This website represents about 5 months of dedicated web-design and in my opinion provides
a benchmark of my web design abilities at their pinnacle. It was originally 100% hand coded
using GoldED (with no plugins!) on AmigaOS 3.5. The JavaScript to make the page scroll was
created using AWeb & GoldED to ensure 100% compatibility on the Amiga. Then all of the images
were created individually on Ppaint, TVPaint, ImageFX and Candy Factory.
The whole site was set up to run and perfectly worked on my Amiga with Aweb - it was beautiful.
However, testing on a PC (which is basically 99.999% of the target audience) I realised that
it wasn`t quite so beautiful. So over about a month I almost had to 'port' the HTML / JavaScript
to perform in the same way it did on the Amiga. As a result, the smooth horizontal scrolling routines were changed into jerky but functional horizontal scrolling on a PC. Even now Aweb on my 060 scrolls the page perfectly compared to my 350Mhz Windows box - but compatiblity was the main issue.
To top the lot and make it even more impressive (but alas even more Amiga uncompatible) I added
a 'water ripple' effect Applet (which I didn't code - see www.durius.com) which basically added
a final touch of finesse to make basically in my humble opinion (and when viewed at 1024*768 with a Pentium 3) the finest website I have ever seen.
2 things - Im saying my own website is the finest I`ve ever seen?? Yes I am. Second thing - I`m
saying that a website requires a Pentium 3!???!?!.. Well no, my entire website philosophy is that all my sites work on an Amiga (ie, the lowest specced browsing machine effectively). But
this one had to be different, and indeed would run fine on my Amiga was it not for the Applet.
A Pentium is only required to force IE/NS`s slow JavaScript interpretter along.
So, ironically despite its Amiga roots, this site will only function properly on a high specced,
PC with a modern browser. But I still wanted to submit it to Amiga Active because I wanted the
Amiga community to see what I`m using my Amiga for these days - powering high powered PC specific websites.
I suppose in the days of DreamWeaver, Flash and all that modern PC cr@p its good to know that
something created entirely by hand on an Amiga will still be regarded as a top end site. Although only about 1% of the universe will understand these days what is meant by 'handwritten' and 'Amiga'.
Hoo Hum - its hard being an Amiga user, knowing that no-one understands 'proper' computing
apart from the hardcore band of Amiga users left.
Gaz Murfin
PS. After all that I now understand Amiga's slogan - So the world may know.
