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SIS Web Page Development

Developing SIS-friendly web pages is easy: just make sure you do not rely solely on pictures to convey your information. Most other HTML codes are supported by SIS...even tables to some extent. If you use tables in your web pages, try to keep text in a column of cells roughly the same length, don't center text in a cell, and don't have more than five cells per line (although the SIS browser supports up to 10, wrapping will occur).

Naturally, as you develop web pages you should run them through SIS to make sure they look good. Just launch SIS, choose Open File from the File menu, then open your HTML source file.

Additional recommendations, as well as information on SIS-specific HTML tags, are below.


Graphics

In a future version of SIS it may be possible to download and view a particular image by double-clicking it. In order for the user to know what the picture is (so he can decide whether or not he wants to download it) it is important to include an appropriate "ALT" tag for every picture. For example:

<IMG SRC="logo.gif" ALT="XYZ's Company Logo">


The SIS browser recognizes the <HR> tag. It also checks for the WIDTH and HEIGHT parameters of any IMG tag. If those tags are supplied and they describe a wide, skinny image, then the SIS browser assumes the image is a fancy line, and simulates an <HR> tag of appropriate thickness.

You can use that knowledge to your advantage if you design web pages that you want to view nicely under SIS as well as other browsers: if you use fancy divider lines they will show up under other browsers, and SIS will still show a divider line rather than an image icon.


IIGS Sounds

The SIS browser supports a SIS-specific HTML tag to play a sound that exists on the user's IIGS. SIS will ask the IIGS Sound CDEV to play the specified sound whenever the user double-clicks the speaker icon in the browser display. If the Sound CDEV or the requested sound name is not present, no sound will play.

In this example the browser will attempt to play the sound named "Trumpets" when the sound icon is double-clicked:

<OBJECT sis-sound="Trumpets"></OBJECT>


Note: it is very important to include the </OBJECT> tag or some browsers will fail to display the page correctly.


Speech

The SIS browser supports a SIS-specific HTML tag to speak text on the user's IIGS. In order for the user to hear the speech (or to even see the speech icon in the browser window), Talking Tools from ByteWorks must be installed.

In this example the browser will say "they said this browser could not be done" when the speech icon is double-clicked:

<OBJECT sis-speech="They said this Brauwserr could not be done."></OBJECT>

The 'sis-speech' tag can have the following attributes:



The default without any corresponding attribute is:

<object sis-speech="String" gender="male" tone="bass" pitch="6" speed="6"></object>


Note: it is very important to include the </OBJECT> tag or some browsers will fail to display the page correctly.


Other SIS-Specific Tags

<GRIN> makes a happy face

</GRIN> makes a sad face

<SIS-ENHANCED> indicates your page has been enhanced for SIS


Copyright 2023 by Geoff Weiss. This site may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.