Cool page tools

shouldn't this b in the site tools forum?

I think Peter's looking for things that are web-based, like switching style-sheets, text-size changers (on the fly), et cetera, not tools that are used to create the sites themselves. Widgets, dhtml and such.

I personaly think these things are novelty items and if anything take away from the site. After all it's the sites content people want to see, not all the "toys" you can include on your site.

Bigger text can be different as it's usefull, but with todays browsers can be done within a couple of clicks in the browser, offering different color layouts isn't useful, offering changable layouts aren't, unless its a homepage like msn etc where you go everyday and check mail, read the news, the crosswords and you can choose not to have the latest on barbie or local stock exchange ... anything else is just code bloat which just slows the pages loading time and makes it harder for the viewer to work your site.
Sometimes simple is better - just because you can, doesnt mean you should

just my 2cents

Quote: Something useful that benefits the visitor.

I don't think he means the fancy, flashy, pointless stuff.

Yet, I prefer to keep even those to a minimum. Though things like page-translations are useful, most people who need them in the first place will be used to doing it their own way - like Busy mentioned - since your method is "non-standard" (not done the same way in other sites), and thus won't necessarily use it as much as you'd think.

Then again, I suppose if you make easier than their method, they might find it to be more useful.

Yes, I am looking for useful page tools, not flashy pointless stuff.

While some visitors may be sophisticated enough to adjust text size using browser controls, others may not. The text-size CSS sheets are fairly small.

The skin switching is to allow people to compare the old navigation with the new one. It won't be available forever.

I think the email this page is useful. It doesn't take up much space or very much code, and it helps promote the site, right?

If a page is written (perhaps even roughly translated) into a visitor's mother tongue, their stay is approximately doubled in length. Again, a fairly small amount of code and screen real estate.

Peter

I just rememembered that Mark Hensler's site "Max Albert" uses a layout/colour changer. Maybe you might want to have a word to him about it.

I've read people with vision problems tend to either have their fonts set as big or have their own style sheets that over ride the sites one for text and even color sometimes.
Email this page links are useless, it's an option in browsers already or there is the old copy and paste which is very common. Unless you tend to use advertising in your email there isnt much point. I use the "send the page to a friend" link on one of my sites but it has a purpose, but looking through my stats only 1 or 2 percent of people come from that, the rest are bookmarks (dont offer a bookmark this page script) or emails which have been copied and pasted.
You want to translate your site, good for you, BUT are you going to rewrite it to be word friendly in that language? example, "I want a fag" has many meanings throughout the world, even thou its very simple and innocent it's not always, to me it means "I want a smoke" but the word fag is like 100's of other words out there that have multi meanings. another one is colour, color is American, colour is other places, the place you translate to, how do they do it, translation programs don't have spell check. so really if you don't use proper spelling and grammer you could be insulting these people rather than helping them.

Your intensions are good, but in some cases your trying to reinvent the wheel

I'll have to disagree on the text-size changing issue. If there's just a minute space/load time penalty and it can help some visitors, why not?

Regarding the email link - the space penalty is about 20x14 pixels, and a few lines of JavaScript. If it makes a few visitors actually send an email, bringing more visitors, isn't that what it's all about? Even better, those are the best kind of visitors, because a person has made the decision that someone would like to see something. Much better than stumbling upon it using a search engine. Besides, Cisco does it, and everyone knows they can do no wrong... no wrong... no wrong...

I wouldn't consider translating all the pages of my web site. However, if you'd like to secure funding for me that's equivalent to Microsoft's site budget, I'll reconsider!

I'll agree that the automated translators do not provide a perfect translation. At times they are hilarious, but they are certainly better than staring at a screen of incomprehensible text. You can usually get the gist of things.

If I can add a few simple page tools that increase traffic and benefit, even slightly, my visitors, why not?

Peter

Quote: I'll agree that the automated translators do not provide a perfect translation. At times they are hilarious, but they are certainly better than staring at a screen of incomprehensible text. You can usually get the gist of things.

If it provides better translation than Babelfish, I'd be all for it.

Flags are a poor marker, however, for page translations. Use the language (for instance, is the Canadian Flag for French or English translation? The US for Spanish, English? et cetera) instead.

It's a personal site, add all the tools you like. But do try to measure how often they are used. I'm betting rarely, if at all.

Email this page links aren't very trustworthy, also...

The Canadian flag for English was chosen because it's a Canadian site, with Canadian (ok, English) spelling. Fewer people have a bone to pick with Canada than the US. I suspect that the British flag is less recognized in other parts of the world than the US, in any case both are tough to distinguish when tiny. So, that again leaves us with Canada. In my personal opinion, it was the best choice. All flags have alt text listing the language.

As for choosing the German flag for the German language, Italy for Italian, and Spain for Spanish, France for French... I'll leave that to your imagination!

After I started working on graphics and code, I found Babelfish has a line of JavaScript you can insert on your page to do something similar, but not quite as nice in my opinion. It uses flags as well, but I don't think there is alt text.

Peter

Alt tags are only for images that don't display, the older browsers used to display the alt after loading but don't anymore, if you want it to show once loaded, use the title tag as well as the alt.

Quote: Originally posted by pmj7 I suspect that the British flag is less recognized in other parts of the world than the US

I Beg to differ! I would assume that a Canadian flag is for Canadian French tranlation.

Quote: Originally posted by Busy Alt tags are only for images that don't display, the older browsers used to display the alt after loading but don't anymore, if you want it to show once loaded, use the title tag as well as the alt.

When you say older browsers don't display the alt tag once the image has loaded which browsers? IE6 still does.

Opera, Mozilla and NS7 don't

Oh, well I don't really think that people mouseover images to see if there is an alt tag any way.

Quote: Originally posted by The Webmistress
Oh, well I don't really think that people mouseover images to see if there is an alt tag any way.

i know i don't

If I can't find any labeling or clearly visible caption/title, I always try for alt descriptions.

I'll add 'title' as well.

If I can't be certain as to what a control does, in a program or on a web page, I always mouse over it first. It's quick and you may get a better understanding of what's going on.

I think the vast majority of people who would want a French-Canadian translation are those in Quebec, Canada. If you lived there, and had a choice of language translations (on a non-government web site) indicated by Canadian and French flags, which would you choose?

In any case, I can't think of another flag that would represent the English language better in this case (for reasons stated earlier).

Peter

Yeah, alt is supposed to be if the image isn't there, title is supposed to be tool tip. IE/Win is the only browser that ignores this now (and N4.x before it).

Title gives you some marketing oomph, though, with valid space for some keywords.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/flagproblem.html

Using a flag in itself isn't a problem, but it's not as clear as:

English
Francais
Deutsch

et cetera.

When I go to sites that aren't English, and there is a link that says "English", I click it, and see it, immediately. Because it's very clear what it means.

For all I know, those flags indicate membership countries, sites on the same topic in other countries, et cetera.

Thanks for the link, Suzanne.

I agree that the text for the language could make things a bit clearer, but then we start running into the screen space issue. It also isn't as visually attractive.

This case is a little different as people won't select the Canadian flag once they get there, it's already in English! And if they do, then nothing will change. It's just a way of returning back from Spanish, or French. Since it's first in the list, hopefully that will clue them in to the fact that this is the 'home' language.

At the very least, it is superior to Babelfish's script, which does not have mouse-over text at all (at least in Explorer).

I could add 'Translate' below the flags, linking that to the full-blown Babelfish page, but that pushes the main nav down a bit further.

When all else fails, and they can't figure it out, mouse-over to the rescue!

Peter

When all else fails, and they can't figure it out, mouse-over to the rescue!
I think you'll find people will just leave rather than try and learn how to work your site. People are real lazy and attention span is very small (that's why no one reads my posts, to long and boring lol)

or you can use text and flags together with a quesiton asking what language they would like to view the content in, i've a few sites who have done that

Flags: If your in USA, use USA flag for English, French flag for French, Spanish flag for Spanish ...

If your in England, Use the Union Jack (English flag) for English.

I'm in Canada.

These tools are extras, not necessities. If there was something they had to figure out to get to the main page, or find another page, I agree that they would leave. Most of us don't know how to use every feature in Word and Excel, but we're still happy to use them.

Some people are quick on the uptake and like convenience, or there wouldn't be drive-through liquor and lingerie (yes, they have one in Vancouver) stores!

Peter