Re: Project X-long relpy, and more questions

[Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM]

       How would you implement the "You are here" so when you are on a
      different page it will show you a different location?

With Project X, you'll need a separate file to support "fly-throughs" from
different starting points. I haven't seen its behavior under Netscape, but in
CyberDog the 3-D window remains open while viewing a page, so you can switch
back and "fly" to another page whenever you wish.

      Is there some way of using vector graphics such as CorelDraw *.cdr,
      instead of a compressed bitmap, such as *.gif, or *.jpg?

Only if you could be sure your audience has a Corel viewer. (I'm not even sure
one of those critters *exists* on non-Windows platforms.)

      If there isn't how would I use a java applet to load the Corel Vector
      graphic viewer?

If you use Java you're limiting your audience even farther than if you depend on
Windows-only helper apps. A lot of Corporate sites refuse to pass Java applets
(yes, it's not difficult to prevent an applet from being passed into your site,
and until Sun gets its security act together on Java, there's going to be a lot
of filtering going on.).

And another note. Any site that loads new software on my machine will never
again be visited by me. It's not a Good Thing to tamper with visitor's machines
without their explicit permission.

In any case, Java applets cannot access the file system of the client machine
(or at least, that is the security specification for it -- the fact that there
are ways to do this anyway is the reason so many corporate sites block it) so
they cannot download anything. (You could write a viewer in Java and use that
applet to view the map.)

      Could you create a template page as a generalised object used
      throughout the web site. Instead of have the actual text or graphics
      objects in that page - which would make it specific to a particular
      page- you insert markers as variables where the server would insert
      the relevant
      text and calls to graphics depending on where you are in a defined
      map that would tell the server which marker variables to insert into
      the template page?

Yes. But....

       Could you  provide the  text in compressed form,
      so the server would decompress the text before inserting it into the
      template page? If so, how would you do it?

Yes. But....

Both the "buts" are performance issues. There's a lot you can do with CGI's and
databases, and the like. But everything you do with them creates an additional
load on your server. The longer it takes your page to be delivered (whether the
reason is insanely huge graphics or lots of processing overhead on the server)
the less likely anyone will still be there when it finally arrives.


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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