is NOT used by itself, though. It's
used in a family declaration.

 

[Murray]

Something like -

p { font-family: impact, "arial narrow", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; }

(that's CSS)

The idea is that the browser uses the first one it finds installed on the
local system.