Okay, here is my site; www.gobigblu.com

Small town High School sports and related school activities.
The site is mainly static photos, photo slide shows and videos of our high school sports teams games.

Since it is photo intensive I rely heavily on Coffee Cup (without which I would not be able to do it) software. I'm a self taught novice. I write strictly in code (no editor or WYSIWYG program) so my code is probably quite bulky. But I just do it for the fun of it and the students (and most of the townsfolk) like it a lot.
I have two digital cameras (a Fuji Fine Pix 2800 & a Sony DCS-H1) and a Sony Digital 8 Handy Cam Camcorder. And I rely mostly on CC's Video Player, Photo Gallery, Firestarter and Jukebox. I often use the jukebox skinless with the VP or Photo Gallery to keep from having the same song repeating over againg in a long slide show.

I also use three image editing programs and CC's pix converter to get the images the way I want and Ulead's video toolbox to combine still photos and video clips into one video file for use in VP (come on CC we need a program that can do that). All coments and constructive critisims welcomed. If youwant to talk personal assalaam5@hotmail.com (please indicate that you are a Coffee Cup person in your subject otherwise I'll probably just delete your mail).

Hmmmm, well let's try this one more time. I have been unable to find a way to convert text into graphics, so I went back through and changed all of my fonts to Arial, at least, if nothing else, it will be consistant.

I have noticed in trying to redo the fonts that what I am seeing on VSD's preview screen is not what I am getting when I see it on the web using firefox. I'm not sure what that is about, but right now it all displays properly and nothing is overlapped that isn't supposed to be. (at least for me anyway) Anyway, here is the site again: http://www.thepenpoint.com



Jake

Jake,
It has all slipped into place!!
To "turn text into graphics" basically means going into your favourite image program and actually make an image with the graphics as part of the image.
But certainly everything is working now.
Great. Are you happy with that? Try to avoid making compromises becasue otherwise you will always have that nagging at the back of the head........"I didn't want it to look quite like that!"
Sometimes we have to make some compromises because our knowledge just won't take us any further, but when that happens, there is nothing to stop you coming back some time in the future and do a few modifications based on the new lessons you have learned.
O.k.
If you are happy, maybe I can sort out the links over the next few days...
Well done!
Janys

Janys,
I know what you are talking about with the nagging thoughts, but the reality is that the goal is for someone to be able to get the message you are trying to convey, not force them to try and figure out what you have done.

I tried to work with the graphics program, and while I could get my text as a graphic, it carried a background with it. I was wanting to create the text without background, like you would have by printing on a transparency, so it would just kinda sit over the background on whatever page I had it on.

I am happy with the site the way it is, but I also think that it is something that you never really stop working on to some degree. Living, after all, is about learning.

If you would still like to link to my site, just let me know what you need from me, and I'll get it for you. And thanks for all of your help!

Jake

Jake,
Open up your image editing program, create a new file type what you want and save it as a "gif" file. When saving you should get an option to make a color transparent, (or you may have a menu or tool for this), make the background color transparent choose the "interlaced" option, optimize and save it. This way when you place it on your website you will not get the little "white box" background color that you would get if you save it as a jpeg. And it will not block out other images or text if you overlap. Only your type will show over other images.

Hi M,
The trouble still lies in the fact that until the new VSD comes out, apparently you can't use gifs. Soon to be changed, but have to hold on a little longer......
J
ps. sorted out your mail yet, M?

Okay, that's why I prefer to just write in code starting from a blank page.

I don't know if there is a problem or not, I haven't recieved anything from you at any of my addresses. I get mail from Adam, Coffee Cup and other people. I think the last mail I got from you was a reply to the "Slave Ship" Pictures. That came to my Yahoo account and I got the files you sent of the different fish in my Hotmail account but I haven't recieved anything from you in my outlook account. I don't know if you are recieving any mail from me, I know I sent you an example of some night scenes and I think I sent you some pictures of a baked fish with broccoli and potatoes, but I ddon't know if you got them.

My desktop is still in the shop (again), same problem as before. It hasn't been right since I removed the McAfee security suite.

Now (all of a sudden my Video Player files seem to be sticking (the ones made months ago that used to work fine). I was checking one on my site that someone said they liked and it kept hanging up so I checked another and it did the same thing.

www.softball.gobigblu.com if you get a chance could you check and see if they are playing smoothly for you?

There is one on the opening page, then at the bottom of the page there are links to variou games each has a video linked to it (radio button that says : "Movie:).
Thanks

The image editor I am using is The Gimp, and while it seems to be pretty good, it is somewhat deficient in help for those of us who are graphically challenged. The text tool doesn't let me select the font I want to use to create an image, and I can't import a doc file (or if I can, I don't see how). It's just another learning curve I'm sure, so I'll keep playing with it. A year ago, I was ready to throw up my hands because my pen pics were too dark to make out the subject, until I played with the program a while and finally got it cyphered out how to screen the image to lighten them up.

Onward and upward

Jake

Janys
Am I missing something? I have some gifs on my site, the paypal banner images are gifs, as are the small CoffeeCup links. I was having some problem getting the html links to work, so I just copied the image and added the links to paypal and coffeecup to the images themselves rather than copying the html and pasting it.

Jake

"Onward and Upward", that's the spirit. I had to sufer through much of the same situation (I'm completely self taught). I don't know the program Gimp so I can't be of any help there. What's your pocketbook like? Corel Draw is a graphics program that will let you do just about anything you want with text and then convert the text to curve and save it as an image file. Kind of expensive though. ACDSee-8 is a complete image management program that has excelent text editing capabilities including font type, color, size and special effects. It is available for about $50.00 From ACD Systems Inc. (I think I have one of their ads saved some where e-mail me at webmaster@gobigblu.com and I'll forward it to you). I purchased it about a month ago and I'm still finding ways to use it, very good program. There are some others that I could suggest but I don't want to tie up this thread with info on other companies (never know what CC may be planning on putting out next), since I am a die hard CC fan.