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Site Information

• Url: www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7116
• Author: Mattias Sjöberg
• Site Category: JavaScript Resource
• Resource Available: One of the best JavaScript resources on the net featuring over 250 scripts and a ton of resources to other script sites tutorials and references!!
• Noteworthy Awards: Winner of Homesteader of the Year Award at GeoCities in the Java / Shockwave Section. He's won several other awards too numerous to list them all.

About the Author

Mattias Sjöberg is a 19 year old student from Stockholm Sweden. Yes people the author of this site is only 19!! He is a budding entrepreneur selling software, originally designed for personal use, with some success. He is using the Internet as the only channel of exposure for his products. Mattias and I seem to have a few things in common namely sports and in particular golf. He also enjoys running,cross-country skiing and tennis and claims to prefer these to computers. Whod' a thunk it!!!

Site Critique

I would like to first mention that I use very standard equipment similar to what most netizens use. The reason for this, besides the fact that I can't afford to purchase a geek (nothing wrong with being one) optimized set up is that I like to critique using the lowest common denominator and my browser of choice. Face it, what I'm using is probably the norm rather then the exception.

Equipment Used

Site was critiqued using a PC with 14" monitor, 14.4 modem, Netscape Navigator Gold 3.01 on a win 95 platform.

Site Design

The site loaded very quickly mainly due to the fact that Mattias seems to believe that small simple images are the way to go. If this is his objective he definitely has accomplished his goal. Pages running a lot of java seem to take forever to load but his seems to load nicely. You can start perusing the page within 14 seconds even though some of the Java stuff is still loading a nice touch from what I have seen recently. Too often you are sitting there paralyzed waiting for what seems like hours for this stuff to load up.

Although I'm not a big fan of frames Mattias has done a good job of implementing them! Personally I believe sites of this nature are the only ones that should be using frames because they actually help in the navigation and overall usability of the site. For those of you with older browsers that don't support frames there is a no frames version as well.

For those like me that prefer a non-frames version there is a nifty image of three buttons in the top left frame like in the very top right of your browser. They are lined up vertically rather then horizontally. The top one marked S reveals the source code ( useful later for cutting and pasting if using MSIE). The second gives me a non-frames version which shows that Mattias is cognizant that some of his users prefer this version so he has supplied this option for them. The third one refreshes the main or target frame back to the entry screen which has some instructions you may want to use later.

So far we have a tradeoff for speed of load over eyecandy. A good choice from where I sit because this is a resource site meant to be used not looked at. Mattias seems to keep the user in mind at all times. Earlier I mentioned that there is a no frames version of the site, well actually there are 12 user interfaces. Count 'em folks, Mattias has designed this site around its functionality and user preferences.

Say you knew that a resource was added Jan 2,1997 (get his newsletter!!!!) there is a drop down box that will enable you to access the scripts added on that date immediately without any searching. I would list all the formats but I'll let you go and feast your eyes on this beauty. My favorite is a version which uses pull down menus to speed up your search for a script by category.

Mattias has divided the browser into four frames (entry Interface). The top left is a combination tool bar and navigation frame. The buttons which are the tool part were mentioned earlier. The navigation is from clickable images that list the resources or links in the third or left target frame. The second frame on the top is another navigation or search feature for the many scripts on the site. Once again Mattias isn't content with giving you a choice of images or text he has at least three that I picked up on immediately, so, check it out for yourself and you'll be awed by the array and quantity of scripts available. The main or target frame is where all the bells and whistles produced by the scripts are demonstrated for you.

Resources and References

I mentioned earlier there were 250 scripts. That was yesterday today there are 254 . This gives you an idea of how fast the resources on this site are growing. Mattias also has some links on his page to JavaScript archives tutorials and references. He has also listed some sites he likes or admires.

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