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Frequently Asked Questions

Not what you're looking for. Read over our general introduction, the Reader's Guide, for a short explanation of our site.

Why is there a little rectangle below the heading on each page?

You don't have Javascript.

OK, so you deserve a little more than that. The rectangle is a text field. We style the text field and use it as a visual container. Then our Javascript creates a clock and dumps the text of the clock into the text field. No Javascript? Nothing to go into the field and so it just sits there. At some point we may play with correcting this. But none of our programmers has much experience here. Our primary goal has been to ensure Javascript accessibility on the progressive enhancement model. Making a text box in Javascript in such a way that the clock is inaccessible, is something we've literally been programming against, so that may take some work. However, we do find it fitting that the first question on the FAQ of Earth Chronicle 1.0 was about our clock, and once again on Earth Chronicle 2.0 that's how we're starting. Obviously, we'll have to design a revamped clock that needs explaining for Earth Chronicle 3.0! :)

We've now corrected this problem. We abolished the text field altogether. Instead of the text field, we simply wrote a div into it's place. It has a short text blurb -- one of our easter eggs. Our Javascript replaces the text with our clock. If your computer is fast enough, you never see the text blurb. If you have Javascript disabled, you never see anything else.

Why do you follow web standards-based design principles? What are you a hippy? Customize your code for every different browser on the planet, like a real code jockey.

Thanks, but we'll pass on the honor of writing up 50 different versions of the webpage, styles sheets, Javascript, etc. Plus, every time a new browser comes out (and Firefox is updated with extreme regularity), you have new style sheets you have to do for every page. If you're serious about taking this approach. That's what generated the web standards movement, and on those points they are absolutely correct.

Designing for specific browsers is more work than standards based design. I'm sure it doesn't seem like that when you're trying to get a design out the door, probably with an angry client breathing down your neck. But you have it get it working in each browser somehow. If you have incompatibility issues, its always because you're using a poorly supported technology. Abandon it. There are always... ok *Almost* always an alternative. CSS and Javascript give you too many ways to skin a cat to settle for something that doesn't work. Our approach to standards-based design can pretty much be summed up as, "Do it right the first time."

Standards based! What do you mean standards based?!? I just tested a webpage on the W3C validator and it FAILED! You're not Standards Based!

*sigh* Can't we get along in peace? Further proof that the middle is the worst place to be in a religious war. Well... We believe what we are doing IS in fact standards based design. However, for practical reasons, W3C validation is not a requirement before we post our pages. The short answer is, the W3C has been revealed to be a bit of a sham.

No browser renders webpages as dictated by the W3C, and they have been absolutely powerless so far in their efforts to enforce standards based rendering. No, not even Firefox. And while Firefox does seem to accept W3C as the basis for standards -- at least they seem to try to render webpages designed on "pure" web standards accurately, Microsoft does not. This leads to some highly embarrassing results. CSS Zen Garden, for example is a hot bed of web standards based design and one of my favorite and most inspirational design sites on the web. However, they post examples of work that I may have to switch over and view in Firefox because they completely fail in Internet Explorer.

While we like to stick closely to web standards as dictated by the W3C, we do so because it makes for good coding and best practices. We do so because it is practical and makes for good webpages that will likely render better through the unknown future of web technology changes. We are not posting webpages to garner W3C awards. We're posting them for our visitors. 99% of them don't even know what web standards are, much less care about them. Standards are a means to the end of user-friendly, flexible, powerful webpages that create a fun, interesting, and useful website. And if standards get in the way of that, then it's no contest which is more important.

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