DR. WEBSITE

Alternative Text Support for Non-Java Browsers

Dear Dr. Website®: I am constructing a page that uses a table filled with Java applets as menu controls. The <APPLET> tag allows the specification of an ALT text, but it is only interpreted if the browser being used understands the <APPLET> tag. How can I provide alternative text support for non-Java-enabled browsers?

Tim Armold You just need to supply additional HTML content inside an <APPLET> tag to let users with non-Java-enabled browsers know what they are missing. To do so, you can include some explanatory text or other information after an opening <APPLET> tag and before the closing </APPLET> tag.

Browsers that can't detect and handle Java will ignore the <APPLET> tags--and any accompanying <PARAM> tags--and display instead the other HTML content you've supplied. It's a good idea to do this out of consideration for users whose browsers aren't Java-enabled.

Don't let the existence of an ALT attribute in the <APPLET> tag fool you--as you discovered, it doesn't serve the purpose you might think it would. Putting an ALT attribute in an <APPLET> tag will display text to browsers that understand the <APPLET> tag but can't run Java applets--for example, if users turn off Java in their Java-enabled browsers--but will fail to display anything to users whose browsers don't support Java at all.

Here's an example of what the HTML code for your applet might look like:

<applet code=Clock height=350 width=200>
<p>
<i>If you can see this message, your Web browser does not support Java. There is a Java
applet on this page named Clock, displaying the time and date continuously, that you are
not seeing.</i>
<p>
</applet>

Visitors whose browsers are not Java-enabled will see just the descriptive text ("If you can see this messageÉ") displayed in italics.

Two online resources that provide a wealth of information about how to program Java applets and applications are the Java Programmers FAQ and the Java Woman site, which is a categorized collection of links to Java information and resources.

More Streaming Video

Dear Dr. Website®: I read your response to the question about getting RealAudio content from another provider ["Creating Sites for RealAudio Files Without RealAudio Server," April 14, page 27]. We are in a similar position and don't have the capability to stream VDOLive video files. Is it the same procedure? Are there companies that can host our video content while at the same time another company continues to host our clients' Web sites?

Daniel Aharonoff
infoLink Communications

VDOnet Corp., the maker of VDOLive, lists on its site a number of affiliated partners that offer services that can help you bring VDOLive content to your Web site. These VDOnet Corp. Partner Services range from actually capturing and digitizing your video to hosting compressed video files on your server that you can link to from your site.

First, let me back up to describe how VDOLive works: It's a format for playing back real- time digital video over the Web, compressing video images without compromising the quality of the files displayed to users.

VDOLive consists of three components: the VDOLive Video Server for providing bandwidth compression and video delivery; the VDOLive Video Tools for capturing, encoding, and compressing your digital video files into the proprietary VDOLive format; and the VDOLive Video Player, a plug-in or ActiveX control for playback.

The speed of the end user's connection determines the frame delivery rate. For users with 28.8-Kbps modems, VDOLive runs in real time at 10 to 15 frames per second.

You would use the VDOLive Tools to create the video clip, a file captured and compressed to VDOLive format, stored on the Video Server, and named with an .avi extension. You'll also need to create a pointer file--saved with a .vdo extension--containing a single line of code citing the URL of the video clip.

In your Web page, you'll just need to make a reference to the video clip so that visitors can access it with either the VDOLive plug-in or ActiveX control. The company's Using VDOLive Clips in a Web Page page includes step-by-step details for doing this.

You might also want to investigate and download the VDOLive Personal Server at this site, which is designed to let individuals provide two simultaneous video streams of up to one minute in length.

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Reprinted from Web Week, Volume 3, Issue 13, May 5, 1997 © internet.com Corporation All rights reserved. Keywords: site_management video Date: 19970505