Mysterious problem with pages not displaying properly.

[New Conservative]

Hi all,

A colleague of mine has put together a web site which shows up
faultlessly on the browsers I use on two separate computers in my
home. However, it transpires that on many other people's browsers,
the pages don't display properly at all. Sometimes there's missing
text formatting, sometimes the colors don't render properly and in one
case, all someone could see was the original html source code! I'm
baffled! Can anyone identify the problem?

Here's the site: www.newconservativeparty.org

As I say, it displays fine here, but probably not on a browser near
you. :-| The site was created with Serif's PagePlus9, BTW.
--

"Suffer no one to tell you what to think."
Martin Smith, the New Conservative Party.
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.newconservativeparty.org

 

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in alt.html.web-accessibility,alt.html, New Conservative

Hi all,

I have multiple personalities?

Sometimes there's missing
text formatting,

Sounds like your code is a mess.

sometimes the colors don't render properly

Could be any number of things. What do you mean by "don't render
properly"? That there aren't any colours? They are just a slightly
different shade to your monitor? Something else?

and in one
case, all someone could see was the original html source code!

This is usually due to it being sent with an incorrect mime type, e.g.
text/plain, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Here's the site: www.newconservativeparty.org

Ugh. No offence, but that is awful. The background image hurts my eyes.
As far as the code goes, it would be mostly the absolute positioning
everywhere that is causing the problems with the text formatting etc.
The incomplete doctype is throwing browsers into quirks mode, too. That
can't be helping.

The site was created with Serif's PagePlus9, BTW.

Then I suggest you throw it out and get something decent.

 

[Andy Dingley]

It was somewhere outside Barstow when New Conservative

However, it transpires that on many other people's browsers,
the pages don't display properly at all.

The site was created with Serif's PagePlus9, BTW.

Well that's you problem. The whole site coding is complete crap and
it looks like it's Serif's fault.

I suggest an upgrade to FrontPage.

 

[Dan]

A colleague of mine has put together a web site which shows up
faultlessly on the browsers I use on two separate computers in my
home.

You apparently don't have a sufficient variety of browsers for good
testing.

However, it transpires that on many other people's browsers,
the pages don't display properly at all. Sometimes there's missing
text formatting, sometimes the colors don't render properly and in one
case, all someone could see was the original html source code! I'm
baffled! Can anyone identify the problem?

There's more than one problem. Your code is a horrible mess. Also,
many of your pages are served by your server with MIME type
"text/plain", which instructs the browser to render them as plain text
instead of HTML; the more standards-compliant browsers do this as
requested, resulting in the displaying of raw code instead of a
rendered page. Your use of filenames without extensions is probably
confusing the server in this regard.

 

[Mark Parnell]

Also,
many of your pages are served by your server with MIME type
"text/plain",

Aha! I _was_ right. I only looked at the front page though, which is why
I didn't see it myself.

 

[Toby Inkster]

Here's the site: www.newconservativeparty.org

I *would* help you, only you're a tory.

 

[Big Bill]

Hi all,

A colleague of mine has put together a web site which shows up
faultlessly on the browsers I use on two separate computers in my
home. However, it transpires that on many other people's browsers,
the pages don't display properly at all. Sometimes there's missing
text formatting, sometimes the colors don't render properly and in one
case, all someone could see was the original html source code! I'm
baffled! Can anyone identify the problem?

Here's the site: www.newconservativeparty.org

As I say, it displays fine here, but probably not on a browser near
you. :-| The site was created with Serif's PagePlus9, BTW.

First of all, you need to get the site to validate. This means you'll
need someone to go into the code and correct all the faults. That
should really be your first objective. It may well mean that some of
the effects or areas of display that you like a lot will have to be
abandoned as they rely (I'm guessing) on proprietary code that some
mainstream browsers simply cannot render properly.
Keep everything simple and you'll be on the right road.

BB

 

[Steve Sundberg]

Here's one problem:

..PPStyle0-P
{
margin:0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align:left;
line-height:1.29;
}

You can't use fractions when determining dimensions in pixels. A pixel
is a pixel; there are no fractional pixels.

 

[Steve Sundberg]

I suggest an upgrade to FrontPage.

No, no, no. FrontPage is crap, too, if only because it creates
proprietary code not rendered in standards-compliant browsers like
Mozilla, Firefox and Opera.

If you need to spend money, get something good -- like HomeSite.

 

[dan]

Here's one problem:

.PPStyle0-P
{
margin:0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align:left;
line-height:1.29;
}

You can't use fractions when determining dimensions in pixels. A pixel
is a pixel; there are no fractional pixels.

In that particular case, the "1.29" actually has no unit shown, which
is a standards violation in itself.

 

[Harlan Messinger]

It was somewhere outside Barstow when New Conservative



Well that's you problem. The whole site coding is complete crap and
it looks like it's Serif's fault.

I suggest an upgrade to FrontPage.

A better grade of crap?

[f-u's to alt.html only--this has nothing to do with accessibility]

 

[kchayka]

It was somewhere outside Barstow when New Conservative


I suggest an upgrade to FrontPage.

LOL

In this case, FrontPage might actually be an upgrade.

 

[kchayka]

In that particular case, the "1.29" actually has no unit shown, which
is a standards violation in itself.

line-height is one case that doesn't require a unit:
<URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visudet.html#propdef-line-height>

 

[Steve Pugh]

Not true for various reasons. Not least of which - the CSS spec allows
the px unit to be more than one display pixel (and whilst most
browser's blindly px to screen pixels they do scale the pixel when
printing, after all a 10 pixel length on a 100dpi screen is very
different to a 10 dot length on a 1200dpi printer. Whether the get the
scaling right is another matter).

Anyway, just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean that
it's an error to specify it in the code. And at the end of the day any
browser that accepted opx but had problems with 0.0px as given here is
very broken.

In that particular case, the "1.29" actually has no unit shown, which
is a standards violation in itself.

No it's not. Look up line-height is the CSS spec and you'll see that
it can take either a number or a length as a value.

Steve

 

[Toby Inkster]

In that particular case, the "1.29" actually has no unit shown, which
is a standards violation in itself.

Egads! You're both way off! "line-height" can be specified without any
units (one of the few CSS numerical values that can!). The default unit is
a equal to "em", but has some slight differences from the usual "em"
behaviour when dealing nested elements of different font sizes -- see the
spec for details.

 

[New Conservative]

I *would* help you, only you're a tory.

Er, we're certainly *not* tories, I can assure you. I could even
*prove* it if I could get these problems with the site sorted out!

--

"Suffer no one to tell you what to think."
Martin Smith, the New Conservative Party.
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.newconservativeparty.org

 

[dorayme]

Organization: The New Conservatives
Reply-To: 78738@virgin_not_for_mail.net
Newsgroups: alt.html.web-accessibility,alt.html
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 00:44:36 GMT
Subject: Mysterious problem with pages not displaying properly.

Hi all,

A colleague of mine has put together a web site which shows up
faultlessly on the browsers I use on two separate computers in my
home. However, it transpires that on many other people's browsers,
the pages don't display properly at all. Sometimes there's missing
text formatting, sometimes the colors don't render properly and in one
case, all someone could see was the original html source code! I'm
baffled! Can anyone identify the problem?

Here's the site: www.newconservativeparty.org

As I say, it displays fine here, but probably not on a browser near
you. :-| The site was created with Serif's PagePlus9, BTW.

Well, it is truly dreadful even when it "shows up ok" as on my machines...
there is not much point in trying to sort out such a "generated" mess. Best
to get rid of the generator. It is hard to believe that for just what is
presented, the code should be so ... so... complex and inelegant. Use a
simple css external stylesheet and trust it (don't be throwing in tons of
css inline), a few divs in a simple html source page, bring the font size
down, line things up in a tidier way, don't say it is under construction.
Construct something that has some quality and as you improve it, improve it
without saying a word.

Sorry, it has put me in a bad mood...


dorayme