Graphics

One of the big debates in web page design is how much and what quality graphics to include. The size of a given image is dependent on two factors - the actual size of the image on the screen and the number of colors it uses. A two-color image that fills the screen would be smaller than a 16-color image that is only a quarter of the size of the screen.

As a rule of thumb, it is best to use several small images with fairly few colors interspersed throughout your document. A few larger images are also useful when you want to create a powerful visual impact or a central imagemap, but remember that the longer someone has to wait for the graphic, the higher their expectations will be for it.

Another useful graphic is the background image. As part of your Netmar account you have access to our extensive library of background images. Just go to our image library and find one that you like. Be warned, though, this library is huge and may take some time to load.

With newer and more powerful browsers being developed everyday, it is possible to add animated gifs to your page. These are gif files that when loaded onto your page, perform some kind of animation. Here is a list from Yahoo of several collections of animated gifs.

Finally, the images that you include on your pages should, if possible, serve some purpose or follow a central theme. Try to create an overall effect with your graphics, rather than simply choosing some images that look nice for your page.

It should be a fairly time-consuming effort to gather, create, combine, and assess all the different images in terms of both their size and content. Don't expect it to come out right on the first try. However, if you are patient and willing to put some effort behind it, you can create web pages as good as anything on the 'net.

Color

Another way to further provide flair to your web page is through the addition of color. HTML allows the user to set color values for the text, links, active links, and visited links. The default values for these are black, blue, red, and purple, respectively. However, when using color, keep in mind that your links are discernible from your text, and that your text,links,and vlinks don't fade into the background. To get a listing of all the available colors and their matching codes click here.

Icons

Pages upon pages of text tends to get tedious, and often users will skip over a page that is mostly text. One way to break up the monotony is to place icons in various places of your document. There are some icons available in the image library for use.

Counters

Counters can provide the user with a simple way to immediately gauge the performance of their page. The counter increments everytime a user visits the page, recording 'hits'. There are two different types of counters available from Netmar, Inc., and each is used differently.

Located in the cgi-bin is a script used as a counter. This script is used in HTML files via the 'IMAGE' tag.

Where arg1, arg2, and arg3 are any of the supported arguments. To see a more involved description, which includes the arguments, click here.

The other counter is referenced via an exec tag, and is done by including the following line:

NOTE: To make use of this feature, the document in which the exec tag lies must be changed from a .html file to a .shtml file.