Web Design Workshop: Example from page 192

Design Notes:
This design looks fairly simple. The horizontal background image (the left edge design) is 5K and it tiles in the background. The bride image is large (313K x 511K) but weighs only 25K thanks to the technique of “weighted optimization” described on pages 54 and 205 of the Web Design Workshop book. Notice that the undetailed sections of the bridal image’s background is very low quality (quality setting of 10), while the bride’s face and body are much higher quality (quality setting of 40).

The smaller, faded-back border to the right was manually placed as many times as necessary in a nested table to reach the bottom extremity of the text content. Using CSS (style sheets) and designating type sizes as pixels makes it possible to make accurate decisions about how many times to repeat a graphic because the pixel sized font specs appear more similar in size from browser to browser than using relative HTML sizes or using “points” to designate font sizes. As we’ve mentioned before, CSS also allows you much greater flexibility to design HTML text areas with various combinations of font size and line height (leading). These design notes use a style sheet that specifies 10 pixel Verdana Bold with 22 pixel line height.

When we started inserting multiple copies of the small border into the table cell on the right (in Dreamweaver), other table cells started stretching out of shape and causing a big HTML mess. We brought things under control by nesting a table in the desired table cell and placing the border graphic into the nested table.

Dreamweaver builds tables with cell alignment attributes that are usually set as “Default.” We often have to reset those settings to something more to our liking, such as Horiz Left and Vert Top. This solves a lot of problems. Sometimes it is difficult to select the desired table cell to change its settings because a JPEG or GIF is filling the cell and clicking in that area only selects the graphic (the JPEG or GIF). We select the graphic, cut it (copy it to the pasteboard), then click in the empty cell and change its settings using the Dreamweaver Properties palette. We then paste the graphic back into the table cell.

The main text on the page caused problems for us also. As we typed the text, other table cells began stretching out of shape again, causing the type flourish slices to misalign. Once again, we regained control by nesting a table in the main text cell that was the exact width of the containing cell. The text was then typed into the nested table.

In summary, the two main remedies that we use to fix table problems are:
(1) Reset the default setting of individual table cells to our desired preferences—usually "Left" and "Top."
(2) Use nested tables to isolate different elements of content from the rest of the table structure.

Fonts
Headline: Woodland ITC
Swash: Bickham Script

The romance that Amanda had always dreamed of had come true and the biggest wedding that Paint Rock had ever seen was just hours away. Unfortunately for Amanda, the All-Night Texas Grill Cafe was just five minutes away from the Southside Tribulation Southern Baptist Church and ex-beau Joe Dell Boudreaux had just happened to stop for a cup of coffee, having just returned from an extended business trip in Nuevo Laredo.

The mayhem that started that night in Paint Rock came to be known in these parts as the Joe Dell Deal. Or, more precisely, as The Last Deal Joe Dell Did.

It’s a short story but kinda hard to follow if you didn’t grow up in the area of discussion and didn’t have access to the particular kind of reasoning and cultural conditioning that’s been a birthright of folks from these parts for many generations. At least as far back as when Joe Dell’s great great grandfather painted the rock that gave Paint Rock its name, and as far as can be determined, pretty much caused an astronomically influenced hideous twist of fate that would ultimately change the lives of everyone in Paint Rock to some degree, depending on just how darn well they knew Amanda or Joe Dell, or any of their friends or enemies.

Like I said, this is fixin’ to get complicated so I'd better start with trying to explain why Joe Dell was in Nuevo Laredo instead of looking out for his hometown interests, mainly his ex-girlfriend Amanda, who he obsessed on, maybe even loved. If there's any chance of any of this making any sense at all, it’ll be in the last chapter, so don’t try to figure it out, just listen.

Chapter 1: The dance at Loweke
Joe Dell dreaded having to make the drive to Loweke just for a chicken fried steak and couple of longneck beers. He figured he might as well brush off the snakeskin boots and get out the Garth Brooks shirt so he could wander on over to the VFW Hall for some dancing, boozin’ and maybe some fist fightin’. Although he'd much rather watch a fist fight than be a participant in one. Unfortunately his reputation was just the opposite. He couldn’t really remember how he got the reputation for fighting, but it had both pros and cons. Ninety percent of the time, if people thought you liked to fight, they would do anything to avoid getting into a fight with you. Unfortunately, the other ten percent of the time someone was usually looking for you because they knew you like to fight. Sometimes they were looking for you to settle up for some fight you’d previously had with a friend. You can see how this had a way of becoming a vicious circle. And it didn't matter whether you lost or won a fight, fighting just sort of happened on a regular basis. Heck, losing was just barely worse than winning a fight. Either way you were probably going to be in more pain than you expected when the evening began. All this fighting stuff was getting old. The fighting itself was bad enough, but it had gotten to the point that when he wasn’t fighting, he was thinking about fighting. Actually it was more serious than even that. He was thinking about not fighting.

It was a deadly boring drive between Loweke and Paint Rock. The only thing to break the monotony of the long straight West Texas highway was the San Angelo country western radio station breaking in intermittently with a good ol’ Southern Baptist Saturday night revival happening somewhere out there in the darkness. Joe Dell estimated that he’d see State Trooper Wheeler, who always parked on the shoulder next to the Ballinger Dairy Queen, about the same time the radio evangelist would be wrapping up the sermon and calling for sinners to leave their folding chairs and walk down the sawdust covered isle. Joe Dell was fairly familiar with the evangelism, tent meeting scene. Heck, he’d been saved ever since he was barely old enough to realize that Catholics were having way too much fun to get to Heaven. At least not the direct route that only the Southern Baptist had access to. According to Brother Bubba Bowden, pastor of Joe Dell’s hometown church, most of the world was going to Hades in a handbasket while Brother Bubba’s flock was bound for Glory.

Sure enough, the Dairy Queen appeared on the left, as did Trooper Wheeler, parked just out of sight around the corner and almost within arms reach of the pick-up window. The radio evangelist instructed the choir to hum the melody of the invitation and Joe Dell cruised out of town past the sign that read “Loweke 8 miles.”