Technical Notes & Design Improvements.

Well techies, consider this version 2.0 of the Anime North Feature site for 2002. The 2001 Feature site used flash for the navigation and wasn't too complex. Javascript wasn't even used in the 2001 feature. Though, I wasn't too favoured with the design. Basically I took a shape and went with it. Last year it was leaves. This year, we're seeing stars or at least I am when I'm not looking at the monitor.
In 2002, things have changed. Big time. I hand coded everything in XHTML 1.0. And I do mean everything using notepad and a little help from a web editor for generating the image height and width properties. Also, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) was used for the fonts and Javascript was used for the navigation bar, countdown and firing the video player engine. All of the pages except the video engine and the Anime North 2002 Staff Credits are validated for XHTML 1.0 Transitional by W3C. Thus, any browser that fully supports XHTML 1.0 should be able to view the page without any problems.

Another big change is the additions of the Video Player engine where users can easily switch between streams or download without having to open up an external player. Also, using the engine, it generates the description, visual interface and additional stuff like hot links to other sites. For example is a clip by that refers directly to Anime North was shown a link to Anime North would be on the player. Improvements to the engine will include tracking links and stuff like that. This is one of the components that will be used in making Version 3.0 of the K-Max Media site which will likely begin designs next summer.

Known Bugs and Display Issues.

Problem: Netscape 4.x doesn't display the pages correctly.

Well, when I redid the whole site in XHTML, I also did all of the font, colors and so on in CSS. Netscape 4.x browsers has little support for CSS unfortunately since back then CSS was only beginning to emerge. Even the new Javascript attributes were done with XHTML in mind so that they were verified as XHTML transitional by the W3C validator. I would strive to support Netscape 4, but unfortunately I'm tied up with too much work. Sorry folks.

Solution: Upgrade to Netscape 7.x, if your computer isn't fast enough, try Opera.

Problem: My images aren't caching properly in Netscape 6.x. (Ie. Continuously loading)

This is a browser bug as far as I know. Even the table backgrounds aren't displaying fully. But it was fixed in the newer version.

Solution: Upgrade to Netscape 7.x.

Problem: Countdown Timer doesn't work in Opera 6.0x

The Javascript code works and is coded properly. The countdown works in all other browsers except Opera for some weird reason. I would guess this is a parsing bug with the browser. This bug has been fixed in the new version of the browser.

Solution: Upgrade to Opera 7.01 or higher

Problem: Video Engine: Can't scan through the video clips while I'm streaming them.

Until the file stream is downloaded completely, the Windows Media Player object will not allow you to scroll through the movie. If you are using a browser other than Internet Explorer, even after the movie is downloaded, you still can't scroll. Well, I have bad news for people who aren't using IE. Because of the limitation of the object control, you can't scroll period. (not unless I get a Windows Media Server which I can't.) But I have fixed this bug for IE users. IE uses Active X for plugins while the other browsers do not.

Solution: Wait until the file stream is downloaded completely before trying to scroll through the clip. You must use IE 5.0 or higher if you want to scroll through clips. If it's too much not to scroll or if you don't want IE, download the clip and play it locally.