Brett's Blog New Preview System Dec 01, 2009 | 5:13 am Some of you might have noticed the new flash preview system on the site, particularly when you checked out news for Treasure Awaits! and A Fistfull of Miniatures 2E. This is based on the same system that powers the web-enabled titles -- that is, those that can be read directly within your browser online via the Adobe Flash plugin. It's the next best thing to PDFs, allowing you to zoom in and scroll through the pages just like the original PDFs. This has got to have been one of the most frustrating things I've ever coded next to Customizable Disposable Heroes. Internet Explorer is the culprit. It never adheres to the same HTML/CSS standards that other browsers do. Just when I get it working for Safari and make a slight tweak for Firefox, I need to redo half the code just to get it to work in Internet Explorer. What's up with that? Even Opera plays nicely for the most part. You wouldn't think that basic HTML/Javascript coding would require a lot of RAM, but I need all 4GB on my Mac. I generally use a nice and small html editor called Taco along with Transmit for simple FTP transfer. Then I've got both Safari and Firefox open for inspection, along with Windows Vista and XP running within VMWare Fusion for Opera and various versions of Internet Explorer. I also sometimes need Photoshop, so that's another huge program open. I remember the good old days of web coding when everything was simple and CSS was in its infancy. Now, everything is so bloated with javascripts and slow-loading flash animations, two things that really turn me off web-browsing. Still, flash has its uses when handled responsibily, as in the case of the preview pages. P.S. If you see any bugs with the previews, let me know. You never know with bugs. They always crop up when you least expect them. 2 Comments | Add Comment | Permanent Link | Return to Overview paraplegic racehorse Commented: Dec 03, 2009 | 1:43 am Wouldn't it have just been easier to use a service like Scribd? It's got a lot of useful features for e-publishers. Since you have your own store, I would use it just for previews. Of course, now that you've done all that hard work with the coding of your own system... why bother? :) edit: Oh, and, uh. Secret web-developer weapon (tool) for previewing a page in scads of browsers all at once: http://browsershots.org Brett Commented: Dec 03, 2009 | 2:00 am Scribd has its uses, but this is not one of them. Incidentally, you can actually order some Precis Intermedia PDFs at Scribd. browsershots does not work on this site. I block bandwidth-stealing bots and it somehow got included. Add Comment