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Subject: 
Re: Instructions for Mobile Message Decoder
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish.html
Date: 
Mon, 7 Jan 2002 18:28:07 GMT
Viewed: 
2053 times
  
In lugnet.publish.html, Matthew Gerber writes:
Half of the reason I'm posting is to ask for input on the style of the
instructions.

Half a reason from Halfhead Hafner...sounds about half right...

Don't go off haf-cocked, now!

Check it out here:
http://www.hafhead.com/lego/myspace/bttrain/steps01.html

Definately looks good on screen...for on screen viewing, the screen
resolution JPGs are fine. Sucks to print though...72dpi is 72dpi, no matter
the printer or paper or quality of ink. If printability is truly important
to you, another soultion is called for.

I'm considering keeping the current scheme for the web-based version, and
doing a set of the same renders at much higher dpi (300?).  These files
would have the same physical size and filenames.  The existing html already
forces sizing, so the layout wouldn't change.  I'd simply have this as an
alternate downloadable version that is zipped up into a convenient package.
They'd be much less useful on screen because of line-visibility problems
that get worse when you scale images down more.

As for navigability...I think numbered steps would be far more effective
than the arrows, especially since there was no differentiation between steps
where I needed to read top-to-bottom column one, then continue to column
two, or steps where there is more than one assembly happening at once. Also,
"Page 1 of 16" as a link is vague...I didn't know this was the way to page 2
until I tried it. How about "1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5" style, so the reader can
move back and forth at will? Also, having the navigation at the top when the
final step on the page is at the bottom means I have to scroll to the top of
the page to move on...you could put the same navigation links at the top and
bottom of each page to make it easier.

Yeah, I wasn't even sure that people would realize that the page ID was a
link.  Again, that is a compromise to make it better in print- a set of page
numbers or "next" and "prev" links looks really stupid on a sheet of paper
even though that's what we expect on the web.  Same thing for duplicate page
numbers at the bottom.  I could put them at the bottom only... but then it's
annoying to browse if you are in a hurry and the bottom of the page link
isn't always in the same place on the screen.

Printable: page layout designed around printed sheet

Except for the screen resolution thing, the pages print well, and fit a
letter size sheet of paper just fine. If you want to get a better print
quality, you could always go with Acrobat PDF files instead.

Other than that, I think you have a winner here, and it's darn nice of you
to supply the instructions for your models...very cool.

Thanks for the kind words!  I'm leaning more and more toward making separate
versions for the two, though I'll do my best to have two very similar
templates.  But I may have the screen version on a single page with a link
to download the multi-page printer-friendly version.

--
Tony Hafner
www.hafhead.com



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Instructions for Mobile Message Decoder
 
(...) Half a reason from Halfhead Hafner...sounds about half right... 8?D (...) with the following notes: (...) Definately looks good on screen...for on screen viewing, the screen resolution JPGs are fine. Sucks to print though...72dpi is 72dpi, no (...) (23 years ago, 5-Jan-02, to lugnet.publish.html)

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