From: see_URL_in.sig@end.to_mail_to.us (R L Samuell)
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art,alt.ascii-art.animation
Subject: browser status-bars - a new venue for ASCII animations
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 02:04:51 GMT
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In the past, a few monolinear or single-line ASCII animations have been
created.  The files 'snail.vt' and 'arrow.vt' are examples.

While good program-generated animations are  rather difficult to create
for a full-screen venue, they are much more easily done for single-line
environments for someone with a little programming skill.

JavaScript has been used to render ASCII animations in the textareas of
browser windows. But it can also  be used to generate  ASCII animations 
which appear in the status bar of a browser.

These status-bar animations can be a rather attractive  way to dress up
an otherwise plain-text displayed page.

Awhile back, I  thought  it might be interesting to  develop a one-line
program in perl (: a past-time of  some perl  devotees :) that when run
would generate a one-line  animation.  When I ported this animation  to
JavaScript, it became my first single-line status-bar animation which I
called  'Ytornado'.   It  is pretty  simple but still demonstrates  the
concept.

In   1994,  I   created  the   ASCII  Aquarium--   the  most   complex,
program-generated  ASCII  animation  I   have  done  so  far.   I  have
down-sized this idea to create my  second  single-line animation  of  a
three-fish ASCII Aquarium neatly  contained on the  single line of  the
status-bar of a browser.

To view and read more about these two animations, please link to:

 http://samuell.lex.bluegrass.net/Software/Ytornado.shtml

 http://samuell.lex.bluegrass.net/Software/Aquarium.shtml

The server at this site is VERY *S* *L* *O* *W*, so please be patient.

Also note that some browser implementations of  JavaScript are buggy so
these  animations may not  work as intended  or  at all in  your  case.
Sorry.

Regards,



R L Samuell
--
       Web: http://samuell.lex.bluegrass.net/
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   ObQuote: "I am, therefore, I think." -rl3s
 Copyright: (c) 1999 R L Samuell, All Rights Reserved.