I chose to work the elements required in the Final Project assignment into a site that will ultimately be used as a real world internet link. I felt I might gain more understanding of using the multimedia choices if I worked on a more practical site instead of an imaginary place. The idea of creating another throw away site just was not appealing to me. Even though I created more work for myself and spent tremendous amounts of time researching and developing the material for the site, I feel as though I am gaining more experience then by just adding some elements to a page of text.
      All testing of elements was done using MicroSoft Internet Explorer 5 installed on a Compaq Presario, MicroSoft Internet Explorer 5 installed on a Mac Performa, and NetScape 4 installed on an IBM Desktop.
      The first element I added to the site was a scrolling marquee. The element seemed to work nicely to highlight information about immediate help available and includes a phone number. The element only scrolls twice specifically to first, gain the users attention and second, to allow the user to have uninterrupted access to the telephone number. It is supported by MSIE only. For Netscape users the text of the marquee still shows on the webpage as a static image.
      My next element, a javascript applet from a free library, is a pop up window that asks the user about bookmarking the site. The applet will not be used by a user's machine for 14 days after the initial contact. The applet was written by the author to be used by both MSIE and Netscape. Integrating into my webpage was just a matter of cut and pasting.
      The animated gif was a little more difficult. I was not able to find one in one of the many libraries online so I decided to try my hand at making one. I used a gif picture from a free library and made text from the Fireworks program we used in our last class. Once I had the two seperate gifs created, I used an animation program called GIF Construction Set (a trial version) and created the animated gif. The only real problem I had was the timing for the switch of the text areas. Once that was worked out it took a basic tag to put the animated gif on my page. It is supported by MSIE and Netscape.
      My search for a video to use for the site was probably one of the longest searches I have ever done. Fortunately I was able to find a public service announcement made by the Attorney General of Ohio discussing domestic violence. How lucky is that! Once again, it was a simple copy and paste procedure. The file is an avi file and is supported by MSIE and Netscape. The video was used with permission of Janie Sulser from the Ohio Attorney General's office. Unfortunately, the video takes a great deal of time to download but for this assignment, I felt it worked so well that I can not envision the page without it. I will probably add a javascript applet for an Alert Message Box to warn the user of the extra long download time. Another option would be to use a gif in the space used by the video and have a link to the actual video and include a warning message about the extra long download time involved.
      My choice for my final multimedia file was a sound for the Victim's Tribute page. I thought a nice music sound playing while the Silent Victims names appeared would work as a nice audio/visual combo. The sound file was easy to copy from the site where I found it, but an e-mail to the webmaster of the site regarding using the audio file for my site has gone unanswered. Since the file is a wav file, it is only supported by MSIE, I am still researching a way to give the same effect to Netscape and Mac users.
      I have given a great deal of thought to three of the elements being on the same page but I have planned the page in such a way that these three elements do not tend to over-power the user. The scroll bar only scrolls twice than becomes another static feature. The animated gif moves at a very slow pace as to not distract the viewer of the video and therefore in my opinion does not put too much before the user at one time.