Universalis

Universalis banners

Current calendar: Wales - Cardiff-Menevia.

If the calendar identified above is not your local calendar, then select your calendar from the list at the end of this page.

If you run a web site or a blog, you can incorporate the Universalis banner, which shows the feast of the day. You can also make it link to the Universalis readings for that day:

How to create a banner

The banner can link to any reasonable Universalis page. See How to Link to Us for the full range of possible links.

Using a software package

If you are using a software package to design your web pages, you will need to tell it the following information for the image:

Image location (URL): https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/banner.gif
Image width: 468 pixels
Image height: 60 pixels

You should make the image into a link to whatever Universalis address you want: for instance, https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/mass.htm for the Mass readings.

Writing your own HTML

If you write your HTML directly, here is the code you need:

<a href="https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/mass.htm">
   <img src="https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/banner.gif"
        alt="Universalis Mass Readings" width="468" height="60" border="0">
   </a>

The code in red is the code that causes the image to be displayed; the code in black turns the image into a link so that people who click on the image can see the relevant page of Universalis.

Other sizes

You can make the banner narrower if you like (within reason). To do this, just put the width you want after the word "banner". Here's an example for a banner that's 240 pixels wide:

Image location (URL): https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/banner240.gif
Image width: 240 pixels
Image height: 60 pixels

<a href="https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/today.htm">
   <img src="https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/banner240.gif"
        alt="Universalis" width="240" height="60" border="0">
   </a>

240 pixels was only an example: you can choose whatever width you want.

Larger print

We are looking at ways of providing different font sizes. Meanwhile, the following solution may be worth considering:

We did this by changing the "width" and "height" settings in the HTML. In this case, we increased them by 50%. The result isn't ideal because the font isn't very smooth, but it may still be helpful.

Time zones!

If your site has a local character – for instance, ifit's a parish site – then you should adjust the banner to fit the local time zone.

All the banners and links we have shown you refer to today at Greenwich. Looking at it on a world-wide scale, this is problematic. At 10.30am GMT on Thursday at Greenwich it can be half past midnight on Friday on Christmas Island but still only half an hour before midnight on Wednesday on Midway Island.

If you expect a local audience, you need to specify your local time zone as part of the address of the banner.

To take an example:

“Bare” banner address: https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/banner.gif

New Zealand: https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/1100/banner.gif

California: https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/-0800/banner.gif

Where you are now: https://universalis.com/europe.wales.cardiff/banner.gif

In these examples, the code you need to insert is shown in red. If you don’t see a red code in the final example then either you are on Greenwich time or your browser isn’t very intelligent.

All this only needs to be done for the banner image itself. The links to the Universalis site don’t need to worry about time zones, because the pages themselves will sort all that out whenever someone visits them.

Friends with all the world

If your web site has a world-wide audience then there is no easy way to make the banner show the right day for everybody. (At least, not without doing clever things with JavaScript on your own page). A possible solution is to have a pair of banners, one 12 hours behind GMT and one 12 hours ahead, like this:

https:// sites

If your web site uses https rather than http, use https rather than http in the address of the banner image (the src= element). This will prevent your visitors' browsers from complaining about mixed secure and insecure content.

Copyrights and acknowledgements

You'll see that the banner itself incorporates the name of Universalis, so we don't need any more acknowledgements apart from that. We do, however, ask that you make your banners into links to the Universalis site, so that people can easily get at the material we offer.

Available local calendars