In this post from 8 years ago, I mention Paul M Bowers, a photographer that was around the corner from us at AVENCOM in San Diego. He took many of our photos.

I thought I’d check out his site, http://www.paulmbowers.com/, and see how it had changed. I’m actually sort of delighted that it is the same as it was. It’s a pretty good looking site, and works pretty well. The design of this site was mostly mine. I think he came to us with a static image of the top part of the site (the 4 top images) and I was tasked with making it “active” using “DHTML” — which is a fancy way of saying I added JavaScript and animated GIFs.

The JavaScript, while being 8 years old, is actually not all that bad. I think, no, I’m pretty much sure, I could write it in about a quarter of the amount of code.

function WM_preloadImages() {

// WM_preloadImages()
// LOADS IMAGES INTO THE BROWSER'S CACHE FOR LATER USE.
// Usage: WM_preloadImages('image 1 URL', 'image 2 URL', 'image 3 URL', ...);

  // DON'T BOTHER IF THERE'S NO DOCUMENT.IMAGES
  if (document.images) {
    if (typeof(document.WM) == 'undefined'){
      document.WM = new Object();
    }
    document.WM.loadedImages = new Array();
    // LOOP THROUGH ALL THE ARGUMENTS.
    var argLength = WM_preloadImages.arguments.length;
    for(arg=0;arg array_control-1)
    {w=0} else {w=w+1};
if ((x+1) > array_control-1)
    {x=0} else {x=x+1};
if ((y+1) > control_array-1)
    {y=0} else {y=y+1};
if ((z+1) > control_array-1)
    {z=0} else {z=z+1};

// then we do it again, because
// we want to change two at a time
if ((w+1) > array_control-1)
    {w=0} else {w=w+1};
if ((x+1) > array_control-1)
    {x=0} else {x=x+1};
if ((y+1) > control_array-1)
    {y=0} else {y=y+1};
if ((z+1) > control_array-1)
    {z=0} else {z=z+1};

    // now, we do the four rollovers!
    avencomRollover('picture1',i1[w]);
    avencomRollover('picture2',i1[x]);
    avencomRollover('picture3',i2[y]);
    avencomRollover('picture4',i2[z]);

    rotateText();

    temp[0]=i1[0];
    temp[1]=i1[1];
    pmet[0]=i2[0];
    pmet[1]=i2[1];

    i1[0]=temp[1];
    i1[1]=temp[0];
    i2[0]=pmet[1];
    i2[1]=pmet[0];

    // time to change the four links!
    avencomChangeLink(0,L1[w]);
    avencomChangeLink(1,L1[x]);
    avencomChangeLink(3,L2[y]);
    avencomChangeLink(4,L2[z]);

    temp[0]=L1[0];
    temp[1]=L1[1];
    pmet[0]=L2[0];
    pmet[1]=L2[1];

    L1[0]=temp[1];
    L1[1]=temp[0];
    L2[0]=pmet[1];
    L2[1]=pmet[0];

}

function initiateLinks() {
avencomChangeLink(0,L1[1]);
avencomChangeLink(1,L1[0]);
avencomChangeLink(3,L2[1]);
avencomChangeLink(4,L2[0]);

avencomRollover('picture1',i1[1]);
avencomRollover('picture2',i1[0]);
avencomRollover('picture3',i2[1]);
avencomRollover('picture4',i2[0]);

rotateText();

}

I am very pleased that it all seems to work correctly, still, in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

I’m further very proud of the “See Me” and “Touch Me” icons I made using Illustrator and PhotoShop.

His photos are great too, though I bet he has newer ones now. 🙂