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Using the Fahrner Image Replacement technique

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by maryweilage

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This week's Design and Usability Tactics e-newsletter describes using the Fahrner Image Replacement (FIR) technique to punch up headings. Do you agree with author Michael Meadhra that FIR is the best technique available to solve the problem of sprucing up text headings? Have you used the FIR technique in your designs? If so, what are your impressions of this technique?

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by alexcohn

The FIR technique and its derivations remain an incomplete and somewhat flawed solution to the challenge of providing visually stimulating headings, but two lines of JavaScript can come to resque:

function image_loaded()
{
window.event.srcElement.style.display="inline"
window.event.srcElement.parentElement.children(1).style.marginLeft="-100em"
}

here we assume that the colorful headings are structured as follows:

title text

The code above uses the FIR trick only if the image is not available. Unfortunately, on Netscape the onLoad() event is not reliable and further wicked tricks should be performed to support Netscape gracefully.

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