stupid problem but client is going bonkers

[Cinnamon Thunder]

Hi Guys

Our client requested we fix this but I don't know where to start.

It's a shop using X-Cart shopping cart system.

You may view the site @
http://www.mousemall.co.za/home.php?shopkey=m0us3

When loading the homepage for instance, the 3 product boxes columns
(Featured products: im using 3 columns) have different widths.

For instance the left column is wider than the other 3... then once the
page has finished loading they jump back to their specified width.

You don't really see it on a fast connection, but on a modem connection
its quite visible.

I know this isn't a MAJOR problem, but the client is jumping up and down
and I don't know where to turn. The site is going live today sometime.

Please, any ideas?? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Xenlab

 

[Andy Dingley]

Our client requested we fix this but I don't know where to start.

Neither do I. Your code's a right old mess and it's really not worth
trying to look for subtle layout errors in such a rats-nest of 1997
coding. You chose to code it in this style, your problem to sort it
out. Sorry.

 

[Carolyn Marenger]

Hi Guys

Our client requested we fix this but I don't know where to start.

It's a shop using X-Cart shopping cart system.

You may view the site @
http://www.mousemall.co.za/home.php?shopkey=m0us3

When loading the homepage for instance, the 3 product boxes columns
(Featured products: im using 3 columns) have different widths.

For instance the left column is wider than the other 3... then once the
page has finished loading they jump back to their specified width.

You don't really see it on a fast connection, but on a modem connection
its quite visible.

I know this isn't a MAJOR problem, but the client is jumping up and down
and I don't know where to turn. The site is going live today sometime.

Please, any ideas?? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Xenlab

I checked and I could not replicate your problem. When I used mozilla
firefox v1.0.2 the site looks normal. Very slow to finish loading, with
the center content not appearing until the end. My guess would be, it
didn't try to render the section until it knew the dimensions of the
content. To see what I saw...

http://www.marenger.com/mousemall/mousemall-mozilla-p1.png

I did experience another problem however. My default browser, konqueror
totally screwed up the page. With the exception that the majority of your
hopeful customers won't be using konqueror, it would in my mind be a
critical issue. I can't say that I have ever seen such a garbled mess, so
the easiest way to tell you about it is to show you. p1 is the top third
of the page, p2 is the bottom third.

http://www.marenger.com/mousemall/mousemall-p1.png
http://www.marenger.com/mousemall/mousemall-p2.png

Good luck in working this out.

Carolyn

 

[Carolyn Marenger]

Neither do I. Your code's a right old mess and it's really not worth
trying to look for subtle layout errors in such a rats-nest of 1997
coding. You chose to code it in this style, your problem to sort it
out. Sorry.

It was so garbled in my default browser, I didn't even look at the code. I
just went back, and I agree with you, it is a right old mess.

Carolyn

 

[Carolyn Marenger]

content. To see what I saw...

http://www.marenger.com/mousemall/mousemall-mozilla-p1.png
http://www.marenger.com/mousemall/mousemall-p1.png
http://www.marenger.com/mousemall/mousemall-p2.png

Good luck in working this out.

Carolyn

I forgot to mention, I will leave these graphics up on my site for a day or
two, then I will remove them. I hope that is long enough for you to get
what you need.

Carolyn

 

[Barbara de Zoete]

http://www.mousemall.co.za/home.php?shopkey=m0us3

When loading the homepage for instance, the 3 product boxes columns
(Featured products: im using 3 columns) have different widths.

For instance the left column is wider than the other 3... then once the
page has finished loading they jump back to their specified width.

If you set up the site so that the validator can access, you can use
<URL:http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...octype=HTML+4.01+Transitional&fbd=1&verbose=1>
for example to see what errors in your markup you should correct first.
Might do the trick, might not. But then atleast you know it is not the
coding and can start looking in other directions.

 

[Jim Higson]

I checked and I could not replicate your problem. When I used mozilla
firefox v1.0.2 the site looks normal. Very slow to finish loading, with
the center content not appearing until the end. My guess would be, it
didn't try to render the section until it knew the dimensions of the
content. To see what I saw...

http://www.marenger.com/mousemall/mousemall-mozilla-p1.png

I did experience another problem however. My default browser, konqueror
totally screwed up the page.

Funny, Konqueror is fine here (version 3.5.1) on that page, with the
exception the tabs at the top are slightly out.

Maybe you have an older version? There've also been quite a few versions of
Firefox since 1.0.2, mostly security fixes but one major version.

Back to the OP, the jumping effect is almost certainly because of
table-based layout. The only cure is to change the order in the HTML so the
center column gets to the browser first, and then put the other stuff round
the sides using CSS.

 

[Jim Moe]

You may view the site @
http://www.mousemall.co.za/home.php?shopkey=m0us3

When loading the homepage for instance, the 3 product boxes columns
(Featured products: im using 3 columns) have different widths.

For instance the left column is wider than the other 3... then once the
page has finished loading they jump back to their specified width.

As noted by others your code is a mess. Ugh. Tables for layout. Spacer
GIFs. Empty columns for spacing. Sheesh!
You could try using a <colgroup> to set the initial widths of the columns.

 

[dorayme]

Hi Guys

Our client requested we fix this but I don't know where to start.

It's a shop using X-Cart shopping cart system.

You may view the site @
http://www.mousemall.co.za/home.php?shopkey=m0us3

When loading the homepage for instance, the 3 product boxes columns
(Featured products: im using 3 columns) have different widths.

For instance the left column is wider than the other 3... then once the
page has finished loading they jump back to their specified width.

You don't really see it on a fast connection, but on a modem connection
its quite visible.

I know this isn't a MAJOR problem, but the client is jumping up and down
and I don't know where to turn. The site is going live today sometime.

Please, any ideas?? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Xenlab

No trouble on Safari (Mac X browser) on dial up.

I hope that not too many of you folk are tearing their hair out
at the fact that this impossible dog's breakfast markup results
in a look that is nicer than the majority of better coded sites...

Is that the sound of suppressed gnashing of teeth...

 

[Jim Moe]

I hope that not too many of you folk are tearing their hair out
at the fact that this impossible dog's breakfast markup results
in a look that is nicer than the majority of better coded sites...

No one has ever said (well, maybe someone has) that beautiful, useful
websites cannot be done with tables. Obviously there are many that succeed
wonderfully.
Table-based layouts tend to be rigid, and hard to maintain. The code
usually ends up looking like an "impossible dog's breakfast." (Personal
experience.)
And so on.
When web designer's are finally re-trained to better use HTML and CSS as
intended, we'll start seeing sites that are at least as good as those
created with legacy coding.

 

[dorayme]

No one has ever said (well, maybe someone has) that beautiful, useful
websites cannot be done with tables. Obviously there are many that succeed
wonderfully.

No disagreement here.

When web designer's are finally re-trained to better use HTML and CSS as
intended, we'll start seeing sites that are at least as good as those
created with legacy coding.

Maybe. I hope so. The best eyes have come from the print/paper
industry. Tables, because of their power to mimic via their
splicing abilities, are naturally more congenial to such folk.
Yes, (so the attitude might go) bugger bandwidth, bugger
fluidity, bugger maintenance, bugger those silly little PDAs and
sorry to folks with visual impairments, but my, what counts is
how it looks on a 17" colour screen at 1024 x 768 in millions of
colours...

But things are changing and good eyes belong also to folk coming
thru the ranks as webdesigners from the bottom up...

Perhaps the image of a giant smoking steamroller running over
alt.html is a little overwrought... but, just look out there!

 

[Mark Parnell]

Deciding to do something for the good of humanity, Jim Moe

When web designer's are finally re-trained to better use HTML and CSS as
intended, we'll start seeing sites that are at least as good as those
created with legacy coding.

No doubt you (plural, not just Jim) are aware of
http://csszengarden.com/ - the code is overly convoluted due to the
nature of the site, but still an interesting example of what CSS is
capable of.

 

[dorayme]

No doubt you (plural, not just Jim) are aware of
http://csszengarden.com/ - the code is overly convoluted due to the
nature of the site, but still an interesting example of what CSS is
capable of.

No doubt at all....

Listen, Mark, nothing can illustrate better the cheeky and
dangerous raw talent of those upstarts, the no-good, low-down,
tricky Safricans, than the other day... I hardly need to remind
you anymore...

 

[Mark Parnell]

Deciding to do something for the good of humanity, dorayme

Listen, Mark, nothing can illustrate better the cheeky and
dangerous raw talent of those upstarts, the no-good, low-down,
tricky Safricans, than the other day... I hardly need to remind
you anymore...

SHHHHHHHH!

 

[Andy Dingley]

what counts is
how it looks on a 17" colour screen at 1024 x 768 in millions of
colours...

Not much looks worse than one of those sites.

5 years on, now that I'm running at 1600x1200 and the original site
cowers in a corner and refuses to get any bigger.

 

[dorayme]

Not much looks worse than one of those sites.

5 years on, now that I'm running at 1600x1200 and the original site
cowers in a corner and refuses to get any bigger.

it looks bad the way you quote me (without context)... I know I
have no reputation to uphold but still...



[me too, a 1600 x 1200... plus really much more as I run more
than one screen (all "as one" rather than mirrored). ... as it
happens I have one 17" at 1024 x 1200 in the line up and it is
quite a reasonable thing to use for web pages. It is a more
"accurate" experience than looking at a site in a corner of a big
monitor. Or should I say, an easier one, not requiring a suitable
change in text size to reflect liklihoods...]

 

[JDS]

With the exception that the majority of your
hopeful customers won't be using konqueror, it would in my mind be a
critical issue.

Except that Konqueror provides a very good representation of how a web
page looks in Safari on Mac OSX. So saying "Konqueror", one is basically
also saying "Mac users" (well, a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the
idea).