Browser Issue - IE, Of Course

[John Hosking]

One question about this: I chose to go with styles in the page code
itself. I've been told - and read - that an external style sheet is
more efficient.

Opinions on that?

Executive summary: Usually (so probably), an external stylesheet is better.

Reasoning: Any request for a file from your server entails a bit of
overhead, and each stylesheet is another file. However, caching (at
client or server level) can mean eliminating the request to your server
in the first place.

If you have more than one page of content on your site, and any styles
are duplicated on multiple pages, you're probably* better off moving
those rules to an external stylesheet. That gives you less duplication
in each content page, therefore smaller pages, ergo more of the
efficiency I think you're talking about.

As a webmaster/administrator, it's generally easier for me to put all
the CSS in one stylesheet (okay, I might have more than one for a site,
and I do have separate sheets for print, say), so all the rules tend to
be in one place. I often (but not always) put unique, one-use only rules
in the central, external stylesheet, which (a) helps me locate them and
(b) helps me notice when my styling gets out of hand. So there's another
kind of efficiency to consider.

HTH

* Yes, "probably" is a weasel word, although I can't think of when this
wouldn't be true. Looking around for arguments against.

 

[dorayme]

It's nice to be a novice at something, come in and ask for help, and
not get flamed to h*ll and back for it... Not only was I not flamed,
but I received answers almost immediately.

*This* is what usenet *should* be...

Oh yes, well, that is alt.html for you. There is no real sarcasm, real
thuggery of any kind, all the roles are just that, like in Punch and
Judy shows.

There's always a nice fire burning on cold winter nights and a hot cocoa
brought. You can get international croissants, the killfiles are even
well furnished and serviced if you go a bit wild and need cooling off.

This is civilised land. Not like those other horrible groups over there
where they wait for the unsuspecting to walk in and BANG, they pounce
and rip you to pieces...

Your treatment has absolutely nothing to do with both (you and Mike's)
nice manners. It is the strict (4.01) policy of the group towards
everyone. Even towards Jerry Stuckle.

 

[dorayme]

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:45:24 +1100, dorayme


And it looks great in Opera *AND* in IE...

One question about this: I chose to go with styles in the page code
itself. I've been told - and read - that an external style sheet is
more efficient.

The only reason I put the styles in the head of the document was for you
to be seeing them easily for this exercise. That is all. Best to hive
them off to an external sheet and link to it.

When I am making a new page I sometimes add some inline styles because
it is quick and dirty and immediate but later remove them. Occasionally,
you may want to over-ride something in a main external stylesheet for a
particular page. For example, the links on this pag need a different
color or background. The head of the page is not a bad place to do this
in.

 

[Gufus]

Hi Lupine,

Saturday March 22 2008, Lupine Predator writes to All:

> From: (e-mail address removed)0m
> Now, I need to go and start reading through this group. I
> might learn a thing or fifty in this place!

Yep .. lot of /good/ people here.

> -+- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
> + Origin: Calgary Organization CDN Fidonet-Internet Gateway
> (1:342/77.10)

--
K Klement

Enhance your marketing at http://www.gypsy-designs.com
mailto:[email protected]
Gypsy Designs Fax: (403) 242-3221

.... The man who runs may fight again.

 

[Travis Newbury]

If you check this site in
Firefox or Opera, it's beautiful....

Well beauty is in the eyes of the beholder... I personally don't
classify an all red page with some white text and a few pictures,
where the thumbnails go to a new page that has a white background, and
the images are still too tiny to see. Jeez, if you going to have a
thumb at least make the larger image LARGER.

The word beauty and this site are not even on the same continent.

But IE just screws everything up.

Why of course it does. You and I know it is an inferior browser. But
until someone else is the primary browser the world uses, to your
visitor, it is you that has screwed up. But then again, your in
Vermont, a highly liberal state. So there is a better change that
more of your users use something other than IE. Not because they know
it is an inferior browser. But because they do not want to support
the "Evil corporation Microsoft...."

Let me take a look at the code... Holy sweet mother of purple
kawala!!! Ok, Now I understand why you call your site beautiful.
When I coded like that, I called my stuff beautiful too. (fading to a
flash back, one second) Ok, I'm back.

How the heck can you have so much code, and say so little? My guess
is that most of the people here could duplicate your site in about a
10th of the code.

Can anyone suggest a fix for this?

Yea, go to the local boarders, or jump on Amazon and get your self a
few good books on how to make a website and read them. Then start
over. In the long run it will pay off. This this thing on line so
you have a presents out there, then go spend 2 weeks doing nothing but
reading books, tutorial websites, this forum, and start playing around
with the things you are reading. THEN in 2 weeks, open your website
again and to go to town. I promise that when you look at your site in
2 weeks and compare it to what you have not you will be saying "Thank
you Travis. You truly are one of the Web Gods...."

http://www.deborahsprintshop.com

Now, I need to go and start reading through this group. I might learn
a thing or fifty in this place!

Damn damn damn damn.... one should always read the ENTIRE post before
starting to comment....

(I hope you take this post in the manner it was written. But I do
think the page is ugly, and I am a web God no matter what anyone here
says!)

 

[Mike Barnard]

Yea, go to the local boarders, or jump on Amazon and get your self a
few good books on how to make a website and read them. Then start

Just another plug for the book I was directed to, which gave me a good
start. But only a start, I know.

Head First HTML & XHTML with CSS.
Published by O'Reilly
Authored by Elisabeth and Eric Freeman

Inexpensive for what it is, and what it is is a complete course in
HTML / CSS. Imagine you were taking a classroom course in HTML, then
this book is that course written down. Easy to follow... I'll stop
going on.

Just get it.

 

[GTalbot]

Hi, everyone. I just stumbled on this group, and I hope someone can
help me with this. I'm self-taught, and I've just started working on
a part-time basis doing web sites.

A simple little site I built is causing problems in IE. Rather than
trying to explain it, I'll post the link. If you check this site in
Firefox or Opera, it's beautiful. But IE just screws everything up.

http://www.deborahsprintshop.com


Lupine,

like Dorayme told you and possibly others, you first need to put a
doctype declaration at the top of all of your HTML documents. For both
backward and forward-compatibility, it is best to use HTML 4.01
strict.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/
TR/html4/strict.dtd">

Then validate your markup code. You can find all the info/how-to/
explanations/resources that's needed here:

Using Web Standards in your Web Pages
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Using_Web_Standards_in_your_Web_Pages
Making your page using web standards - how to
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/doc...Making_your_page_using_web_standards_-_how_to

I suggest to consult these references (some of them are frequently
mentioned by regulars in this newsgroup and other web authoring/progr.
newsgroups):

Website design resources for beginner and intermediate (Nvu/KompoZer)
users (in fact any beginner or intermediate users)
http://www.gtalbot.org/NvuSection/NvuWebDesignTips/WebDesignResources.html

One thing you should consider: avoid using tables for layout and to
use CSS webpage templates instead. There are many CSS webpage
templates available on the web. Again, it's better/best to use ones
that declare a doctype with a strict DTD and that use entirely valid
(markup and CSS code) ones.

Finally, you can improve your webpages by consulting

World Wide Web Consortium Quality Assurance tips: Quality Tips for
Webmasters from the W3C: 17 tips that will indisputably improve your
website.
http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/

Also excellent:
Truth & Consequences of web site design by Chris Beal. 14 well written
articles on very frequently encountered mistakes on web design and how
to correct them.
http://pages.prodigy.net/chris_beall/TC/index.html

Regards, Gérard

 

[Lupine Predator]

Well beauty is in the eyes of the beholder... I personally don't
classify an all red page with some white text and a few pictures,
where the thumbnails go to a new page that has a white background, and
the images are still too tiny to see. Jeez, if you going to have a
thumb at least make the larger image LARGER.

The word beauty and this site are not even on the same continent.


Why of course it does. You and I know it is an inferior browser. But
until someone else is the primary browser the world uses, to your
visitor, it is you that has screwed up. But then again, your in
Vermont, a highly liberal state. So there is a better change that
more of your users use something other than IE. Not because they know
it is an inferior browser. But because they do not want to support
the "Evil corporation Microsoft...."

Let me take a look at the code... Holy sweet mother of purple
kawala!!! Ok, Now I understand why you call your site beautiful.
When I coded like that, I called my stuff beautiful too. (fading to a
flash back, one second) Ok, I'm back.

How the heck can you have so much code, and say so little? My guess
is that most of the people here could duplicate your site in about a
10th of the code.


Yea, go to the local boarders, or jump on Amazon and get your self a
few good books on how to make a website and read them. Then start
over. In the long run it will pay off. This this thing on line so
you have a presents out there, then go spend 2 weeks doing nothing but
reading books, tutorial websites, this forum, and start playing around
with the things you are reading. THEN in 2 weeks, open your website
again and to go to town. I promise that when you look at your site in
2 weeks and compare it to what you have not you will be saying "Thank
you Travis. You truly are one of the Web Gods...."



Damn damn damn damn.... one should always read the ENTIRE post before
starting to comment....

(I hope you take this post in the manner it was written. But I do
think the page is ugly, and I am a web God no matter what anyone here
says!)

Well, it's designed to the specifications of the person who it was
made for, not my own. By beautiful, I meant that it works perfectly
in every browser, except IE. *I* didn't come up with the color
scheme, the fonts, the text size, or the gallery style, the person who
owns the site did.

Her email about it, after I designed it the way she asked me to:

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: site
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:31:16 -0400
From: <Snipped>
To: <Snipped>
References: <Snipped>

Love it!!! Love it!!!
the thumbnail pics are really cool. the way they blow up. and
fast!!

only comment is wherever there is small font - make it bigger..
like a Verdana or Arial -

contact page font i like - can you make bigger
I like the layout --- 'photographing' i think s/b 'photograph'

??maybe a space between lines - (bullet lines)

thanks so much
Deb

(The small font she's referring to was Times Roman - she wanted larger
Arial.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for all the code, as I said, I'm a newbie at this, really. Throw
some COBOL or RPG at me - even PASCAL, and I'm fine. But I'm ancient.
I used Dreamweaver. And yeah, I know - it does all kinds of things
that you don't really want it to. But, it's what I'm familiar with at
this point - I'm still in the learning stages.

So, yeah, I can take this message in the spirit it was meant, but I'll
say this in response: If you *are* a web God, then you know that it's
what the *client* wants, not what *I* think looks best. I can try to
persuade, but in the end, it's the client's call.

 

[Bergamot]

I can try to
persuade, but in the end, it's the client's call.

FYI, contrary to popular belief, the client isn't always right.

 

[Travis Newbury]

FYI, contrary to popular belief, the client isn't always right.

No they may not always be right, but it is their call to do what ever
they want. They have the option of listening to your opinion and
taking your suggestions (I mean they did hire you because you were an
expert), or firing you and hiring someone that will do it their way.

Their call may not be "right", but if is their call.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Love it!!! Love it!!!
the thumbnail pics are really cool. the way they blow up. and
fast!!

Problem with the thumbnails are they are not thumbnails. Browser are
notoriously bad a "resampling" images. Also there is not savings other
than visual space with html constrained images the whole full-size still
must be downloaded with no bandwidth savings what so ever. So on dialup
"little thumbnails" just take a unusually long time to render.

On web sites make images to the *exact* dimensions to which they are to
be displayed. The html attributes 'width' and 'height' should match the
actually image pixel dimensions. If you want thumbnails, then make
thumbnail images with image editing software where you can optimize the
reduction and and improve the clarity with sharpen filters...

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

No they may not always be right, but it is their call to do what ever
they want. They have the option of listening to your opinion and
taking your suggestions (I mean they did hire you because you were an
expert), or firing you and hiring someone that will do it their way.

Their call may not be "right", but if is their call.

If you do your job right then they will make the "right" call...

 

[Lupine Predator]

Problem with the thumbnails are they are not thumbnails. Browser are
notoriously bad a "resampling" images. Also there is not savings other
than visual space with html constrained images the whole full-size still
must be downloaded with no bandwidth savings what so ever. So on dialup
"little thumbnails" just take a unusually long time to render.

On web sites make images to the *exact* dimensions to which they are to
be displayed. The html attributes 'width' and 'height' should match the
actually image pixel dimensions. If you want thumbnails, then make
thumbnail images with image editing software where you can optimize the
reduction and and improve the clarity with sharpen filters...

Okay, that makes sense. I have Photoshop CS3, so that's not an issue.

I used something called "highslide.js" for the gallery functions -
it's a nifty little script. I didn't even think about using seperate
thumbnail images - as I said, I'm pretty much a newbie at this.

Thanks for the help here, everyone - it's getting there. Has a ways
to go, but it's getting there.

 

[Travis Newbury]

If you do your job right then they will make the "right" call...

So, Do you think Flash is right on Cartoon Network's site, or do you
think you could talk them out if it?

 

[dorayme]

On web sites make images to the *exact* dimensions to which they are to
be displayed.

Do you not approve of *ever* putting in, say, a 250px wide image, em or
% sizing the img in the html that will most people will see at about 120
to 150px wide but some people might see at bigger? (I know what you have
said. I know why. I do not disapprove. Not asking for a repeat of King's
Regulations on this).

Have you ever seen how nicely this works on many Mac browsers on Mac
screens connected to Mac browsers? How little overhead there is when
done so modestly? How nice the effects of no loss of resolution to speak
of over a small range? If I could be more confident it worked across
platforms and all browsers I would use this more myself.

 

[dorayme]

If you do your job right then they will make the "right" call...

I see you are getting into the Travis motherhood statement mood. It is
probably quite inescapable when chatting to Travis. I find myself making
completely unfalsifiable statements too if I feel Travis is within 20
metres. <g>

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I see you are getting into the Travis motherhood statement mood. It is
probably quite inescapable when chatting to Travis. I find myself making
completely unfalsifiable statements too if I feel Travis is within 20
metres. <g>

Just not going to get goated into that old argument, he knows as well as
I what the "right" answer is....

 

[dorayme]

Just not going to get goated into that old argument, he knows as well as
I what the "right" answer is....

I think you misjudge him. I am the Travis expert around here and I say
that he would recognise that there are some clients that would not
always go along with the most competent and reasonable website
consultant's suggestions and that if he were the consultant he would go
with what the client wanted for the buckeroos. Your suggestion of this
ideal consultant who always does his job so perfectly that the client
never ever disagrees is a creature like Venus, lovely to think about.

The closest real world example of clients going along with the website
maker is me. But, then, I always visit clients with friends, I take
along Smith and also Wesson.

 

[Neredbojias]

The closest real world example of clients going along with the website
maker is me. But, then, I always visit clients with friends, I take
along Smith and also Wesson.

I think that's actually because they reach the point where they'll do
anything to get you to stop talking...

 

[Neredbojias]

Do you not approve of *ever* putting in, say, a 250px wide image, em or
% sizing the img in the html that will most people will see at about 120
to 150px wide but some people might see at bigger? (I know what you have
said. I know why. I do not disapprove. Not asking for a repeat of King's
Regulations on this).

Have you ever seen how nicely this works on many Mac browsers on Mac
screens connected to Mac browsers? How little overhead there is when
done so modestly? How nice the effects of no loss of resolution to speak
of over a small range? If I could be more confident it worked across
platforms and all browsers I would use this more myself.

Works pretty good on Opera for Windows, too. And even IE 7 has a similar
effect in zoom mode which I assume (-yeah) will be better-incorporated into
IE 8