The How and Why
Well, maybe I should start with the why. These pages actually started as a way to learn how to create web pages. But I needed a theme. So, while sitting in front of my computer late(very late) one night with my dog resting his head on my knee....the thought came to me..."hey ! I'll use my dog as my theme!". That's how it started. At first, it was a very simple, no graphics, and just a few links. But I've expanded a lot since then. And I intend to add even more. Not only do I want to add more humor, but some serious stuff as well. Such as, local vet information (I'm in Illinois), dog training and resources. Any help you can offer is appreciated.
Now for the how......I've used a few different web page editors. Including "notepad". All of my web tools are Windows programs. I'll list the ones I use -
Editors:
Windows Notepad - for those minor changes
Microsoft FrontPage 98 - My new website is a "FrontPage" site. NO MORE AOL !! Yippee !
CodeWright text editor - When all else fails ! I use this.
Graphics Tools:
Connectix B&W QuickCam - used to create the biscuits and the dog picture below
Macromedia xRes 2.0 - used to crop and hand-color the B&W pictures
Asymetrix Web 3D - used to create the 3D logos and spinning dog head
Microsoft Image Composer - Very handy for creating animations with moving sprites
Microsoft GIF Animator - for assembling GIF frames into an animation
VideoCraft GIF Animator - has other animation effects, morph, dissolve, etc
ScanTak 24 bit flat bed scanner - for scanning the rest of the images and dog biscuits.
And now I've got a Win/TV video capture card. I plan on putting some AVIs and vid-caps here.
File Transfer Tools:
FTP Explorer - The best way to transfer files back and forth between my PC and other places.
Other Tools:
Microsoft Visual J++ - For creating Java applets. I haven't designed any good ones yet....but when I do they'll be here.
Ok, now that you've seen the tools I use...here's really the how.....
After coming up with the theme I had to start by laying out how the pages would be accessed. In other words...how one page would link to another, and how they would be displayed. Sounds simple ? Well it wasn't at first. Especially when I started to use frames. A lot of testing went on before I even put the pages up. Frames can be difficult. But, by studying other people's pages that used frames I was able figure it out. The trick is you should specify target frames. That's how my pages will display on the main browser window, but links to other pages will display in a new browser window.
Graphics, this was a lot of fun. I have a background in photography which gave me the idea to color or tint the gray scale pictures that I made with the QuickCam. Then I started experimenting with transparent GIFs and animations. It took a while to get the right techniques. But I eventually got it figured out by just trying. Animations are fun to create, but they sometimes take some time to make. For example....the spinning dog head. It started with the picture below. Then it had to be resized and outlined. After that I used Asymetrix Web 3D to create a 3D model. Then the outlined picture was mapped onto the surface of the 3 dimensional dog head. Now that I had the 3D dog head I used Asymetrix Web 3D create the spinning animation. The result was a collection of frames. Then I used Microsoft GIF Animator(which is free from Microsoft) to assemble the frames into an animated GIF.
The next thing I added was Java Scripts. They're used on the index page to fade the background from black to the normal background color. And Java Script is used for creating the clock and the cookies that count your visits here. Eventually I'll be adding more Java as I learn more about it.
Some of you have asked how the background images were made. Here's how I did it.... I made the "biscuit" background from scan of a real dog biscuit that I made on my scanner. Then I converted it to a grayscale image, this was done with the scanner software. Then I used Microsoft Image Composer to "tilt" the image and lighten it up a bit. Then I adjusted the size.... and there you have it ! The dog head backgrounds started from the image used for the animated dog head. Again Microsoft Image Composer was used to tilt, lighten and size it.
I also made the biscuit-buttons. They also started from the scanned biscuit that I used for the background. But, I added the color to them by hand. The rest of the steps were done Asymetrix Web 3D. That's where I added the text, lighting, and some shadows. If you're browsing the page with Netscape Navigator the button text will change color when you bring your mouse over them.
The MIDI music in these pages have been downloaded from the newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.midi. It's a great group if you're looking for MIDIs. A lot of the people who post there transpose the MIDIs themselves. And without them I wouldn't have most of the songs used here. Thanks Folks ! Also, I've got an AWE32 in my PC. Which makes MIDI songs sound fantastic ! But I check the songs using the synthesizer before I use them just to make sure that they'll sound alright for everyone.
And lastly....test test test. I make sure everything works as I expect. Including the links to other web sites, which I check on a regular basis. I even check to see how long it takes my page(s) to load. After all, I don't want anyone waiting forever for graphics to load.
Well, I hope that was informative. I am by no means a webmaster, but I'm workin' on it.
Last update 07/01/05
