web notes - a blog

This page shows an HTML page before and after robots.design runs.

Automated tools that skin a site allow people to choose the colors and see the effect without any technical knowledge or access. This is the perfect way for a web client to ‘design’ their own site. They have the time and ability to select the colors they like. Once they are satisfied, the site provider can ‘lock’ the colors. This saves a tremendous amount of time for the client and provider, as well as avoiding alot of friction.

The are obviously limitations to this approach, and clients and providers must be aware of them.

robots.design is derived from robots.wizard, which is a robots.txt file generator and editor. There are also robots.spider and robots.checker, which are related to robots.txt.

robots.design is not related to robots.txt, but the term robot is still somewhat applicable. It indicates a machine is being used to support design, as well as being consistent with the naming of software from the same source.

Another application of robots.design™ is to allow people who have difficulty differentiating between colors to select those colors that are easiest for them to see. Their selections can then be saved and applied at run time - perhaps through javascript.

To better show how the image relates to the skin, a thumbnail option was added to robots-design™. By default, no thumbnail will be saved, but if the user elects to include it, it will be presented on the blog skin.

ImageMagick Thumbnail Command

convert input_file.jpg --thumbnail 100 output_file.jpg

100 refers to the width.