It is normally up to the author of a web site to win the interest of his/her visitors, without upsetting or bullying them in any way. A most basic rule of conduct in this respect should consist of not imposing on them any special technical condition, such as a so-called "optimisation" for a particular browser or screen resolution, or the mandatory use of more or less uncommon accessory software ("plug-ins"). The present site is designed for complying as much as possible with such rules (click on the button to learn more about a relevant campaign). Its contents is meant to be directly accessible, without any "plug-in", to all browsers available on the market since at least the mid-1990s, and on any software platform. Because of the very purpose of the site, however, which largely consists of displaying pictures, the contents cannot be made fully available to text-mode browsers or to visually impaired persons. [Page top]
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In order to better ensure compatibility with all browsers (or nearly so) in their simplest configuration, the pages on this site will send to visitors no code other than HTML language proper (such as Javascript or Java applets). Page contents was written directly with a text editor, rather than a web page editor, to avoid inadvertently introducing so-called "extensions" (non standard instructions) that can be interpreteted only by some browsers or by some of their versions. The pages on this site were submitted to the validation service of W3C, the institution officially in charge of regulating the HTML norm. They were corrected as needed for compliance with the HTML 4.0 Transitional norm (click on the button for more information), better recognised by most browsers currently in use than the newer and supposedly preferable HTML 4.1 or XHTML 1.0 norms. Some pages on this site are in practice dynamically generated by PHP scripts, but the latter are directly parsed on the server, which as a result sends back to the browser standard HTML code only. The verificator spider of W3C considers incorrect a parameter code used in connection with the counter displayed on one of the pages, but this code is also interpreted on the server (by a CGI script), without any direct interaction with the browser. [Page top]
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To better ensure that browsers will in all cases be able to read, and correctly display, accented letters and other special characters, the latter are included in the text on the pages only in the form of HTML entities, such as é for é [note]. Following trials, it unfortunately turned out that the inclusion of some characters had to be given up, e.g. the oe ligature in the French words "oeuvre", "oeuf", "boeuf", for which no universal code is available (œ with most recent browsers, œ with some versions of Windows). As a matter of precaution, however, the ISO-8859-1 character set is declared in all document headers [note]. Characters encoded according to this norm (but not to its extensions particular to some versions of Windows) may be included in the META tags of the header. Still for the sake of compatibility with all browsers, the images of various kinds called by the pages on this site are only in the form of GIF or JPEG files. Apart from links with other HTML pages, no other file types are being called. [Page top]
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With some browsers and some screen resolutions, it sometimes happens that the last characters at the end of text lines, or the last line(s) at the bottom of a page, are masked by the screen edge and the scroll bars are ineffective at providing a remedy. The solutions to this problem put at work on this site consist of inserting a blank space at the bottom of pages and using margins at the left and right side of the pages. The left margin is not technically requested in this respect, but, as known since Gutenberg's time by the publishers of paper documents, it makes for more pleasant reading. Where text is presented in two columns (French and English versions side by side), a thin space is inserted between the columns, also following the usage in the paper publishing industry. Screen areas allocated to text columns or margins are coded in relative rather than absolute values (percentage of screen width rather than number of pixels) to ensure that a similar overall lay-out is retained at all screen resolutions [note]. More generally, the site is designed to avoid the need for horizontal scrolling, whatever the resolution of the visitor's screen. The width of pictures never exceeds 600 pixels, so that they can be displayed in full, with margins on both sides, even at the ordinary VGA resolution of 640×400 pixels. The same condition normally applies to any item (titles, rows of clickable thumnails) whose width is, explicitly or implicitly, set in absolute values. The maximal height of pictures is 350 pixels, which allows them to be displayed (nearly) in full at the lowest resolution (VGA). There is, however, no way of ensuring an equally satisfactory display in all cases. Page compatibility with different resolutions can only rest on compromises [note]. For the sake of more acceptable compromises in this respect on the present site, the screen is never split into frames [note], which, anyway, would not be correctly displayed by some browsers (e.g. older versions). [Page top]
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Lighter web pages and smaller component files save storage space (which is in the webmaster's interest), but also bandwith and therefore download time (which is in the interest of visitors). Apart from sound files, none of which are included in the present site, the heaviest files, and the slowest to download, are graphic files. All pictures are stored here in the format that best allows for a reduction in file size, generally JPEG for photographs, GIF for maps, icons and the like. To avoid excessive losses in picture quality, the highest JPEG compression rate used is 15%, except for clickable thumbnails for which it is at least 50%, but the size of the photographs themselves is restricted to a maximum of 350 pixels along their largest dimension. The size of the corresponding files ranges from 20-25 Kb in the most favourable cases to slightly more than 50 Kb in the exceptional cases of a few 350×350 pixel square pictures. The palette in GIF files systematically includes 16 colours rather than 256. A few icons borrowed from other sites and originally coded on 256 colours were re-encoded as needed. A sober page design (hopefully not too austere) is favoured here in order to avoid the simultaneous download of too many picture files. [Page top]
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It is more and more frequent, when connecting to a web site, to find oneself confronted with a Javascript programming error whose effects may range from the display of some bizarre characters to the complete freezing of the "client" computer [note]. This is apparently becoming the most serious public nuisance on the web! Such mistakes can be understood, but hardly approved, in the case of a personal web page whose author has tried to please himself or herself by fiddling with special effects that work with his/her own browser... without really asking himself or herself whether the same is true for visitors. When similar amateurish errors are committed on institutional or commercial sites, however, they become totally unacceptable. They are nevertheless commonplace on the sites of well-known large businesses, including in the communication sector and the media, including on some Internet portals and some web hosting services! Other commercial sites, if not the same ones, are also characterised by their (sometimes extreme) download sluggishness. In terms of bandwith, the companies owning these sites often have not consented investments commensurate with the potential number of connexions. A major factor also is, however, that most of the relevant pages carry an overload of logos, banners and other pictures, many of which are pieces of advertising. Some pages even almost entirely consist of graphics, often with liberal use of animations. If they are in GIF format, the relevant files are frequently coded on 256 colours even though they actually use only three or four of them [note]. Page contents made up entirely of a mosaic of graphic files come with a fixed lay-out, "optimised" for a given resolution, and which will require painful combinations of horizontal and vertical scrolling for being viewed at smaller resolutions. Many other errors and approximations often beset page lay-out. In addition to inaccessible line ends and page bottoms, buttons and other links can be variously masked by scrolling bars and screen edges, and even large page areas be stuck out of reach. Some sites, even though put on line by institutions or companies in the media sector, really deserve a dunce's cap in these various respects [note]. Many commercial sites also drown you under an avalanche of cookies, whose function is finding out what your connexion habits are, thus helping to define your profile as a potential customer. In addition to intruding into your privacy or your business secrets [note], these cookies can make access to the relevant sites unpleasant under some browser configurations, and they certainly do not help improving the situation as regards bandwith availability. Last but not least, the visit of many commercial sites requires that you install on your system additional software (plug-ins) of their choice (and by implication the software platform on which the stuff runs). This is not unrelated to the so-called laws of the market, whose main effect, whatever the ideologues who sing their praise may say, is allowing the most powerful multinationals to impose their quasi-monopoly, especially in the software sector. It may appear economically sound for merchants to comply with the technical choices of the monopolies, and press the public to do the same, in order to end up with a narrower range of customer profiles to manage. On the condition that the worse programming errors are avoided (which is not always the case), it may thus seem sufficient, and perhaps collectively preferable, for commercial sites to be compatible (only) with the most widespread browser(s). When, unfortunately, some public services or institutions happen to behave in the same way (sometimes with the technically aggravating circumstance that they operate in the communication sector), they deserve a double dunce's cap [note]. Proper use of taxpayers money does not consist of boosting the cash flow of software monopolies and their satellites by way of pressing the public to adapt themselves to the ever-changing technical choices of the monopolies, and therefore to spend large sums at a frantic rythm in a never-ending race after so-called software and hardware "updates". [Page top]
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This site does not propagate any computer virus and includes no intentional attempt at infringing the basic rights of any person or any community or minority, whether linguistic, ethnic, sexual, racial, religious or philosophical (what else?). The building of the site did not harm any human(s) or animal(s) and caused no environmental damage [note]. Some pages possibly express opinions that may happen to be at variance with those of the reader but, apart from being silent, there is hardly any way to do otherwise. [Page top]
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This site was created on altern.org, which used to offer free hosting until the end of June 2000 and still offers a free e-mail service. Then the site took refuge at the free.fr free hosting service until February 2001. It is now using the domain-name hosting service at Altern (click on the button for more information, in French only), where it can be accessed as merle-blanc.net, but also as merle-blanc.org or merle-blanc.com [note], all of these names being registered with GANDI. Source/backup copies of the site contents are being kept and maintained off-line by the author, in triplicate on media physically independent from each other. [Page top]
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