Basic Graphics How-To's

Background Color Selectors It is important that, if you specify a background color in a file, you MAKE SURE to also set the text, link, vlink, and alink colors (see rationale). There are a bunch of background color selectors out there. These are the ones I use. Palette ColorMaker Hype's Color Specifier for Netscape Suites of Coordinating Backgrounds and Graphics The Web Diner Graphic Suites can provide instant classy looks for your pages. Nice Collections of Backgrounds I have two major peeves about backgrounds. First, if it is hard to read the text or links on a page because of the background, lose the background!!! Second, if you specify a background image in a file, BE SURE to set the text, link, vlink, and alink colors too (see rationale). There are lot of background collections out there too. These are the ones I think are the most useful. Ender's Realm Graphics Bills's Background Library A fairly new collection (at least at this location), but nice. Texture Land This is a huge collection of backgrounds, but beware---many of them are too vivid or busy to be usable (IF you want your page to be readable!) Julianne's Textures Note that many of these are darker than I prefer my backgrounds to be for easy reading. And here's a helpful how-to about how to make seamless backgrounds. Tip: You can often make a decent background by specifying a "bar" or "cube" graphic (like those in the following section) as your background image. Nice Collections of Icons, Bars, Bullets, Etc. Again, there are a bunch of these out there. These are the ones I like best. Anthony's Icon Library Probably the best general assortment Ender's Realm Graphics Very aesthetic Jon's HTML Graphics Archive Has a handy search engine The Free Art Website Art by Laurie McCanna. Bart's Backgrounds, Bars, and Bullets Great bars here! Bill's Bars and Separators Again, a fairly new collection at this location, but nice. Check out his "creative" sets of separators too, not just the ones shown on the linked page. GIF Directory of Rob's Multimedia Lab (RML) Randy's Icons and Images Bazaar Buttons, Cubes, and Bars Some good basics here. The Icon Browser Transparent and Interlaced GIF Instructions and Resources Transparent and Interlaced GIFs Creating Transparent Images and Other WWW Stuff Transparent Images The Single-Pixel (Transparent) GIF can solve your spacing problems. Animated GIF Resources Animated GIFs are lot of fun. Here are two sites that have how-to instructions for creating or manipulating them using my favorite animation tool. Laurie McCanna's Gif89A Animation Tutorial for Web Diner Inc. Northern Webs Animation Tutorial Animated GIF tip 1: Remember that animated GIFs can only be seen by late-model browsers, such as Netscape 2.0 or better. Animated GIF tip 2: Depending on the user's bandwidth and the transmission conditions, it is possible for an animated GIF to loop so quickly that the user cannot view the source of the HTML page and, sometimes, cannot even successfully leave the page by clicking on the hyperlinks. That last will make people VERY ANGRY. Thumbnail Graphics A thumbnail graphic is a graphic of small size that links to a larger (usually the original) graphic. Thumbnails are useful because large graphics can require long download times over the internet or a network; the thumbnail allows the viewer to see a small-scale version of the large graphic and decide whether or not he or she wants to see the full-size version. Thumbnails are usually made by using a graphics package to make a small version of a large GIF. The thumbnail graphic is then coded into the HTML page and linked to the large graphic file. Imagemap Instructions Imagemap Authoring Guide and Tutorial Sites Imagemap Help Page NCSA Imagemap Tutorial