Depreciated Web Techniques

Acceptable in the '90's?

Cast your mind back to 1996. In a galaxy far far away when 56k dial-up was blisteringly fast, the internet was dubbed the World Wide Wait. It was de rigeur for flashing graphics and spinning email icons to be seen on websites of that era. Menus that could be done with CSS today used Java and JavaScript, text was formatted using <FONT> tags, and there was this great revelation in web coding known as the frameset.

How much of the World Wide Wait could have been attributed to (now obsolescent) coding techniques? A lot of code was taken up by font tags, breaking/non-breaking spaces and tables. Heaven knows why it used to take minutes to load the more modest of pages; some budding coder probably used animated GIFs and Java menus!


1. Java menus
Java (not to be confused with JavaScript) was a proprietary technology developed by Sun Microsystems in 1995 which became an open source technology 11 years later. A bastard offspring of this is the Java Applet menu.

The Java Applet menu was quite a common factor of websites designed using Microsoft Frontpage. Though they worked well on Internet Explorer as a form of navigation, this was less so on anything other. With search engines, Java Applet menus were less navigable than standard HTML hyperlinks. It also posed problems for persons who disallowed Java from their web browsers as the site would be unnavigable.

When to use Java: embedded computer games and 360° views would constitute Java's rightful purpose. This usage is being depreciated by Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight technologies.

When not to use Java: as part of a navigation menu. Always use standard HTML to create your links.


2. Non-breaking spaces/breaking spaces and Break
Before CSS was used for formatting and presentational mark-up, the crudest way to add spaces was by adding a non-breaking space (seen as nbsp prefaced by '&' and suffixed by a ';'). The source code would look messy with several of these used to position the text.

Though effective yet obsolete, the <br> is commonly used by web designers to place text on a new line.

When to use Non-breaking spaces/breaking spaces and Break: older websites built up to the HTML 4.01 Transitional Document Type Definition or earlier; CSS support may be patchy.

When not to use Non-breaking spaces/breaking spaces and Break: any site from HTML 4.01 and later. Use CSS coding techniques to define margins and padding.


3. Framesets
Launched in 1996 by Netscape, the frameset was created to allow for a consistent layout throughout each website, by splitting the browser window into a given number of sections.

The downside with frameset created websites are: the use of typically three or more pages to create the framework of the site; being lost on inner pages without navigation; and, reduced opportunities for search engine directories to index your site thoroughly.

When to use framesets: user interface design; control panels for internal use.

When not to use framesets: any newly built website; frameset effects can also be mimicked using CSS positioning techniques and scrolling <div> tags. Framesets (apart from iframes) will cease to be supported by the HTML 5 document type definition.


4. <FONT> tags
Till recent years, <FONT> tags was a common part of presentational mark-up in web design. A typical tag would read in the source code: <FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="3" COLOR="#FF0000">I'm an obsolescent chunk of HTML coding</FONT>.

This would be used in addition to, or in place of text within <p>, <h1>, or <pre> tags. Result: a long chunk of code for the smallest of words or most modest of sentences.

When to use <FONT> tags: older pre-HTML 4.01 websites.
When not to use <FONT> tags: any modern website post HTML 4.01. CSS coding can do the same in a more truncated form with skillful use of classes, especially so if the CSS code is sourced to your page as an external file.


5. Transparent GIFs for positioning
Along with the non-breaking space and break commands, transparent GIFs were another technique used for positioning website content.

When to use transparent GIFs: older pre-HTML 4.01 websites where CSS positioning isn't supported.
When not to use transparent GIFs: on any website. CSS margin and padding commands are a better less memory hogging replacement.


6. Using tables for formatting
Up until recent times, web designers would create their website using tables to format each page. This process is unwieldy in terms of the amount of code each table creates. A simple table would require this amount of coding seen below:

<table width="346" bgcolor="#666666">
<tr>
<td>
<p>I'm a little table - and quite heavy on the code</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Compare the previous example with this one:

<div id="box">
<p>I'm a little DIV - and quite light on my feet!</p>
</div>

Spot the difference. The latter would use externalised CSS code to govern the positioning.

When to use tables: solely for displaying tabular data. Even in the pre-Internet Explorer age, they were never designed for formatting whole pages (some people never listen) - and never should be used for that purpose.
When not to use tables: for formatting whole pages. This method is eschewed in favour of using CSS to create containers, complete with margin, padding, textual formatting and so forth.


7. 'Best viewed in...' notices
Before 1997, one web browser ruled the roost: Netscape Navigator. Two years later, a Redmond based company hit upon the idea of bundling its web browser [Internet Explorer] with a new operating system [Windows 98]. The result saw Netscape heading toward cyberobscurity and Internet Explorer being seen as the de facto standard among some web developers. For a time, accessibility and cross-browser compatibility took a back seat.

Around that time came "Best viewed in..." notices, which would typically read "Best viewed in Internet Explorer" or "Best viewed in 800x600 pixels". This now archaic approach was based on the assumption the site was only suited to one browser and/or screen resolution. Though cross-browser compatibility has become legion with such notices banished from contemporary websites, there are still websites to this day which stubbornly refuse to work in Firefox, Opera, Chrome or Safari.

When to use the 'Best Viewed in...' notice: never.
When not to use the 'Best Viewed in...' notice: never. All new sites should be coded to allow for cross-browser compatibility and ideally use CSS fluid positioning/elastic design.


S.V., 25 November 2009.