The idea that short documents are the rule is a matter of taste and the
intended audience. Short docs are good if you are trying to capture a new
audience and "wow" them. However, once people are in the site (i.e. past the
front page) they have shown an interest and will now accept longer docs. If
you are serving mainly to a captive audience (like students or fellow
interested researchers, etc.) then long docs are no problem, right? If a
research paper is on the web, you want the whole thing. I actually don't
like it when authors take a technical paper and break it into 20 short sections.To much clicking and too many request being sent out.
The flip side is that long initial documents can take a long time to transfer.
This is particularly acute when communicating across the atlantic.
>2) I am also interested in how to put files on the web for downloading
>that would include binary files. We use the corn server as our server
>and, according to John MacAnally, they have not until now allowed other
>people to use it as an FTP site--ofcourse they have their own ftp site
>(Nirvana). He suggests that we just put the binary documents out there
>with other files and that when visitors try to view them, they will get a
>message that the browser can't read them and ask if they want to download
>them. (I am also interested in other people's experiences with using the
>web as a means of receiving and sending binary files such as student
>papers, etc. How has it worked? What is the best way to do it?)
The web server can transmit ANY kind of file. There is no need for ftp.
MacAnally is correct in his statement, but why just transfer it as flat binary.
The binary file is probably to be used in some application, so attach the
proper MIME type to the binary file, so that when it is sent over, the client
will read the MIME, launch the appropriate application and feed the file in as
input. We have been doing this for two years and its great.
Steve
Steven Bachrach
Department of Chemistry
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, Il 60115 Phone: (815)753-6863
smb@smb.chem.niu.edu Fax: (815)753-4802