Jan 18th 2008
The Generals
![The site uses a [hopefully] obvious newspaper-style layout.](projects/the_generals-02092008-184759/ymzcjwthe-generals-layout.jpg "Click to Expand")
Abstract
This site is a collaborative effort between my friend and I. The concept and content, as well as some source artwork was provided by my friend while the HTML and CSS layout, in addition to some refining of the interface artwork was crafted by yours truly.
Unique Aspects
Most of us web designers are still quite bothered and peeved about Internet Explorer 6 and it's halfway support for 32 bit PNG images. The layout of this site called for its newspaper elements to cast a slight drop shadow on the coffee table below it. This required the use of Transparent PNG images to create the rough edges of the newspaper and the drop shadow too. While there are a few hacks to make Internet Explorer 6 display a PNG's transparency properly, they don't work when it comes to repeating background images, and thus I resorted to a technique outlined on Newt Edge.
Graceful? I think so...
This may not seem like a big deal to the end user and to be honest, it shouldn't. But for a web designer who is concerned about how his page will display on older browsers and operating systems, settling for less in terms of design can be a real pain. I prefer the idea that a site's design should gracefully degrade when being viewed on an older system.
In the end, I was not able to use full blown 32 bit PNG images in my design, but I was able to use an 8 bit PNG image with alpha transparency in which any partially transparent pixels become fully transparent in Internet Explorer 6. Click the images with the browser icons for an idea of how this looks in the respective browsers.