| Year 5 You're probably wondering what happened to year 4. Well, last year I didn't update this webpage at all. I'm guessing that its possible I'll be too busy to update this webpage again, so you may be seeing "year 7" being the next edition. In any case, this is the 4th major iteration of my "Rune Edge Games" website. In every major iteration, I upgrade in some significant way. In my second version, I hand coded a webpage for the first time. In my third, I made all the graphics from scratch. In this fourth iteration, I'm proud to say there are several adaptations I've made to the site. First, we made the site without using regular frames. For whatever reason, it seems most people don't like frames, so instead I put the body in an "iframe." This is a frame that is embedded in a page, allowing for the user to never have to leave the main page, which is one of my main goals. It also allowed me to design the unique "changable interface" design. On this web page, I also decided to use the XHTML standards as defined by theWorld Wide Web Consortium. I wanted to use "strict" XHTML, but iframes are not allowed so I've had to settle with "transitional." Also, I may not conform to all of the rules because I haven't had time to recheck any of my work. We'll see if I can get XHTML Transitional Validated. Perhaps the biggest change I've made, and easily the most controversial is from using JPG to PNG. PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics and after reading the information on their site I decided to make the switch. There are several advantages to using PNG over JPG, but I found the greatest to be that PNGs allow for alpha channels, meaning transparent and semi-transparent objects are possible. It didn't take me long to realize what I could do with this, and so I eagerly made the switch. Unfortunately, I did all of my priliminary testing in Firefox and it wasn't until I was half finished that I realized PNGs were not fully supported in Internet Explorer. If you're using or have used Internet Explorer then you must have noticed how ugly this site looks. There is no reason why not to get Firefox, and this site looks great in it, so if you haven't gotten it yet, consider it. In any case, Firefox is essential if you are a web developer. It has a plethora of tools at your disposal for editing and viewing the layout and code of webpages. On a smaller note, I've finally dropped the "games" aspect as I believe my website has no connections with video games anymore. However, in the "about" section you can find my foyer into game production. It wasn't anything spectacular, I assure you. When I was developing this 4th edition, I actually went through about 6 designs before I developed this one. The first few came straight from my head and, while good, lacked functionality. After reading about XHTML and PNG, I began developing this site and decided I wanted something modular. Unfortunately, I don't think XHTML is very modular, but by using iframes, and lots of alpha blending, I was able to create a site that simulates modularity. Also, my independent graphics creation skills have reached a new peak. You'll notice the new 'signiture' Rune Edge logo, as now seen in the background. I think this is one of my most realistic creations yet, and I hope you enjoy it. I've also included several photos that I've taken which can be used as backgrounds for the site. And in any case, I hope you enjoy the site, please let me know what you think. Thanks. |
