Cascading Style Sheets or CSS provide a great way to reduce the
bandwidth of your images. IMS Web Engine, Web Spinner and
Web Dwarf, use CSS to position and scale Objects on your page.
CSS can also be used to design your web pages using the smallest
graphic files possible while maintaining its look and feel.
When a new Image is imported, it will be displayed at its true
resolution at the center of the screen. Scaling and positioning it is
simply the process of using your mouse to drag, drop and stretch the
corners to any desired location and size.
In many instances, you can scale a small image significantly larger
before the degradation in quality becomes significantly noticeable. Is18fig6 illustrates the
same GIF file at 1, 1.25, 1.5 and 2 times its actual resolution. Only
at 2X size does the pixelation become significantly apparent and
even then, it may be quite acceptable on many sites.
Many of you know that you can nudge an Object into position by
using the keyboard arrows. Do you know that you can also scale an
Object on the X or Y axis by holding the Shift key while also
tapping the arrow keys?
Both IMS Web Spinner and IMS Web Engine also include Position
and Scale Dialogs in the Object Editor. These dialogs allow you to
enter the position and scale of the selected Object as numeric
values. The Scale Dialog is especially useful if you wish to
precisely set the scaling factors on the X and Y axes. Check the
'Maintain Aspect Ratio' box to ensure that the Object is scaled
equally on both X and Y.
All three IMS Products include a tutorial that is intended to help you
understand the use of the drag and drop editor. These tutorials
provide several simple GIF elements that you can position and scale
to construct the basics of the Virtual Mechanics Web Site. The
original elements can be viewed at is18fig7. The basic web page
using the same elements at the same bandwidth demand can be
viewed at is18fig8.
"IMS Web Tips" is a weekly news letter for all web site managers regardless of experience who are looking for detailed information on
creating, maintaining and promoting their web sites.
