newbie very frustrated with simple CSS

#1

http://messiah.scojul.homedns.org

Two problems:
1) UL does not display below header DIV in FF, looks OK in IE6
2) UL list items will not center in FF or IE.

I had a hard enough time getting the stupid gif and text to display on the
same line, and now this...I'm going to go nuts... It shouldn't be this hard,
should it?

Grrrrrr...

Thanks.

#2

"Slick50" <spam (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

http://messiah.scojul.homedns.org

Two problems:
1) UL does not display below header DIV in FF, looks OK in IE6
2) UL list items will not center in FF or IE.

I had a hard enough time getting the stupid gif and text to display on the
same line, and now this...I'm going to go nuts... It shouldn't be this
hard,
should it?

Grrrrrr...

Thanks.

Inheritence can cause some trouble if you don't account for it at the very
beginning ..
You should set base properties for the parent object, which would be <body>
here, and overide those as necessary.
Ie;
<style type="text/css">
body {
width:100%;
height:100%;
font-family:Georgia, Arial, sans-serif;
font-size:1em; /*best to size fonts in either em or px*/
background:#FFF;
color:#000;
}
#header {
background:#333;
}
</style

It's also worth asking for help for a particular problem as it arrises. If
you don't, you may end up fixing (apparently) it by trial and error, and
that is almost always a bad thing IMHO. Reason being that you then don't
know why it works, nor why it didn't. Not to mention the fact that it may
well break in another browser, or environment. You need also to account for
some irregular behaviour in non standards complient browsers. Need, is the
keyword here, as there are more of them than there are not.
Unfortunately, some would say, web pages are no longer the extremely simple
things they used to be back in the early days. You now "need" some
technical understanding of the hows, and certainly the whys. How much
understanding depends on the level of expertise you wish to attain.
HTH
Vince Morgan

#3

"Slick50" <spam (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

I actually think I resolved both my problems by using the CSS Validator and
another post. From the post, I tried clear: both, which put the UL (the
horizontal text) below the header - just as I wanted. The CSS Validator
indicated an invalid value for text-align (I was using "middle" instead of
"center". So both of those problems have been fixed.

However...

I seem to have introduced another problem. The header background color
won't display in FF. ????

I don't know how anyone can get good at this. I've spent three weeks
trying to get this stupid simple header to display properly and am getting
absolutely nowhere...

It's worth perservering with. It's great fun once you get the hang of it,
though it will be frustrating for a while longer yet. It's probably worth
finding a site that you think looks nice and then interpret their CSS.

As for your site, I can't see any background properties for any of your
divs. Also, there is no font called Veranda. ;-) and I think you need
commas between your fonts.

Good luck

+e

#4

First, let me start by thanking you for your responses and constructive
criticism.

Second, I am an idiot. The code I was working on was not uploaded to my
webserver. I've fixed that dumb problem.

Though as John stated it is not my biggest problem at this point, I will
carefully consider the comments regarding Comic Sans MS. The look and feel
fits into the way I want my site to appear, I will search for alternatives.
To be honest, I simply looked at the font styles in my Control Panel as I
haven't found a resource for font styles yet (admittedly, I haven't searched
much yet either).

Regarding Electric's post, I have heard that comment several times and it
does make sense in general. However I've tried that several times and get
lost in the details. I have a hard time finding a site (and believe me after
three weeks, I've done plenty of looking) that addresses content layout
AFTER the basic layout is in place. That is the key for me. I think
understand how to layout the pages, but I'm struggling with element
alignment within a basic layout. I certainly would welcome your suggestions
for other resources.

Regarding Vince - I would be very intested in your comments now that I have
the right code available. Is inheritance preventing the background color
from displaying? And I understand exactly what you are getting at by your
final comments. I initially considered taking this one step at a time as you
suggest, however I thought I could at least get close before asking a
question. Turns out I was horribly wrong, and that I find myself in the
trial-and-error situation you describe. I do feel though now that I am
starting to make a little progress. This was my first post after getting to
that point. Great comments, thanks.

Finally BTS (what a great handle), your comments are also well received.
Thanks for your input too.

#5

In article <7n4554-oen.ln1 (AT) ophelia (DOT) g5n.co.uk>,
Toby Inkster <usenet200611 (AT) tobyinkster (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Quote:

John Hosking wrote:

font-family: "Comic Sans MS" "Veranda" sans-serif;

1) font alternatives are supposed to be comma-separated; and
2) By "Veranda", do you mean "Verdana"?
3) The use of Verdana isn't always your best choice, but for now, it's
not your biggest problem. (But pay attention over time to discussions
about font choices, so you can decide for yourself).

4) "Comic Sans MS" is one of the most horrible fonts on the planet.
5) The two specified fonts look absolutely nothing like each other, so
using one as a fall back for the other doesn't really make sense.

Not my favourite font either but it was a dear wish of a client
for her organization's site (to match their publications) so I
went into battle and won great swathes of territory with stuff
like that it is harder to read in general on a screen, it takes
up too much line height, I forget if i mentioned it looks too
cute, no, I think I piked out on that one. But the arguments
hardly counted for headings. So it was agreed that main headings
only should be CS. And this looked a tiny odd so I threw in all
<h2>s as well.

I used a fallback of Arial to make this sense: if a user had no
CS, the headings would head in a direction I wanted. But that I
should be so lucky, everyone seems to have CS. Does not seem to
me too horrible in small doses anyway...

--
dorayme

#6

In article <JfMfh.7402$Ka1.1231 (AT) news01 (DOT) roc.ny>,
"Slick50" <spam (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

I had a hard enough time getting the stupid gif and text to display on the
same line, and now this...I'm going to go nuts... It shouldn't be this hard,
should it?

In the early days of many technologies, things are hard. In about
50 years (maybe sooner) there will be a dramatic improvement.

--
dorayme

#7

"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.nony.mous (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote

Quote:

Vince Morgan wrote:

font-size:1em; /*best to size fonts in either em or px*/

Best to size fonts in either em or percent. 100%, actually.

Using em causes problems with Internet Explorer which has a terrible
'resizing' bug, whereas if the visitor changes from, say, Smaller to
Medium, the size will double!

http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

My bad. I don't know where my head was when I wrote that..
And thank you for the info on IE bug, I wasn't aware of that one at all.
Vince Morgan

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newbie very frustrated with simple CSS - 12-13-2006 , 12:32 AM

Re: newbie very frustrated with simple CSS - 12-13-2006 , 04:14 AM

Re: newbie very frustrated with simple CSS - 12-13-2006 , 04:21 AM

Re: newbie very frustrated with simple CSS - 12-13-2006 , 01:45 PM

Re: newbie very frustrated with simple CSS - 12-13-2006 , 03:52 PM

Re: newbie very frustrated with simple CSS - 12-13-2006 , 03:58 PM

Re: newbie very frustrated with simple CSS - 12-13-2006 , 05:40 PM