Working in FF, ruined in IE - after CSS page layout change

L

lessani

Hi,

I rebuilt the entire core of my site using CSS and using no tables
(although some content pages have tables). All my site is driven
through index.php - which is table free, then the content appears using
various includes on the page.

I finished the site, and was quite impressed when I viewed it back - in
FireFox, but then when I viewed it in Internet Explorer, there is big
strange gaps on odd pages.

Here is the URL,

http://www.gamesoc.net

An example user login,

Username: testguy
Password: testguy

Please take a look at this site and give me any reccomendations (short
of telling me to get rid of tables). Some of the pages use so many
incredibly complex tables, that I just couldn't possibly get round it -
without spending weeks changing files.

I just can't understand why a big gap is forming in the middle of the
page.

Regards,
Ben Lessani
 
B

ben

i know the page has faults, the original index.php is 100% error free.
but when it uses the includes (with the pages with tables) it has
errors. like i said earlier, these pages with tables are dynamic, they
are performing loops, calls from mysql etc. i cant change the code for
those pages, it would take me a lifetime.

plus, before i changed my index.php to use CSS, it displayed correctly,
even with all those errors. but when i put the include, inside a DIV
tag, any page that has a table on it displays badly.
 
D

David Dorward

ben said:
i know the page has faults, the original index.php is 100% error free.
but when it uses the includes (with the pages with tables) it has
errors. like i said earlier, these pages with tables are dynamic, they
are performing loops, calls from mysql etc. i cant change the code for
those pages, it would take me a lifetime.

This is the joy of dealing with badly written code. I suggest you learn to
love refactoring.

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/05/05/why_we_wont_help_you

.... and please learn to quote properly:
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html (section 3)
 
B

ben

lol, interesting. nonetheless, i dont have the time to validate code,
which is techinically correct (regardless of the flaws). IT does render
correctly when not inside DIV tags, i just want to know what a possible
fix could be.

thanks anyways
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in alt.html said:
lol, interesting.

What is? Please quote the relevant parts of the message you are replying
to. I realise Google Groups does not make this particularly easy, but
laziness is no excuse.
nonetheless, i dont have the time to validate code,

No offence, but if you don't have time to make sure you are doing your
job properly, don't expect others to spend their time trying to
troubleshoot the results.
which is techinically correct

Obviously not if it doesn't validate. Or perhaps this is some strange
meaning of the term "technically correct" that I wasn't previously aware
of.
(regardless of the flaws).

Contradicting yourself doesn't help your argument.
IT does render correctly when not inside DIV tags,

A mere coincidence. If your code is not valid, then the fact that a
browser happens to correctly guess what you intended is pure luck.
i just want to know what a possible
fix could be.

And the first step in that solution is to validate the code.
 
B

ben

omg, what is your issue. i was asking for some help, christ. so, in
response to your comments (just to be polite)
What is? Please quote the relevant parts of the message you are replying
to. I realise Google Groups does not make this particularly easy, but
laziness is no excuse.

that website was interesting, as it outlined exactly how i behaved,
thats why it made me laugh
No offence, but if you don't have time to make sure you are doing your
job properly, don't expect others to spend their time trying to
troubleshoot the results.

do you honestly expect anyone to change a 700 line document using
tables for layout, to CSS just to find 1 error ! it is a little much,
don't you think? others dont have to troubleshoot, they may have
experienced the same problem and found a sensible/easier resolution.
Obviously not if it doesn't validate. Or perhaps this is some strange
meaning of the term "technically correct" that I wasn't previously aware
of.

that particular validator is preparing documents to be xhtml ready,
with closing tags for all tags - which isnt the way most sites are
completed. <br \> instead of <br>. by technically correct, yes, it
rendered correctly, so surely the code was correct in essence. its
purpose is to display the page in a certain way, and it does, whether
the means of doing so are perfect are a different matter.
Contradicting yourself doesn't help your argument.

i wasnt arguing, i admitted there was flaws with my code !
A mere coincidence. If your code is not valid, then the fact that a
browser happens to correctly guess what you intended is pure luck.

coincidence my ass, show me one website that is 100% flawless (using
the w3c validator).
And the first step in that solution is to validate the code.

grr.



look, to be honest, i listened to what you had to say, and i thanked
you for it. you didn't really help with my original post by starting
flaming. the idea is to assist, if you obviously dont understand and
cannot help, then don't post a response. if what you are going to say
isnt helpful, then dont say it (i say this in reference to the post i
quoted on).

so, THANK YOU, but you clearly are not providing any assistance.

anyway, i fixed the code by putting all the includes inside a one cell
table, such as this

<div>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<? include("blah"); ?>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>

i know its messy, and ive ended up with tables again, but until i can
recify it properly, it will do the job.

ben

ps. Internet explorer doesnt conform to standards anyway. so if a page
was validated 100% it still wont strictly display in IE as it would in
another conforming browser
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in alt.html said:
do you honestly expect anyone to change a 700 line document using
tables for layout, to CSS just to find 1 error !

Why not? Besides, you said it was dynamically generated from MySQL
anyway, so it would only mean changing the script, not every line of the
resulting HTML. It really *shouldn't* be that hard. Obviously I don't
have access to your scripts, so it's hard to say. But in theory it
shouldn't take that much effort.
that particular validator is preparing documents to be xhtml ready,
with closing tags for all tags

Only if you claim to be using XHTML by putting an XHTML doctype on your
page. You can't blame the validator for doing what you ask it to.
which isnt the way most sites are
completed. <br \> instead of <br>.

Your site is a mix of HTML (e.g. <br>) and XHTML (e.g. <link ... /> and
by technically correct, yes, it
rendered correctly, so surely the code was correct in essence.

Not necessarily. Browsers will make an attempt to render any code. But
as I said before, if the code is not right in the first place, it is a
matter of pure luck as to whether the browsers manages to come up with
the same result as you are intending/expecting. And different browsers
will likely interpret it differently.
show me one website that is 100% flawless (using
the w3c validator).

The one in my .sig. And that of most of the other regulars here. And all
those listed on http://www.w3csites.com/. Plenty of others.
look, to be honest, i listened to what you had to say, and i thanked
you for it.

I think you're confusing me with David, who replied to your first couple
of posts.
you didn't really help with my original post by starting
flaming.

It wasn't a flame.
the idea is to assist,

Generally, that's why I'm here. But that's not why Usenet exists. Usenet
is for discussion. If your question happens to get answered along the
way, good for you. But that is incidental to the discussion.
if you obviously dont understand and

Which I do.
cannot help, then don't post a response.

I will post responses to whatever I like, thank you.
if what you are going to say
isnt helpful, then dont say it (i say this in reference to the post i
quoted on).

Again, I will post whatever I like. If you don't like it, add me to your
killfile if you want (but you're using Google Groups, so you don't have
a killfile - never mind).

Anyway, my post was intended to help. If you didn't take it that way,
that's your problem, not mine.
so, THANK YOU, but you clearly are not providing any assistance.

You are not accepting my assistance. That's different, and your loss.
ps. Internet explorer doesnt conform to standards anyway.

No browser does.
so if a page
was validated 100% it still wont strictly display in IE as it would in
another conforming browser

Even IE is pretty good when it comes to straight HTML. CSS is less well
supported, but IME it's much easier to code a valid page, then add
workarounds for browsers that don't display it correctly; than throw
together any random code, and just hope that it displays the way you
want it to. In the latter case, if it doesn't display as expected, you
have no way of knowing whether it's your code that's the problem, or a
browser bug. At least if your code is valid in the first place, you know
that it isn't your code that's the problem, which makes troubleshooting
and working around the problem much easier.
 
?

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=E9rard_Talbot?=

ben wrote :
omg, what is your issue. i was asking for some help, christ. so, in
response to your comments (just to be polite)

[snipped]

Several people read your post requesting assistance. And the very first
thing we most likely all did was to check your webpage markup validity.
And like others have told you, the very first thing to fix when dealing
with layout or a problem in a page is to fix markup errors.

do you honestly expect anyone to change a 700 line document using
tables for layout, to CSS just to find 1 error !

Yes and there are documents, tutorials on helping you converting to CSS.
The validator reports 150+ markup errors in your page.

it is a little much,
don't you think? others dont have to troubleshoot, they may have
experienced the same problem and found a sensible/easier resolution.

You do not understand how important the process of fixing markup errors
is. An invalid webpage may look perfectly ok to you in your specific
browser but it may look/render differently and may work differently for
your visitors.
that particular validator is preparing documents to be xhtml ready,
with closing tags for all tags - which isnt the way most sites are
completed. <br \> instead of <br>. by technically correct, yes, it
rendered correctly, so surely the code was correct in essence.

We may never know ... until you fix those errors.

its
purpose is to display the page in a certain way, and it does, whether
the means of doing so are perfect are a different matter.

You do not understand ...
i wasnt arguing, i admitted there was flaws with my code !




coincidence my ass, show me one website that is 100% flawless (using
the w3c validator).

Well, my site. David's site: 41 pages checked 100% flawless. Mark's site
is certainly fine too: 12 markup errors out of 47 pages.
grr.



look, to be honest, i listened to what you had to say, and i thanked
you for it. you didn't really help with my original post by starting
flaming. the idea is to assist, if you obviously dont understand and
cannot help, then don't post a response.

[snipped]

The very first way to help you is to tell you to remove the validation
errors, the markup errors. There is nothing, absolutely nothing better
to do when dealing with layout issues.

ps. Internet explorer doesnt conform to standards anyway. so if a page
was validated 100% it still wont strictly display in IE as it would in
another conforming browser


In standards compliant rendering mode, MSIE 6 rendering complies much
better with web standards: the CSS1 box model is correctly implemented
in standards compliant rendering mode. IE 7 will fix many more bugs:
already we know that all CSS 1 and many CSS 2.1 bugs (> 24 bugs) have
already been fixed for IE 7 beta 2.

"In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit
as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the
standards as well."
C. Wilson, July 29th 2005
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/07/29/445242.aspx

Gérard
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in alt.html said:
Mark's site
is certainly fine too: 12 markup errors out of 47 pages.

Really? I mustn't have checked it for a while. Will have to go fix
those...
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in alt.html said:
Mark's site
is certainly fine too: 12 markup errors out of 47 pages.

Not any more. :)

The only 2 pages that generate errors now are examples of printouts
produced by our programs - which I have no control over unfortunately.
 
T

Toby Inkster

ben said:
do you honestly expect anyone to change a 700 line document using
tables for layout, to CSS just to find 1 error !

Do you honestly expect *us* to wade through a 700 line document using
tables for layout, riddled with over a hundred errors, just to find the
one error you're concerned about?
that particular validator is preparing documents to be xhtml ready,

The W3C validator is perfactly happy to validate HTML (non-XHTML)
documents. See:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://tobyinkster.co.uk/
coincidence my ass, show me one website that is 100% flawless (using
the w3c validator).
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://tobyinkster.co.uk/
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://hardcandy.org/
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://message-id.net/

the idea is to assist, if you obviously dont understand and
cannot help, then don't post a response.

So you've just arrived at this group, and you're telling everyone who's
been here for ages what "the idea" of this group is?

The idea of this group is to discuss HTML. If this discussion turns out to
be of assistance to you, then that's good. If it doesn't, then it's still
good.

If you want guaranteed assistance, then hire an assistant.
ps. Internet explorer doesnt conform to standards anyway. so if a page
was validated 100% it still wont strictly display in IE as it would in
another conforming browser

Not true. You *can* have your cake and eat it. It is not difficult to
build a page that displays well in Internet Explorer and still validates.

Here is my contribution to that effort: http://hardcandy.org/

It displays nicely in Internet Explorer 4+, Mozilla 1+, Firebird 0.6+,
Konqueror 3+, Opera 3.6+, Netscape 6.2+, Safari 1+ and probably other
browsers too. It uses standards-compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.0. As
a bonus, it also complies with all the priority one WAI Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines.
 
N

Neredbojias

With neither quill nor qualm, ben quothed:
omg, what is your issue. i was asking for some help, christ. so, in
response to your comments (just to be polite)

As a web page maker, valid markup is your most important product.

If some page is too hard to fix (-although I used to fix >1000 liner's
regularly), re-make it.

No flame intended here, but there is no such thing as "It works just as
good" in htmldom.
 
E

Els

Mark said:
Heh - beat you to that one by 4 1/2 hours. ;-)

Where, when?!
Oh, wait. Here, 4 1/2 hours ago.
/sorts messages by date/time...
/filters Parnell...

So you did!
<g>
 
R

Rincewind

do you honestly expect anyone to change a 700 line document using
tables for layout, to CSS just to find 1 error !

No but for 151 of them I would.

One of the benefits of using includes in php is to negate the need to
change 100's of pages when one item of code needs changing, the same with
CSS external sheets.
 

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