Site Support: Site Viewing Tips

Our design philosophy aims for a balanced web site that is visually appealing while not overwhelming, easy to navigate, and quick to download. Consistent with these goals, we have optimized this web site to provide superior results with as many systems as possible. There are however, a few minimum system requirements that should be followed to provide acceptable results when viewing the Van's web site. You will find a quick list of requirements below with more in-depth discussion following.

• Internet Browser
• Screen resolution of 800 x 600 or greater
• Graphics adapter capable of more than 256 colors
• Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 or greater
• 56k baud modem

The browser you use when viewing the Van's Aircraft web site is really your choice. We have designed the site to be compatible with several versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Mozilla Firefox. 

We recommend that you have JavaScript enabled. Although all of the web site will function without using JavaScript, we may be adding features in the future that will require JavaScript.

We have elected to design the web site with a content width constraint. This means that the web site will remain a fixed width, no matter how much resolution your screen and graphics adapter are capable of. With a width of approximately 800 pixels, this should provide compatibility with all screen sizes. Thus our recommendation of a minimum 800 x 600 screen resolution. Using a screen resolution below this will cause a horizontal scroll bar...although we are not aware of standard systems that have pixel width of less than 640. 

Your graphics adapter in concert with your monitor can display different amounts of colors. You should set your graphics adapter to display more than 256 colors. Using 256 color settings will result in "dithering", that is, approximating non-available colors with several colors that are different yet close to the color needed. Unfortunately, this can result in rather poor display quality, and color mis-matching. 

Certain features on this web site require you to use Adobe Acrobat Reader. 
Seeing the Adobe icon    displayed on a page next to a file name or link alerts you that you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the file. Adobe Acrobat is a popular portable document application. It allows printed material to easily be transferred over the Internet and printed from virtually any computer system. You should make sure to obtain Acrobat from Adobe before you attempt to download or view material from this web site. The Acrobat Reader is available at no cost from Adobe. Click here to visit the Adobe web site to download Acrobat Reader.

Despite being a popular and widely-used method of transferring information, Adobe Acrobat is not without problems. We have had a number of reports of problems with users of Adobe Acrobat. Following the steps below, you should have better results:

1. Make sure to use Acrobat version 4.0 or greater. Using any version below this revision will likely cause problems.
2. If you are having difficulties receiving large files, download the files in parts, if available.
3. If after download, the image does not display in the browser window, click the back button, and right click on the link to the Acrobat file. Choose "Save Target As" or similar from the popup menu, and save the file to your hard disk. The open Acrobat from the Start menu (or equivalent)  and use Acrobat to open the file from your hard drive. This trick has solved many problems, especially with users of America On-Line (AOL).
4. If you are installing Acrobat Viewer for the first time, download any Acrobat file from Adobe's web site first, then try one from Van's web site. If you cannot download either, contact Adobe for assistance in installing and configuring Acrobat Viewer.

One of the trade-offs with providing a full menu on every screen is the resultant increase in download time for each page. The average page will take between 30 and 60 seconds to download the text, menu, and images. We strongly recommend a minimum 56k baud modem be used. If available, using an broadband connection such as T1, DSL, or cable modem will provide superior results.