rule. Align: Aligns the horizontal rule left, center, or right on the page. Default is center. Shading: Enables or disables shading on the horizontal rule. Disabling this box causes the horizontal rule to be a solid, flat line. Class: Assign a CSS class to your horizontal rule. Go ahead and familiarize yourself with the horizontal rule-based Properties Inspector by experimenting with the various properties. For the project, I've modified the properties to resemble Figure 3.31. Figure 3.31. Modify the width, height, and shading of the horizontal rule. [View full size image]             Working with Images One of the more convoluted topics as it relates to the web is that of images. As you are with font faces, colors, and sizes, you're limited in the types of images you can use. Even worse, because you're dealing with the web, bandwidth becomes an issue. For this reason, images must usually remain small resulting in degradation of quality and loss of color variation. While print publishers have a wide array of image choices including EPS, TIF, JPEG, BMP, PCX, PICT, and PNG and are not limited by size, web developers are limited to working with GIF, JPEG, and PNG and even worse must use tools to optimize the images before they're ready for use in websites. Knowing what types of images to use can also become a factor when designing for the web. As a good rule of thumb, GIF, JPG, and PNG files should be used as follows: GIF: GIF, which stands for Graphical Interchange Format is used for images or graphics with smaller amounts of color and graphics without much tonal range. Because GIFs read color in a horizontal line, the more color it encounters when reading, the larger the file size. Also, because GIFs read color in a horizontal line, too much color gradation can result in banding; the process of gradients being broken up into bands representing a lower dimension of color variation. GIFs also have a color table attached to them which dictates to the graphic how many colors and which color can be used in the artwork. More colors in the color table yield higher file sizes. GIFs can also store transparencies and animations but are ideal when used for flat, lower-colored graphics. JPEG: JPEG, which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, is a lossy compression standard used on graphics with high tonal ranges such as photographs. This compression standard removes pixels from an image to reduce the file size. Too much compression can result in artifacts which causes the image to look blurry and unclear. As a good rule of thumb, use the JPEG file format when adding pictures to your websites that contain a lot of gradation such as family photos. PNG: PNG, which stands for Portable Network Graphics, was introduced as a relacement to GIF a few years ago. Although Macromedia has certainly adopted the file format as standard within its Fireworks program, for the web, PNG holds a few advantages over GIF. First, color features are greater in that PNG supports alpha transparencies, which means you can have 256 levels of transparency instead of just on and off as is true for the GIF format, cross-platform control of image brightness, and two-dimensional interlacing (a method of progressive