Layers and Styles

These two layout choices are less universal than the HTML Table choice. Layers are used only with Netscape Navigator, making it suitable only for tightly controlled circles of users (like an intranet at Netscape Corp).

Styles are more widely used but DRAW does not create an external Cascading Style Sheet (.css) file by default. So before you go any further, we suggest you return once more to Options and check Use CSS File for Text Styles.

With this option active, DRAW creates an external file that governs the formatting of the HTML page, and any others that you want to be controlled by it—potentially an entire Web site with hundreds of pages. To adjust the formatting of a page or an element on the page, you edit the .css file.

We are glad that DRAW has adopted support for CSS, as we see its use becoming nearly universal very soon.

A Question of Purpose

For the most part, DRAW has produced a credible replication of this page. The logo appears clean, text is readable, and all the links are in place, including the one in the text that we are pointing to in Figure 22.5.

But who would want to create a page this way, and we don’t mean for this to be a rhetorical or sarcastic question. Earnest Webmasters would use a Web page editor, and anyone thinking of becoming one would receive unanimous advice to do the same. Why would one turn to DRAW to create a Web page?

We’ll answer this question shortly, but first let’s see why people would not choose DRAW. While the page looks fine in a browser, it is not without its flaws, both obvious and subtle:

•  The date is not centered.

•  The white background is gone altogether.

•  Even though the background in DRAW was created by a JPEG file, DRAW chose to export it as a GIF during HTML page creation. As a result, it is visibly grainier than it should be.

Most notable, however, is what you don’t see—the structure that DRAW uses to create this page. To be frank, it’s a mess. We asked for HTML Tables as our layout—boy did we get a table...

Figure 22.6 shows the actual home page for altman.com, opened in a Web page editor (this is an ideal way to see how a page is actually constructed). The thin dotted lines represent the rows and columns of the table used to position these elements: the first row is the logo; the second row contains the seven main departments of the site; and the third row is the body of the page, with one blank column at the left for positioning, and the second column set with a background of white. The size of the HTML file is 2.7KB.

FIGURE 22.6  It doesn’t take much to create this page—one table with three rows.

As pages go, this one is pretty simple. But the same cannot be said for DRAW’s rendition. Figure 22.7 shows it in all of its, uh, voluminosity.

FIGURE 22.7  This page might look similar to the original home page, but behind the scenes, it is quite different.

DRAW has gone completely table-happy, scattering little rows and columns everywhere. The logo has been broken up into five sections all by itself. This HTML file is almost 9KB.

So who would use DRAW to create Web pages? People who don’t care about the purity of an HTML file. People who want to communicate the look of a drawing in the most universal way. People who won’t have any interest in editing the page after the fact. We would argue that PDF would be a better choice, but not everyone has Acrobat Reader—almost everyone, but not every one. But today, everyone has a browser.

This is a narrow application for a feature that Corel has touted mightily. During development, several beta testers were even calling for the removal of DRAW’s HTML creation features. We’re glad they are there, if for no other reason than to expose users to HTML files. But none of the members of this book-writing team uses it for Web page creation, and as a collective, we don’t place too much stock in an illustration program trying to double as a Web page creation tool.

We would prefer to see DRAW stick to what it does so well—making the graphics—and concentrate its efforts on making the GIF and JPEG export as clean as it can possibly be.

Miscellaneous Musings aboutWebPages

We enter the home stretch of this chapter with a free-for-all. Here are some thoughts about working on the Web, delivered to you in no particular order except as we thought of them. When you reach Chapter 22 of a book, you are entitled to ramble...

On-Screen Proofing Is Hazardous toYourJob Security

Do you remember when you first began using a computer at work? Our lead authordoes.

It was 1981 and I had just begun as the managing editor of Inside Tennis magazine in Oakland, California. I bought an Osborne 1 to use as a word processor. I loved using WordStar; it was incredible to be able to make edits on screen without having to retype everything. My copyediting speed increased ten-fold.

And you know what else happened? I became a worse writer. This was not a good trade. I found that editing on screen was so convenient, I wouldn’t bother to print my articles before turning them in. I would just read them once on screen. It was bad enough when I wrote that “Jimmy Connors uses a toe-handed backhand,” but I knew something had to change when I had intended to report that Bjorn Borg had never won the U.S. Open, but wrote instead that he had never won at Wimbledon (where he had just won his fifth consecutive title). I had become better at correcting errors, but worse at spotting them.

I learned then what I have since concluded to be gospel: people don’t read as effectively from a computer screen as they do from a book or a piece of paper.

Let’s set aside the obvious, like the fact that even with today’s notebook computers, you can’t curl up on the couch with a really good Web site. And let’s also set aside the fact that you can’t take a Web page with you into the, uh, into the...no, let’s not go there, either.

There are other implications to the Web revolution. When you are reading online, your speed is down, your comprehension is diminished, and your reading enjoyment quotient might be lower, as well. Webmasters who appreciate this create pages with narrower columns, they keep the type size at a readable level or a bit beyond, and they pepper the pages with tasteful graphics.

As writers, we have ardently believed that content should always prevail over form. However, we must acknowledge how frantic a place the World Wide Web is. We have to admit that if a little bit of eye candy will make somebody feel more comfortable at our Web site, then we stand a better chance of having our riveting and incredibly insightful prose read.