Matt's Frequently Asked Questions


Question

How do you print VOH documents?

Answer

Print?! What ever happened to "Save a tree, use VOH?" (Kidding :)) Printing from VOH is now much easier because the documents are split into single pages. Priviously they would overlap pages if they would even load at all (See below). There is a way, however, to print the test pages very cleanly. When you select a test, say the first old midterm of 132AH, you are given a page with a list of links for each page of the test. This links go to a "container" HTML file that provides the graphic and navigational links. What you're interested in for printing is just the graphic so what you can do is call the graphic itself for printing. The text in the table of contents will be the name of the graphic with .gif attached in the images subdirectory. So, if the text says:

F91-132AH-1-1 then the file name will be:

images/F91-132AH-1-1.gif

You can enter this URL by selecting open location and typing the full URL:

http://www.chem.ucla.edu/VOH/132AH/images/F91-132AH-1-1.gif

Or you type this in the "Location:" window if it is showing.

Once the graphic is displayed by itself you can select print. After printing, all you have to do is increment the last number of the filename, which is the page number of the graphic:

F91-132AH-1-1.gif
F91-132AH-1-2.gif
F91-132AH-1-3.gif


Printing speed and quality have been tested on the Macintosh and we have found that if you disable all of the options in the print setup menu, (graphics smoothing, etc.) you'll printing speed will dramatically increase.

Question

I cannot load in the large graphics. They either load as broken graphic icons, or cause my Netscape to quit.

Answer

This is due to a problem with the way Netscape considers graphic files. GIF files that are 6-30k in size consume megabytes of system memory and finally cause the program to fail with a General Protection Fault (GPF) or cause the graphics to be displayed as a broken image icon. I am working on reorganizing the way we present the data to send it a page at a time. This should eliminate this problem.

Update: October 27

All graphics presentations over two pages have been converted to a page at a time.

Question

The background is dark and makes it hard to read the text.

Update January 1996

Background now solid white. No problems...

Answer

Turn it off. Do this by selecting Options:Preferences:Fonts and Colors. Under Colors, select Always use Mine. This will force the browser to use the defined colors and background, instead of allowing to document to specify them.

The background was created from the black, blue and yellow VOH decal on the home page. It was "embossed" using xv on an SGI. I find that the looks of the background vary a little from one platform to another, but the text appears completely readable.

It is possible that those of you that have difficulty have your monitor set to too few colors. The background looks very bad if the monitor is set to 16 colors (4 bit). I recommend 256 (8 bit) or higher color if your computer will do it.

Another possible problem comes from the colormap getting co-opted by another application. If you are running any other graphics software such as JPEG view or Graphic Converter, the colormap can get changed and the background becomes annoying. This is remedied by simply closing the offending app.


VOH Home Page Top

voh@chem.ucla.edu
Last revision: January 30, 1996