• The new B5TV.COM is here. We've replaced our 16 year old software with flashy new XenForo install. Registration is open again. Password resets will work again. More info here.

New B5 Ship Page

T

Triple F

Regular
I was starting to think that active B5 forums didn’t exist on the net anymore, now I’ve found 2. I have a question/favour to ask.

As an exercise in becoming familiar with a few bits of software, and since I am a fan of the show, I have recently compiled a list of B5 canon ships. Managed to get/build 101 of them. Animated them and have them hosted on someone else’s site.

You’ll need to be running Internet Explorer 5.5 and above to view it, have Flash installed, and a Broad Band connection would be more than slightly useful.

http://www.themadgoner.com/TMG/Sci_Fi/SciPages/Babylon5/Ships_Page/Mark4_Build.htm


The stats I’ve used are pretty rough, I was going for pretty rather than accurate, but if anyone has any suggestions or comments about the site I’d be glad for the input. Also I think it is the biggest listing of CANON ships on the net (Celestia for instance has more with the concept art), so if anyone else knows otherwise, please let me know.


Cheers.
 
Incredibably cool looking :D

Caught a couple of spelling mistakes. 'Thirdspace', 'Earthforce', 'castes' are the ones I saw.
 
Arrggghhhh Nuts. I was tring to watch out for them as well, but going by what you said it sounds like it at least loaded and ran OK.
 
Nice, apart from the IE only bit. Cool flash!

(i'm just jealous as the website i'm working on HAS to be multi browser compatable and I'm just sick of the whole web standards thing....)
 
I hear you on that one.

It was one of the biggest problems I had with the thing. Until I finally decided it was getting beyond a joke. Limiting the script languages is fair enough, but some of the syntax differences can only be down to sheer bloody mindlessness by the writers. And I wasn’t going to be repeating huge amounts of codes. I mean a few of them are not even backward compatible, so you would have to write 3 sets of code for 3 versions of Netscape for instance – no way.
 
Still, you should make it compatible with at least Firefox. That one's pretty prevalent. My machine doesn't use IE, so I can't view it. And I do SO want to see it. I might be able to help get it running, though my web programming skills are rusty.
 
Fire Fox is pretty prevalent, mind you so is Netscape and a few others. The big problem with Fire Fox (as well as all those annoying syntax differences that require a hell of duplicate code and if’s) is that it does not support VBScript or ActiveX. Which does cause people who use it a few problems, as I’m sure you know better than me. And I use VBScript quite a bit.

If/when I add all the ships from Crusade, etc, I’ll try simplifying the code and that should increase the number who can see it. Basically, the various browser “standards” starting annoying me so I decided to make life simple (for me) as I had limited time.
 
If its a personal project and you warn people, thats fair enough. There are plenty of coporate websites that are IE only, even some UK government ones still!!!

This is the problem if you go down the Micrsoft route, you get locked into their technology set. VBScript is great but limited for this reason...

If it works ok in current versions of Opera, Firefox and IE then its good enough for me, and anyone who cannot run a desktop in 1024x768 should buy a new computer.....

I find getting CSS to work in all three in lots of resolutions with fully resizable text and ordered source a real headache, but there we go...
 
I started using Cascading Style Sheets, then backed slowly away from it smiling.

For me, for a quick project, the usage of HTML the various scripting languages, CSS, and the various browser “Quirks” seemed way too much like hard work. The final straw was reading that netscape (in some instances) was not even backward compatible so decided that if they couldn’t be bothered to put the effort into it then neither was I.

The development of browsers (languages), feels a bit like a university project where everyone is running off and writing great bits of code and not really paying attention to what is already there or what the others are working on. The resulting number of VERY different ways you can achieve something, may be viewed by some as flexible and adaptable, but in reality (based on my experience) just makes things unnecessarily complicated to the point where half the code is a bunch of nested IF’s repeating the same code with a few words re-arranged.

I realise that running the thing under an interpreter makes it easier for the local butcher to put a text page up (nothing against butchers), but compiling the thing would make it quicker, smaller and a wee bit harder to muck around with and may even help put the breaks (in theory) on these run away “Standards” as well.


[edit]
Oops, didn't mean to sound like a rant
 
No, no, your rant is well-taken. It just annoys me how some think that everybody uses the same thing, when many don't. I've used Mandrake Linux for the past couple of years now, and always hated when these things popped up.

When I did my web programming (I do mostly Java programming these days, with some C++), I did straight up HTML. No fancy editors and such. A friend of mine did a site a few months back, and I did some testing on it, and it too only worked in IE. Problem was, I believe, he used Front Page, most likely sticking in all those non-standard tags, attributes, and such. That's why I like to stick with the simple stuff, the basics, and build from there. We got to get off the backs of Microsoft before we can make progress.

Now THAT was a rant. :)

Oh, and I did catch a looky at them on my other computer today. Those looked VERY nice. Very nice. I couldn't really tell the difference between those and the show's.
 
Looking back on it know, I jumped into writing the page on the first method I came across, without really looking or understanding the pro’s & con’s, that’s why the code is a mixture of Java VB and html. Later I tried to understand the differences and see how it all tied in together, but found it increasingly frustrating (relatively new to net) trying to wade through the mountain of information you would get by doing searchest. Time was a factor so……………

As I said, next time I’ll pay more attention to the actual web page.

[edit]
As you say, there is an element who appear to find it difficult to understand that not everyone is running a Dell system with windows XP. (thank God). I keep seeing it on the game forum I normally frequent, and I suppose it’s only to be expected that it stretches across the net as a whole.
 
Until most people wise up, I don't think it's going to get better anytime soon. There are many people who are ignorant out there.
 
The lack of co-ordination is a big concern, and I think that CSS with the added complication is far to complex a tool for anyone to be able to walk along and design a nice webpage... somthing that by now we were all supposed to be doing, oh well...

That said, as a Mac user, i hate it when things break in Mozilla, and don't get me started on how IE inteprets CSS margins...
 
Been a while but I’m getting round to updating the site. It will now contain every ship seen in B5, Crusade and all the films, as well as a few “nice” extra bits plus even better graphics. And now that I’m an expert :LOL: in designing web pages, it will/should be viewable by all the major browsers when finished.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

No members online now.
Total: 50 (members: 0, guests: 50)

Share this page

Back
Top